This is the speech I gave at the San Diego Pride Spirit of Stonewall Rally.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Half A Glass<\/p>\n
Imagine in my hands I hold a gllass with a capacity of 16 ounces and it is currently holding 8 ounces. Let\u2019s think about this gllass as my blindness.<\/p>\n
Some people tell me I\u2019m amazing for taking the bus, baking cookies or living by myself. The most mundane tasks become praiseworthy because a person with a disability did them. These people would say my imaginary glass is half full..<\/p>\n
Then there are people who feel sorry for me. They say things like, \u201cIt mmust be so hard being blind\u201d or \u201cYour life would be so much better if you could see.\u201d For them, this glass is half empty,<\/p>\n
My question is this: Why can\u2019t it just be half a glass? Disability is a fact, but society loads it with a lot of meaning and insists on foisting that meaning off on the person with the disability. Believe it or not, when I tell people it\u2019s not amazing that a blind person can bake, that it\u2019s just a skill, they argue with me. Argue.Heatedly.<\/p>\n
Now let\u2019s think of this imaginary glass as my bisexuality. We are going to pretend I\u2019m that mythical creature \u2013 someone equally attracted to more than one gender for my entire life. Some would describe me as half straight. Others would describe me as half gay. My question is this: Why can\u2019t I just be a glass of water? A person attracted to more than one gender?<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, people tend to think of us in terms of partly gay and partly straight, as if we can divide ourselves into sections. Nowhere is this more obvious than in LGBT-serving organizations, where we can acknowledge our same gender attractions, but must find somewhere else to express our different gender attractions.<\/p>\n
Guess how well that is working for bisexual people? We are the largest segment of the LGBT community, but the smallest group served by LGBT organizations. Our isolation and alienation have led to some disturbing trentds. Commpared to lesbian and gay people, we have higher rates of suicide, depression, intimate partner violence, poverty, poor helath\u2026 The list goes on.<\/p>\n
So, back to this glass of mine, this glass of identity. In the trans community\u2019s fight to use the bathroom in which they feel safest, we are demanding that trans people are allowed to define their own glass\u2013 their own identity. We must extend that same courtesy to people with disabilities, who get to decide for themselves if their disability is good, bad, or neutral. We must allow bisexual people to define their sexual orientation however they wish, not insist they express it in terms of heterosexuality and homosexuality. And we must stop forcing our own definitions onto others and when people\u00a0tell us who they are, we believe them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is the speech I gave at the San Diego Pride Spirit of Stonewall Rally. Half A Glass Imagine in my hands I hold a gllass with a capacity of 16 ounces and it is currently holding 8 ounces. … Continue reading