Sans Fig Leaf
w
"Offending"
10 January, 2008
Years ago, when the office
I worked in was much smaller, several of us had a habit of wearing
buttons with cute or humorous statements on them. They ranged from the
tried and true like, "Some days the dragon slays you." Other times they
would drift into political or social statements.
One of mine said, "Please
don't feed or tease the straight people." A number of my co-workers
thought it was hilarious.
Then one day the Office
Manager asked to talk to me. She said that someone had been offended by
the button, although the way they had described it was, "That button
that says straight people should be locked in cages." Before I could
say anything, the manager hastened to say they she felt it was a case
of personal expression, and suggested that if instead of wearing it on
my chest, that I put it up on the bulletin board in my cubicle. "Then
it's purely a matter of expressing your opinion in your work space,
which I think you should be able to do."
I didn't see it that way.
I had interpreted the button metaphorically. I 'd been in a number of
situations where I'd felt the straight world looked at gay and bi
people as sideshow freaks. The button was an inversion of that idea:
you
don't treat me like an exhibit in a zoo or sideshow, and I won't treat
you that way, either. I hadn't thought of literal cages, but I could
see how someone might infer it.
And once I knew that the
button hurt someone's feelings, I didn't want to express that opinion
in that manner in the work place. Just as I wouldn't want a co-worker
to talk about gay people burning in hades.
Once when telling this story, an acquaintance asserted that I was being a tool of my own oppression. "Of course people are upset when confronted with their own bigotry! You can't end prejudice by meekly letting them kick you out of sight."
Which may be true, but
wasn't really applicable. Ending prejudice means first persuading
people to see things from another person's point of view. You can't
persuade people by attacking them or insulting them. For at least that
one person, the button was not conveying the meaning I had in mind.
I realized that probably
very few people were seeing the button even remotely the way I did. The
joke I was meaning was just too convoluted. And if I really disliked
being treated like a sideshow freak because of my sexual orientation,
even joking about doing it to other people because of their orientation
just made me the kind of jerk I dispised. The cliche says turnabout is
fair play, but it's a very cruel form of fair play.
It may be satisfying to imagine doing it to specific people who have wronged us, but innocent people would almost certainly suffer as well.
So I stopped wearing the
button.
I didn't stop being
me--and since this whole thing happened back during my giant flashy
earring phase (among other things), I was definitely not hiding in a
closet. I found better ways to communicate my commitment to equal
rights and tolerance.
The actual bigots are
deeply offended by my very existence. Every day that I live a happy,
healthy, productive, and open life is a thorn in their side. All the
other people out there whose lives, loves, and beliefs deviate from the
accepted norm--who are all happily going about their lives--must drive
the bigots completely bonkers.
That kind of offense, I
can get behind.
--Sam Brown
.