It’s Texas, not America. It’s Scots, not the English. It’s a Black girl, not us Whites. It’s the Arab world, not our civilization.

2012-02-03T08:56:00.000-08:00

Beaten and burned, a gay man was found dead in Cumnock, Scotland, possibly for being gay, although the attacker’s motive has yet to be investigated. I have seen some online responses to this incident describing how it was shocking. This reminds me of the biased view, historically held by many English people, that Scots are brutal, savage monsters.

Earlier this year, a transgender woman was attacked and had seizure, with bystanders just watching her hit and dragged on the floor. It was a very brutal attack and it was painful to watch the video footage. It also made me go, “oh shit,” when I discovered that the suspects were Black female teenagers and that the first person to offer the victim any help was a middle-aged White woman. I wrote a short response here.

“IMMIGRANTS ≠ YOUR HOMOPHOBIC OTHER” – that was my sign at the Pride Parade this year. I am not an immigrant, nor are my parents. I was born in Japan. But I think I share some of the experiences that Asian queers face in the U.S. like, being frequently asked whether my parents know my sexuality/identity. I say yes, and they go on and ask, “are they cool with it?” Another version is this: “it must be so hard to be queer in Japan.” There you go. Bang. Slap in the face. I get hurt. Anyways.

I am constantly appalled at how White, self-identified liberals can ignorantly assume that everyone else is lagging behind them in accepting freedom.

In Germany, as Butler says here, there has been some sort of collaborative effort between White-centric queer organizations and the government to harshen the immigration policy to narrow the path for immigrants to live in the country. The idea behind the campaign is that immigrants are homophobic and transphobic, incapable of accepting the values of the West.

I, too, first-handedly have heard people say that Black people are homophobic, that some people are too poor to think of others, or that I won’t like it in Texas if I move there. They fail to see that I myself come from a small town in Japan, grew up surrounded by poor people, and am racial minority in the U.S. I feel more comfortable around people like that than White “liberals” like them.

Nevertheless, until recently I held the view that the Middle Eastern culture was monolithically homophobic and transphobic. I have come to know the simple fact that the Middle East is just too big to make any generalizing statement about. Laws vary. People vary. Values vary. Knowing virtually nothing about the region, I have decided that I should be the listener, not the speaker, trying to learn, rather than tell, how things are in the Middle East. All I know, and thus all I can say about the Middle East, is that things are more complicated than many people in the Western world like to think, and that the Middle East is diverse. Some people still struggle with grappling that simple fact.

Hate crime is not the only indicator of homophobia and transphobia, but queers get killed everywhere. Not just the guy in Cumnock and the trans woman in Baltimore and gays in the Middle East (“except Israel!” say morons). It’s high time that we acknowledged that fact. Queers are killed just everywhere. Through physical violence. Through suicide-provoking bullying. Through governmental neglect. ^*1

It’s time we stopped outsourcing homophobia and transphobia to Middle Eastern people, to Blacks, to immigrants, to working-class people. “Outsourcing” because all cisgendered, heterosexual individuals ultimately benefit from transphobia and homophobia through the privileges that they produce.

This outsourcing is harmful in many ways. It divides up racial minority communities because it places queers of color in an odd place between White “liberals” and “anti-queer” people of color. It puts working-class queers against their own cultures, families, and friends. It encourages White “liberal” queer activists to play the missionary role in helping the more oppressed out. It discourages people of color from joining queer activism. It allows Whites——or more precisely, those who are politically, socially, and culturally privileged (which consist mostly of Whites anyway)——to feel innocent, despite the fact that they are accomplices when they keep silent about injustice, get “shocked” at injustice, and feel sorry for the oppressed——who are oppressed by someone else other than themselves.

If anything bad happens in the Middle East, the privileged say it’s because the Middle East is lagging behind the West. If anything bad happens in the West, they say it’s not their problem but someone else’s, outsourcing to Blacks, immigrants, etc. the dirty work necessary to keep their society heteronormative and cis-centered and thus advantageous to all privileged people including them.

We must stop this. We must acknowledge that not only the violent attacker but we ourselves are all responsible for what happens to queers and those otherwise oppressed and harmed.

I am not addressing this to just the highly privileged. I am also addressing this to, say, gay men chuckling about how straight men are misogynous, lesbian women laughing about how gay men identify against drag queens and other effeminate types, leftists criticizing the “social structure” that oppresses queers without reflecting on their own homophobia and transphobia, and queer elites looking down on LGBT activists to whom identity politics is still the most relevant dogma.

*1 – Queers also get killed in other ways. Through taxes. Through unemployment. Through criminalization of sex work. Through sexual violence. Through hate crime based on race. Through insufficient government support for people with disabilities. And on and on.

Make room for me only when I ask you to do so

2011-11-14T03:33:00.001-08:00

My mom and I had just gotten on the train when I spotted a space on the bench seat only big enough for my mother to sit in. I said, "go on and sit down," to my mother. She sat and the three people on the seat moved along a bit (you know what people do when they want to pretend to be considerate). I smiled at them and said, "don't worry."

With the three persons sitting still a bit apart from each other, my mother was convinced that they could make room for me, too, so she said, "you can sit, too," patting on the space to her right. And I said, "I'm fine," because the space still looked a bit small (I have a big body) and a 30-minute ride, standing, would not be much better than one with sitting in that little space. But my mom said, "but room has been made for you. Come on and sit." And the three persons moved even a bit farther to make more room for me, while not looking at me or my mother. I thought that was a bit offensive.

I really didn't want to sit. But I didn't want to embarrass the persons who had made room for me, either. So I quickly decided to act evil, so that it would be clear to everyone that the awkwardness was my responsibility, not their well-intentioned mistake. So I said, jokingly, "no, mom. I would have to curl up a bit and keep my arms in front in that small space if I sat. Really, don't worry."

Immediately, one of the persons on the seat stood up and left, without a word (not to mention any smile), into another car. Then the rest of the people on the seat immediately moved along toward the now empty area, and now, the space I was being offered was twice as big as a regular seat. I was embarrassed. And apparently, my mom was embarrassed, too. She looked like she was almost starting to cry. She looked at me and whispered, saying, "please sit down." I was very pissed off. I looked at her face and, without saying anything, frowned, trying to show her how much I didn't appreciate her trying to make me do this——sit down in that now very spacious space that was not, and had never been, necessary. She looked down, burying her face into my coat she was carrying.

Less than a minute later, she looked up. I was starting to feel bad for her, although I was still angry. I asked her, "do you want me to sit down?" And she said, "yes." So I sat.

By the time we arrived at our station, everyone else on the seat had gotten off the train. I was still pissed. We left the station, bought some food at a store near it, and came home.

I still don't know how to put my anger into words. I don't even know if what I did was wrong. I had never felt that embarrassed.

Gimme A Queer Eye If You Have Two

It’s Texas, not America. It’s Scots, not the English. It’s a Black girl, not us Whites. It’s the Arab world, not our civilization.

Make room for me only when I ask you to do so