COP3: Boy, It's Still Something

I think this day and age you'd be forgiven for thinking talking LGBT people being visible is not radical anymore or that LGBT issues is over, especially in the western world. You hear these sentiments a lot, especially things like "You can get married now, what's the big deal!" and other things that imply that being LGBT isn't a problem anymore.

However with the election of (Klansman) Donald Trump and his anti-LGBT policies, his vice president will be Pence, a man who believes the american state should fund electroshock "therapy" (usually physical and psychological torture which ends in most candidates committing suicide) to "cure" LGBT people.

Even taking that massive sign aside, LGBT teens still get kicked out and become homeless, adoption still favours straight couples, people still remain closeted, TV and media does not accurately represent us and still uses harmful tropes, alcoholism and drug use are a mass community problem, LGBT hate crimes still happen, trans issues are no where near resolved and I still feel nervous telling people my sexuality and feel anxiety holding my girlfriend's hand in public. And this is only in the UK. We live in a more "progressive" country (even though many of our own government officials still carry homophobic views)  and there are so many places around the world where people still fear death for being discovered.

Throughout this project and in past context of practice modules I've never wanted to be "that person" who speaks too loudly about LGBT issues, that person who is AGAIN annoyingly talking about LGBT stuff (especially to LGBT classmates who arent really deep into looking at queer theory and never want to be,) It makes me self conscious when talking about my project, but really by doing this project and about heteronormativity I've realised that being self conscious about my project is a product of heteronormativity itself. Our heteronormative society deems my sexuality and my subject tabo/abnormal, and thus I feel I should be modest and half hide it.

Knowing that doesn't make it easier, but it is very interesting to think about.

Alison Bechdel commented that when she got out of college, she was disappointed that she'd missed the big LGBT social movements, and that there was nothing left to do, yet looking back at the time she lived in, there was still so much left to do, and eventually she found her form of activism and her place, making comics about the inner lives of lesbian women as a way of getting people to love and accept them "If they saw us, how could they help but love us!"

There is still a long long way to go, but LGBT have always created art despite the world climate, perhaps now is a good time to be obnoxious and make LGBT work and maybe some day people will look back at us and our work and realise we really did still have a lot to do and see what we did to try change that.