So I think Queens should leave their pearls at home if they decide to grace the world of work with their presence.
There, I said it.

Now before you send the glitterati to assasinate me hear me out for a moment.
I have a serious problem with people that allow their melodramatic interpretation of a personality to supersede their competence to work. I resent the vulgar "look at me" personalities many of us adopt in public which as irony would have it, in my mind, is a means of compensating for an inferiority complex.
Sorta like this....

Bish we know you can sing! Why does your crotch need to light up to prove it?
What does this have to do with anything, you ask?
Well, as my argumentative nature typically dictates, I like to fuck around people to illicit responses from which we can engage in debates and learn from each other. So naturally my interest was piqued when I was informed by a young LGBT activist (a lot seem to be sashaying out from the wood work as of late) of an incident said to have taken place in that enclave of seventh day adventists on the southern plateau.
It is said that a male teacher has been black-listed by one of the town's influential secondary level high school principals who has gone as far as to campaign for his continued exclusion on the grounds that he is "flamboyant and cares less about how his flamboyance affects his students".
Now, having lived in this town, and spent a great deal of time there in my childhood I've come to understand the mindset of these simple, conservative Christians in the hills. Further, having been an identifiably gay business owner in that town I can reasonably conclude that for such an extreme and public stance to be taken about an issue that is seen but not seen, and taboo for discussion,the issue was not merely the perceived gayness of the teacher, but moreso the spectacle he makes of himself much to the despair of administrators, parents, and students.
Occasionally I like to pretend I am a psychologist (or an Obeah man, depending on how much white rum I've imbibed) and in that state of heightened intuition this is how I imagine he sees himself in the mirror

while the rest of the world sees this
Now I will defend anyone's right to be as flamboyant as their hormones tell them to be. However, I think it's better to be a working identifiably gay man (albeit restrained) than an unemployed drag queen. Lace front wigs aint cheap, sista man!
Many have already labelled me a hypocrite because they say I am unable to empathize with those that simply cannot contain their effervescent femininity.
They are like an aerosol can of glitter and sprinkles and I am like a big can of blah.

I'll take that. Maybe I am in fact just a prude trying to impose my conservative values on those with innate fabulosity of whom I am intensely jealous.....but at least I have a job.
And this has nothing to do with those that are gender non-specific, this is not transphobia. This has to do with the refusal of many members of the post-stonewall generation of gays to adjust their concepts of self in order to survive in a world that is not yet all-embracing.
Is it internalized homophobia for me to suggest that some of us tone it down just a tad so society doesn't perceive us as obnoxious drama queens, or spectacles of mental instability?
Freedom isn't free, and perhaps some of us will have to sacrifice our beloved pearls so that we can get a salary that will allow us to wear Lace Fronts and Louboutins.
6 comments:
Completely agree with this view.
What a lot of persons fail to realise is that sexuality, whether it is hetero or homo has no place in the workplace. The matter of gays in the workplace is a palace issue not one to be battled on the frontlines,
However, the deeper issue is one of unprofessional behaviour that should not be excused simply because of sexuality
I agree with this 100%...They need to separate orientation from professional life.....Be a flaming queen with friends but act the part at work. There is a freaking time n place 4 everything.....
N'y
I agree with this as well.
It is one thing to be naturally effeminate but it is another entirely to behave, in the work place, like you are on an episode of drag race.
*heavy sigh*
It so happens that our transgressive gender identities are considered markers of (a limited construct of) homosexual identity. It's easy for you (and your commenters) to espouse these views because I imagine your gender identities align more squarely with Jamaican gender norms.
Brian-Paul, I think that the dichotomy you create between the "restrained, employed, identifiably gay man" and the presumably unrestrained, "unemployed drag queen," is a false one." Unlike you, I am not a big can of blah, but I don't imagine I'm an aerosol can of glitter and sprinkles either (wishful thinking? lol).
If all of us decide to confirm to ridiculously unreasonable gender norms then the wait for the world to be "all-embracing" of diverse gender identities will be an even longer one.
Do what you need to do to remain employed, but don't sanction everyone else for taking certain risks to express our gender identities in all its "fabulosity."
*swishes pearls. crosses legs. readjusts wig* Hmph.
I like your comment gajamun BUT I should have mentioned in the post that this was my inspiration > http://www.vibe.com/content/mean-girls-morehouse
Read this article and tell me where these chil'ren are gonna work when they finish school
i also agree
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