Pulling up random blogs from mid Augusts past and reading through them. Seems like this is the time of year I talk about changes. Which makes sense. It's right before my birthday, it's right before September, which as many of you know used to be my goal setting time, Fall just feels right for new starts to me. So I start thinking about changes.
Changes I want to make in my own life. Changes I see happening in the world. Just changes.
And it's funny (sad?) how many times something I wrote years and years ago I could just post again with very few changes (instead of PC switch it to Woke) and it would apply today.
So does that mean that nothing really changes? That no matter what we do we are stuck on this treadmill and not really going anywhere?
How depressing to ponder.
But maybe it's not that exactly.
I mean 14 years ago (can you believe I've been doing this for 14 years?) I would never have written about how shitty the world is to trans people because there weren't that many trans people living public lives. The acceptance of trans people was so low that in Katie's graduating class there were zero trans kids. And she went to a creative arts high school. Where there was wide acceptance for LGB students. Just not a lot of T to be had. And it's not that there weren't trans kids, there have been multiple kids (not just Katie) who have come out since graduation. They just didn't feel comfortable doing it back then. In a liberal high school, in a liberal city, in a liberal state.
So even though there is a problem, the shitty treatment, there is actually a positive, the greater representation.
The World Cup is wrapping up this weekend and there have been multiple stories about it being the "gayest World Cup ever" and that's great. Except it's probably not, not the gayest, not that it hasn't been great. The World Cup four years ago, eight years ago, since the first one in 1991, odds are there were a lot of lesbians playing. So those were still very gay, they just weren't very out. That's a huge positive. Even if Alexi Lalas is not comfortable with it all. Or maybe it's a huge positive because of that. (I have never been able to stand the man and he's just given me justification for it finally, though to be fair he just said he wasn't happy about how polarizing the women's team and Rapinoe especially are, he could be racist or sexist and not homophobic, but odds are it's a yes and situation, in my opinion)
So again, problem, the book bans and groups trying to push us back into marriage inequality and legalized discrimination but also good, out and proud representation. Which makes it much hard to get the general public to get behind your hate laws.
Bad, Trump and *waves vaguely* all that. Good, he didn't win the second time. And hopefully won't win when he runs again.
Bad, the world is meaner and nastier. Good, people are calling it out. Which makes it seem even meaner at times, but nobody should have to put up with the bullshit and the fact that fewer people are willing to is good. I'm hopeful that this will be a course correction at some point and we will stop being nasty to each other at this rate, but with a reset on what is acceptable.
So though we are doing a lot of the same things, it seems, we are doing them from different starting places.
Things have changed. Things have shifted. It's just that I am still pushing for more.
That's what hasn't changed.
And it's funny because every once in awhile I see comments under old posts about "slippery slopes" and what next, and if they get to change this then what about this?? And usually I'm like, okay. Sounds good. Let's keep going. What if the slippery slope leads us to accepting people for who they are not who we think they should be? What if we change offensive mascot names and then we stop thinking about different cultures on some sort of ranked scale? What if we tear down Confederate monuments and stop waving battle flags from treasonous actions and then we stop glorifying those ideals? I mean, yeah, what if?
So yeah. August is time for me to think about changes. And I'm always going to be thinking about those changes. I just need to remember that as frustrating as it can be, we can move that needle. We can push that rock up the hill. We can start to grease that fucking slope.
Change can be good.
Progress is better.
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