Business Woman's Special

Last night, I was a part of Aliya-Jasmine’s 1 Girl 5 Gays panel at a local college.  Two gay students came on stage to join us as part of the panel.  One was adorable and a total fan of the show.  He had such beautiful energy.  The other was a  a queer activist and the president of the school’s LGBT club who clearly expressed that he had never watched the show and brought to the stage the most elitist and deplorable attitude I’ve ever witnessed. 

The entire time he was on stage he rolled his eyes and basically believed he was above the entire event and its content.

Early on in the discussion, he asked us early on what charity work we had been doing since being on the show, which I found to be so patronizing and expressed this very clearly to him.

Later on Aliya-Jasimine asked him a question about “When did you know you were gay?” and he immediately got very angry and called the question stupid.  He said I’ve always been gay.  It’s not a choice.  I was born this way.  He was confused and didn’t understand that the question was about a specific moment of sexual realization.

He was also visibly mocking another cast member of the show and huffing and puffing like a spoiled brat who wasn’t getting his way.   Aliya-Jasmine was awesome at moderating the tension that was happening on stage and letting this guy’s opinions be heard without passing judgment.  But at a certain point, I had had enough (I also had had several drinks at this point) so I let him have it.  

I basically said - Your attitude has been horrible all night.  Just because you’re a queer activist and studying queer theory at college and living a specific gay existence doesn’t mean that you’re somehow better than us or this experience.  You think we are shallow, vapid & have no substance because we talk about pop stars and Paris Hilton at times. Gay means a lot of things and as a president of this school’s club you should realize everyone’s voice matters.

I couldn’t believe a student leader would behave that way.   I actually wanted to have a discussion with him about why he thought there was no value in us as individuals and what we were saying & doing.

This person obviously has his own LBGT agenda and thinks that there is less value in queer people who don’t fall in line with it. 

I received messages & emails from students at the school about this president and how disliked he is.  This is what one girl said:

“In my opinion, the GSA at our school is NOT a “safe space”, especially with someone like him in charge of the meetings. I once had to sit through an entire discussion where him and his friends (who all sit at the same end of the table) were basically bashing the idea of bisexuality, and saying that pansexuality was more legitimate. I’m sure they weren’t trying to offend people, but the way the discussion was presented made me feel uncomfortable.

It just really frustrates me that the only way I can be involved in the LGBT* community at my school is by dealing with someone as hard-headed and ignorant as him.”

I must say I am so tired of homophobia within the LBGT community and this was a clear case of that.   …I am feeling very Erin Brockovich today.