Tolerance, acceptance, and identity

This post is not necessarily related to being abroad; it's just something I think is important...

"I don't care if you're gay. Just don't flaunt it."
"My friend's mother's sister's daughter's son is gay, so I know what it's like."
"I'm not homophobic. I just don't feel comfortable going to a gay club."
"I think it's fine to be gay. But why do you need to be married?"

This is tolerance. I don't want to be tolerated. Bugs, humidity, pain, bad smells, and hunger are tolerated. I refuse to be satisfied being put into the same category as those things... things to be tolerated.

I also refuse to hand out kudos to those who are accepting, as if I should expect anything less. Do they want me to give them a happy meal toy for treating me with the basic respect that every human deserves? Moreover, it implies that they are praise-worthy for accepting us in spite of our LGBT status, as if this identity is some sort of character flaw.

And please don't give me your résumé. I don't care if you have 20 gay siblings. I don't give a shit if some person you met once is a lesbian. You don't get a free pass for homophobia just because I am not the first LGBT person you've met. You also don't get to assume that my being gay means that I'm the same person as the first lesbian you met.

I think we need to flip the dialogue about LGBT life around. It is us who should be given kudos for tolerating people that anything less than affirming, supportive, embracing, respecting from the get-go. We must spend our lives expecting to be treated this way and be surprised and angry if we are not. We must do this in order for the non-queer community and our "allies" to understand that their discourse is wrong, reversed.

Alas, we do not have the numbers, the political and social power, to make all these changes, at least not alone and not with so many people still in the closet. So, we must continue to tolerate bigotry, hypocrisy, and tolerance. We must tolerate being tolerated until we have a choice.