"Last week, the pest control guy came to the door. "Are you Mr. Smith?" he says. "No, I'm Mr. Pallotta, Mr. Smith's partner," I reply. "Partner?" he asks. I'm being questioned in my own home. "Yes, partner," I answer. "We're a gay couple." "Oh," he says, trying to process this and maintain his composure."
The writer assumes that because the pest control guy doesn't immediately grasp the context of the word "partner" and questions it that he's being interrogated. Then he assumes that the pest control guys is somehow disturbed by the open admission of sexuality and is trying to maintain composure.
There's a good chance these perceived slights are in Mr. Pallotta's head; he's misinterpreting the pest control guy's confusion as some type of muted bigotry.
There's a lot of ambiguity when the word "partner" is used. I run a business with a partner, so when someone says they're someone's partner, my brain assumes it's meant in a business context because that's the world I spend 95% of my time in.
When I'm informed otherwise, I'm sure there's a noticeable hesitation as my brain processes the change of context from business to relational and re-establishes the rules of social interaction from "this is so-and-so's business partner" to "this is so-and-so's significant other." It's definitely not because I'm "disturbed by the open admission of sexuality and am trying to maintain composure."
I agree with you, only because the word "partner" is probably the worst possible choice of word to use to explain a relationship that represents exclusive pair-bonding of a sexual or close to sexual nature.
'Parter' is too often used in the exact opposite meaning: Your business partner, my dance partner, my tennis partner, Partnership in a firm.
If he had said "boyfriend" of even better, "husband" (which I appreciate you Americans haven't fully embraced yet), I could then allow the inference.
Let's be honest here though, if I referred to my wife as my "partner" I'd get the same quizzical looks and stares as people attempt to process what exactly our relationship is.
That's something that's always bothered me, and this article paints it even clearer: he's constantly thinking about being true to himself and who he is wrt being gay, and yet he uses an ambiguous term to describe his relationship with his significant other. Why not just say "boyfriend", "fiance", or "husband"?
Absolutely agreed that "we Americans" (disappointingly) haven't quite caught on to using husband/wife to describe the halves of a gay couple. A while back a colleague referred to his SO as "my husband" in casual conversation. At the time, I hadn't known him for long, and hadn't known he was gay. It was a pleasant surprise to me that he used a gendered descriptor right off the bat instead of something more ambiguous. I realized at that point that it was very, very rare for me to hear a gay person refer to his/her significant other as anything other than "partner". And I live in San Francisco, of all places.
"There's a good chance these perceived slights are in Mr. Pallotta's head ..."
What? I understand the inference problem, and it's interesting to explain that as a possible solution, but do you honestly think that there's a "good chance" that the author—who experienced the situation first-hand; who had 3x more information [1] about the situation than you—was making it all up?
There's a much better chance that the author just didn't describe the situation with enough detail.
Oh, no, I don't think he was making anything up. I'm just questioning the accuracy of his perceptions. The phrase that really drives that is when he interprets the "partner?" question as being interrogated within his own home.
If you come by my house and asked if I have Black Ops II, I wouldn't relate the story and be like "ianstormtaylor interrogated me in my own home about an XBox game." I would only use that type of phrasing if you'd come by and started asking questions that had some type of accusatory loading.
Yeah, I agree! I bet the pest control didn't actually say those exact words, either! You know, I wonder if there actually was a pest control guy at all--I bet it was really a plumber!
Man, I just can't trust this author at all anymore. Thanks for pointing this out. Thanks also for explaining the ambiguity of the English language to all of us, as well as some of the really interesting machinations people sometimes go through for conversational hesitation. It's information very few people realize and really contributed a lot to the discourse here on HN.
The details of wording or occupation aren't really key to the story though. It is however relevant whether his pause was due to being uncomfortable with the author's sexuality or due to his determining which interpretation of an ambiguous statement was correct. Although I suppose in the end the author's experience of the situation is the main point.
In short, your comment was less constructive than that you criticize. (as is mine)
It's not relevant, though, because the author himself didn't imply either one. The awkwardness, the otherness, of his situation is the point. He said nothing about bigotry, or about the pest guy being "disturbed", which means the commenter I responded to is the one bringing all the baggage to the conversation.
I think you're assuming a lot more about the writer than the writer assumed about the pest control guy. There's very little reason to doubt his reading of the situation, as I'm sure he's encountered it many, many times.
Also, holy crap this entire thread is full of smug heteronormative privilege. HN, I expect better.
I suppose anything that doesn't conform to your world-view is 'smug heteronormative privilege'. If you want a big happy feel-good discussion I suggest you go back to Tumblr. HN is for constructive discussion.
I agree with you; "partner" has an unusual feel in conversation, and I'm never sure what to make of it. I think for some folks this is a sore spot--that the phrase "wife", spoken by a man, is also an open admission of sexuality--so why can't we have a word like that, dammit? We're looking for a language which lets us express an integral part of our lives in a way which is normal to other people.
In "Covering", Kenji Yoshino talks about the strange dance that LGBT people go through. You continually gauge the situation--sometimes overtly, sometimes subconsciously. "Is it worth it?" "Can I give my boyfriend a hug at this service station?" "Should we just break down and get separate beds at the hotel? It'll be easier." "Have we told his Aunt yet, or are am I just a friend in town for Thanksgiving?"
In San Francisco, at least for me, this tension is practically absent--but in rural Minnesota and Wisconsin, it was a very real part of my life. Things are changing quick, though. :)
I think it's you who's assuming too much. I don't see why you think the author assumes the pest control guy is "disturbed by the open admission of sexuality." What the author says is that the pest control guy was "trying to process this and maintain his composure," which could easily describe the process you describe in your last paragraph.
I'm gay and this analogy is strained and opportunistic.
The charged moment when you're buying flowers for a same-sex partner is charged psychologically, not because of external fears. I live in a very liberal city, and there's almost zero chance I'm going to get bullied by the lady at the flower shop. It's charged because of how I grew up, because of the other people who made me feel like an outsider or a freak, because of what it means more broadly that the world, even this city, is set up for other people.
None of that comes into complaining about the speakers being on the wrong side of a TV. True, you can use slippery language to say that these are both "standing up for truth" or something, but in reality the motives behind each gesture are totally different. Standing up for quality as a person in a supply chain might be admirable, but it is not a "coming out" and it is not emotionally charged in the same way that revealing your homosexuality, over and over again, still is.
He talks to the cab driver because not doing so would mean rejecting himself. You mention the speakers because you want your company to do well and you're frustrated that the person who's job it is missed something blatant.
I'm straight... and I agree the analogy is strained.
I do want to disagree a bit with your last sentence. In my experience, people don't care too much about excelling at their jobs for the sake of their company. Of course there are some exceptions, especially at the upper rungs, but for the most part people do what they need to in order to get by. If the product is good enough and you're not going to take the heat for it, you don't say anything.
I've also noticed that the ones that are willing to speak up and ensure that a product/service/experience is top notch are the ones who have an internal drive to do so. My high school chemistry teacher was very fond of the phrase, "Take pride in your work". It's probably one of the most helpful bits of advice I've ever received.
I'm not in college you see. Even though I went for three years and was doing perfectly fine GPA wise, and was on track to a "dream career" with the admiration of everybody around me even though I knew I was not learning very much in school.
I decided to take that another path, where I actually try to measure what I learn beyond the grade inflation that was rampant at school and the mind-numbing pace at which things were offered and the lack of curiosity with which most things (not all) were perused.
I have not rejected my family though, nor their friends, nor any of my friends and everytime I get asked, at least once a week or so (or used to), "What are you studying?"
I tell them, "Nothing."
People don't believe it and usually I am being bullied into going back. (I wanted to say it was a discussion, but these people usually never listen to me.)
Sometimes I get the feeling that I should lie to them, but to do so would be to deny the legitmacy of what I am doing. I usually hope the mention of that comes off with little reaction and we can go on as if everything was ok.
That usually never happens and I have to risk the chance of getting bullied one more time, often by people whom I like and care about. To say something different however, that's out of the question.
A "let's talk about that later" is sometimes considered, but when you say that, the other person ALWAYS gets real curious and wants to ask you again. I'm in Latin America you see, and privacy here is not as respected...
I'm dealing with this all of the time, and I have a go-to solution for you (try it) – bury them in evidence. They aren't trying to argue YOU into something. They are trying to argue THEMSELVES into it, you just knocked their value-system over, after all; they want to KNOW they're STILL OK.
So, give them some more.
"I quit school, didn't seem that important. Oh, and I'm planning on trying the gay thing, seems people are more and more into it, maybe there's something there, my Imam said so himself. Do you have any plans for the summer? I need someone to help me build a base-jumping tower outside the town, and sell tickets."
As long as you're talking they are not. My life is weird enough for me to go on like that for hours, and all of it can be true, too.
Whether his analogy could have been better or not is besides the point, IMHO. Not sure I get what you mean by analogy being "opportunistic." He used it in his introduction. It worked for me. In fact, that's an example a good use case. Anyways, I guess it's just a difference of opinion, which is fine and interesting. Cheers :)
It's opportunistic because the only reason anyone is interested in this article is because he is framing it in terms of his personal life and, unfortunately, writing about being gay is still eye-catching.
Had he used another analogy, the article would have been much less unique and remarkable. It's got whatever traction it does have because the insight supposedly comes from his experience as a gay man. Because I think that experience doesn't imply or even really relate much to the lesson he's imparting, it feels like we can infer that maybe he chose the analogy knowing it would have publicity value (rather than because it's a good analogy).
> the only reason anyone is interested in this article is because he is framing it in terms of his personal life
That would hold more weight if "gay" was in the title. It wasn't. That he is gay was an easy analogy for him to make. There are many other people that aren't gay that could make the same analogy with aspects of their life.
Being gay isn't the point. That you are gay doesn't add weight to your point either. If anything, it suggests that your ideas like merit to stand on their own.
It's so easy to compromise, or cover up. I see it all the time in software dev. For every dev who cares enough to pursue an issue diligently to its root cause there are a dozen other devs who are perfectly willing to patch up symptoms of deeper problems or jump to faulty conclusions without bothering to seriously understand what's going on. Everyone wants the quick fix. They want the pain (the bugs, tickets, pages, scrutiny, etc.) to stop.
And it's easy to say that something is "almost done" or "mostly done" when in reality there are huge roadblocks in the way. It's hard to tell people you're struggling with a problem, or that you don't know how to do something, or that you don't know the meaning of a word your coworker just used, or you don't understand exactly what they're saying. It's easier to avoid embarrassment in the short-term even if it makes everything harder in the long-term.
> It's so easy to compromise, or cover up. I see it all the time in software dev. For every dev who cares enough to pursue an issue diligently to its root cause there are a dozen other devs who are perfectly willing to patch up symptoms of deeper problems or jump to faulty conclusions without bothering to seriously understand what's going on. Everyone wants the quick fix. They want the pain (the bugs, tickets, pages, scrutiny, etc.) to stop.
There's a word for these types of people - 'liabilities'.
I hope I'm not insensitive, but if I'm having a bad day and my cab driver (or just about any total stranger) asks "how is your day" I am not compelled to tell him about the intricacies of being me. It's not about fighting for "the truth", it's simply practical. This is generally how to behave for all matters of sex, politics, religion, and anything else personal. Small talk is small talk.
Everyone finds for themselves what witness they must bear. If the OP feels an obligation to help transform social views of homosexuality, well that's their duty as they see it. Likewise those evangelicals who feel the need to bear witness to what Jesus has done for them. If they share a cab it could well be an exhausting ride for everybody but this is beside the point of their obligations as they seem them.
We must all do the right as we see it. We should all strive to see the right as best we can, but at any moment must work with that vision we have. Doing what _you_ think wrong is wrong. Omitting what _you_ think right is wrong.
Which brings us back to the OP's excellent point that expecting one's self to always meet one's own standard builds a sort of muscle, and leads to an undreamt of excellence.
It does seem so, doesn't it? But I couple it with a duty to always seek a better understanding of the right, and to a humility that appreciates you might be wrong.
Moral principles are absolute and unchanging. But their _application_ is always subject to a context, and that context is often full of many different considerations of various weights. You may be of some Nudist religion but appreciate that your other duties require a prudent respect for the social requirement of clothing when earning the money required to meet those duties.
If you believe something wrong and dangerous I will try to persuade you that you are _wrong_. I will try to persuade you to change your principles to better ones, or at least doubt yours enough to do nothing while you figure things out. But I won't try to persuade you to not live with integrity.
If you believe in shooting people you disagree with, and I think you're actually likely to act on that, then I will act to stop you. Because I have a duty to the just and the innocent to protect them from people who believe stuff that crazy. But just because I oppose you doesn't mean I don't think you mean well, just that you're wrong and must be stopped.
What if the potential shooter was a parent on their way to rescue a child from a kidnapper? What if the shooter was a police officer and had merely lost their uniform in a comic mishap while chasing a vicious killer?
If you try to stop someone who is looking to shoot someone they disagree with (regardless of their reasoning), presumably by calling in the police or other agents employing lethal force, you're ultimately just shooting people you disagree with by proxy.
If you believed words were a better solution than violence you'd need to talk, and accept the results of that discussion, instead of drawing lines and deciding to perpetrate your own violence.
Pacifists can't call the police or they're merely cowards.
I think the word "should" is properly a ternary relation
If A wants B, then they should do C <=> If A does C and B doesn't happen, then it's not A's fault <=> If A does C and B doesn't happen, then any person Z (in the set of people we care about) who wants to appear reasonable should not blame A in a conversation about what happened.
So really, "should" is defined in terms of expecting anyone who wants to be reasonable not to blame you.
Many people think "should" is some absolute thing, such as "A should do C" regardless of what they want. It seems to me that absolute morality requires tons of adhoc exceptions and rules, and that relative morality gives a much more fitting description of what happens.
How do you defend that if "right" for me happens to be walking around nude in public, or more extreme, shooting people that I disagree with?
The fact that is right for you to do something doesn't mean it's not right for me and others to stop you from doing it. Since they're relative, there's no inconsistency.
Incidentally, I find it amusing how you just implicitly judged whole societies (where walking around nude in public is/was the standard) as being morally in the wrong. I've always found the moral absolutism argument to have a disagreeable taste of superiority.
I don't mean to be presumptuous, but are you straight? Not feeling compelled to tell people about your sexuality is a luxury afforded to people who fit into the norm. It's what LGBT activists would call "privilege", and it's something that we as straight/white/male/other dominant group need to be aware of if we don't wish to alienate minority groups.
I understand your point, but it seems a bit laborious in this case.
If a cab driver asks me how my day was, and i'm exhausted, I say "good" and stop talking. This is true whether you are gay, straight, or whatever.
In the example in the article, if he was too exhausted to tell "the truth" (as he calls it) and have a "transformative conversation", he should have just said "i'd rather not talk about it". This does not require denying anything, pretending about anything, etc. It's unlikely the cab driver cared either way, to be honest, and if you give them the hint that you'd rather just drive in silence than spend your energy , they will.
Again, it just seems the author acts as if he has to educate everyone, and it's a laborious process. I agree there are plenty of cases he needs to educate people, and that is laborious.
But I think it goes too far when he gets into the realm of people just trying to make small talk, who actually don't care one way or the other.
The cabby is likely just trying to stave off boredom and get a good tip, not an ignorant person whose mental state about the world needs to change. In all likelihood, he's probably playing a probability game (IE i'm sure he asks young drunk looking college kids about women or partying, forlorn looking businessmen about where they are traveling from, etc). You can see this as offensive if you like, but it's really not about ignorance.
Maybe he welcomes the small talk but finds the process of correcting false assumptions laborious? I get what you're saying and I don't think you're trying to be homophobic, but realize that that attitude often comes off the same as "I don't mind people being gay, I just don't want to see it or have to hear about it". It's a subtle form of oppression, where gay people are made to feel that they are not free to engage in the same small talk as hetero people, lest they offend someone's sensibilities.
I didn't say anything approaching what you claim the attitude is.
My point was that small talk, particular cabby small talk, almost always involves false assumptions, and this has nothing to do with being ignorant.
Otherwise, they have exactly the problem you mention in the last sentence. They see people from all walks of life. If they didn't make some set of assumptions (be it about sexuality, gender, typical behavior of males, typical behavior of females), they'd never be able to engage in any small talk, lest they offend someone's sensibilities.
As I said, you may find this offensive, but it's not about ignorance.
I don't find this offensive, merely annoying. In your previous post you make it sound like it is easy to avoid the kind of small talk that reveals that you are gay. This is not the case. Sure, you can be blunt and give 1 word answers every time somebody tries to make smalltalk with you, but that will just make people think you are in a perpetually bad mood. About half the time I will just play along and mentally substitute the genders to avoid any awkward situations, but you can't really do this if you may see the person again, or when people who know that you are gay are also present (because then you will confuse them). If you do use the correct genders then more often than not there is an awkward situation, sometimes resulting in complete silence and then the other person will try to get away from you (not because they hate you, just to get out of the awkward situation).
The author isn't making a point about ignorance. Everyone wants to act like he's blaming the cabby and he's not. As someone who is constantly in this situation, it's tiring. It's a reminder of how many people treat me as a gay man first rather than a software developer.
It's the same problem with the people that say "Oh, women at conferences should be flattered by the attention". They want to be seen as equal. I want to be seen as equal. Having to stop and explain, "No, I don't have a wife" is a reminder of the fact that most of our society still walks around assuming every stranger is straight.
How is the author acting like he's trying to educate anyone? He's saying that casual conversation regularly forces him to correct someone, lie to someone, or evade answering someone regarding a fact about who he is.
I can imagine that regularly responding with "I'd rather not talk about it" when people make basic, friendly conversation is not a pleasant option. And it really doesn't seem the same as saying "good" when someone asks me how my day is.
It's not about education; it's about risk and the willingness to face it.
By responding to, "How's your wife?" with "My husband's fine," he's admitting homosexuality to a potential homophobe. You could lie and say, "She's fine," and that'd be that. You could be neutral and say, "Fine," but that just postpones it. And for some people, they're aware that's a deliberate skirting of the issue and is basically a lie by omission. That atrophies the very muscle the author wanted to discuss. You might find it acceptable, but it's clear that the author does not.
The guy's "transformative conversation" is akin to staying up late and going to forums and 'correcting' them. Why? Because somebody is wrong on the Internet!
Why would my "sexuality" be a topic for anyone other than those close to me? If my wife and I like to dress up as robotic ninjas in order to get satisfaction, well then that's between my wife and I despite how "out of mainstream" it is and is no business of anyone else.
I tire of the "acceptance" desire of so many people in so many areas of their lives. Tolerance != acceptance, it merely means that someone can tolerate an alternative without resorting to an attempt to suppress it. I don't have to accept the choice of people to paint their cars in zebra stripes, but I don't reach for an orbital sander and remove the paint because I can at least tolerate such a choice.
We're talking about sexuality in the sense of the physical sex of your partner; not your fetishes.
Unfortunately that's a difficult topic to avoid since we can hardly start referring to our partners as 'it' when the topic comes up.
Choosing to answer vaguely and switch the topic is the easiest way for gay people to get out of these issues, but it is also how you end up staying in the closet to a lot of people.
This article talks about choosing, in those situations, to not closet yourself and let the conversation flow as though the sex of your partner were a normal thing, knowing full well that it isn't for many people.
Hrm, let's perform an in situ experiment! Right now, get on the horn with the people in your world and announce that you're actually gay/straight, whichever is different than currently. Then live accordingly for a few years so we can see what changes!
Are you seriously trying to compare same-sex relationships to having sexual fetishes? Your fetishes will never come up in any sort of everyday conversation, and no one has ever been discriminated against for their sexual kinks.
Asking someone to be private about who they're partners with is very discriminatory. It's not required of opposite-sex couples. And very simple freedoms you might take for granted, like holding your partners hand in public, or engaging in simple discussions, can be a battle sometimes. Compare to mixed race relationships in US history and the present day.
It's no more fair and civilized to suggest a 'don't ask don't tell' on same-sex partners than any other type of partnership. And comparing same sex attraction to a sexual fetish is frankly insulting.
Actually, "fetishes" would most assuredly come up in the same kinds of meaningless conversations in everyday life. "Oh, it's your anniversary? So you're going to go out for a nice romantic meal?" The assumption being that's what "normal" people do for such occasions. I do not feel compelled to correct their mistaken assumption simply because it's none of their damned business unless I decide they are important in my life.
You misunderstand the idea of "it's no one else's business" with "you must be silent!" Holding your partner's hand in public is already publicly declaring the very thing that would alter the direction of a conversation regarding the sex of your significant other, which has no bearing on the original post or my response. This is about feeling the need to actively correct the incorrect assumptions of people who have no meaningful value to you and your partner's life.
As for suggesting DADT, well when I suggest such a thing feel free to argue against it.
If you read the blog post, you would see that it's much harder to avoid than a "robotic ninja fetish". Simple small talk can often lead to it being brought up, and it's counterproductive to the goal of an inclusive society to expect him to lie about it.
Because the cab driver isn't going to say "Oh, you have kids? I bet you hate dressing up as robotic ninjas" forcing you to have to correct them and explain that, no, you don't fit his presumptions. It's not the cab drivers fault necessarily, people are socialized to expect that other people are straight, often because many people hide it.
Hence the circle. By pointing out that I'm gay, when NO ONE (literally, I mean no one, most people don't believe me) expects it, I break that assumption and cause that person to second guess that assumption in the future.
There are plenty of other reasons you might have kids but not a wife. Maybe you're a widower. Maybe they're actually your brother's kids, but he and his wife were killed by a drunk driver, and you're the godfather.
Perfectly legitimate cases where you just have no reason to get into it with the freaking cab driver, and probably don't get into a serious conversation, and probably also don't tell him to mind his own damn business.
Wouldn't it also be inappropriate for the cab-driver to follow up, "Do you have kids?" with the question "Are they biologically yours?"
In all the examples you gave the reason is some unfortunate tragedy and not a part of his identity that we as a society are trying to become more inclusive of.
You're comparing same-sex relationships to a tragedy having occurred. It's not really a fair comparison.
You're also operating under the presumption that a same-sex partnership should be something hidden, or that it should be a touchy topic and only brought up sparingly, when frankly that's oppressive and discriminatory.
Privilege/oppression may be a real thing, but this isn't an example of it. No one expects absolutely literal, radical honesty from a simple inquiry like "how's it going?"
Just because I'm gay doesn't mean that I go around proclaiming the fact to others unless it's relevant to the context of the conversation.
Your comment makes zero sense in the context of the submitted blog post. Where did you see anything approaching the exchange "Hey, how's it going." "I'm gay."?
Maybe, but the point is that he shouldn't. And besides, that's harder than it sounds. Like he said, even small talk about kids or whatever can lead to it.
I'm pretty gay, and fairly often I don't want to bother with it. "Tell me about your girlfriend?" can be answered to a cabbie with "Eh." and it's really not the end of the world for me.
That's miss-representing the example. In the article the cab driver, "Then asks about your wife." Answering that question by saying that he doesn't have a wife isn't the same as talking about "the intricacies of being himself," just basic facts.
If I were gay, and if I came out once, I wouldn't feel comfortable inventing a wife for the sake of a conversation with a cab driver, every single time.
Yeah but your day is not something that differs you from the most people, something that many people don't accept, something that you probably have been humiliated for. You're not a “faggot” in high school because you had a bad day. It's something you chose to accept and tell your friends and parents and see some people sneer at you.
I think that pretending to have a wife for the sake of smalltalk feels like going into the closet again, like admitting you must be guilty of something.
Usually when you are making small talk with someone who you will most likely only be in the company of for 5 minutes they are more interested in avoiding awkward silence than actually finding out details about your life.
If you don't bring up a wife they will just as easily assume that you are single or divorced as much as gay.
Besides , people who work in a public facing role like a cab driver or florist will most likely meet gay people all the time and won't find it the slightest bit novel.
Notice that all the examples he gave were cases where a stranger made an assumption that put him in the position of either telling them he was gay or lying about it. It's interesting that commenters here keep having to invent a scenario where the guy was going around shouting to every passerby that he was gay.
Yes, there are no cab drivers anywhere who might be perturbed by someone saying they are gay. Thanks jiggy2011, for reminding everyone that our societies issues around homophobia have been solved once and for all.
Outside of maybe very conservative areas or muslim countries I would imagine a cab driver being perturbed by gay people would not be in the business very long.
I don't hang around in typically "gay" circles or even know that many people in general but I know enough gay people that homosexuality is not surprising for me at all.
For the purposes of casual conversation with strangers, if someone asks about a wife surely it's simple enough to say "I'm not married" and allow them to assume whatever they like unless you feel like sharing more.
In this example, straight people don't have to lie about not being married just to shut down small talk. Instead they use short responses, avoid eye contact, and give off the general vibe that they're not in the mood to talk. But why can't gay people do the same?
It's not that it "surprises" a lot of people (although often enough it does), it's that they don't understand it and they don't agree with it, and many feel like their religious beliefs justify being vocal about it. Being trapped in a car with someone like this is uncomfortable, particularly when they could leave you stranded at the drop of a hat.
A friend was recently sexually assaulted by a cab driver who was out on bail and back to work the next day. It's naive to think that because of their job that they are any less prone to having an opinion and saying or doing something socially unacceptable because of it.
Taxi drivers are mainly worried about People being sick in their cab , people who don't pay or people who assault them.
All taxi drivers I have known have met all kinds of somewhat crazy/scary people I would really have a hard time believing that a gay person would be the slightest bit controversial.
Of course there is always some risk but if it is large enough that you are seriously concerned about being randomly assaulted just for being gay you have probably chosen a bad place to live.
There are a lot of muslim cab drivers, even in progressive areas of the country. I think it would not be uncommon to find ones that are uncomfortable with homosexuality.
Your argument depends upon conflating politics with sexuality. The ease with which each can be conflated with religion sends us down the slippery slope.
We are often inclined to contain our political views for the sake of civility because they are opinions, and even those of widely differing views generally recognize that. Are disagreements are about the relevance of facts or the validity of their measuring. Generally the arguments are not about what exists in the shared world.
While the distance between religion and politics may be small historically, outside the political realm, the distance between disagreement about politics and about religion can be huge.
Religion asserts as fact a description of each person's position in the world. Thus, religious claims are about me personally, and unlike political claims, the speaker does not acknowledge that their view about me personally is opinion.
As political speech, I may treat it the expression of civic opinion. When it characterizes me personally, it is another matter just like characterizations of my sexuality.
So your answer would be no? Then you'd have to lie each time. Or would your answer be; sorry but i won't answer that question. That would work i guess but it would get tiring as well i'm sure.
In the UK I've run into people who use the term `partner' for whomever they are in a non-married exclusive relationship with, regardless of whether they are gay or straight.
I don't know how common that is, or how it got started. I wonder whether it will ever catch on in the US?
This describes me (I live in the UK). I'm 31 I've been in a lovely heteronormative relationship for eight years. We aren't married, and we've called each other 'partner' for years. In my head it lives in the linguistic space between '[boy|girl]friend' and the state-sponsored '[husband|wife]'. I also enjoy its gender neutrality.
"partner" implies a deeper relationship than many "boyfriend/girlfriend" relationships. When someone describes someone as their partner (in a relationship context), I assume they are married or common-law (or would be married if it was legal -- e.g. gay marriage).
Ugh the word "lover" really creeps me out for some reason. It might be because of the Welshly Arms Hotel SNL sketch. Either way, I can't imagine referring to anyone as "my mom's lover." shiver
I meant to imply that "lover" was defined as "someone you have sex with," not "someone you are having an affair with." It's just used in the context of an affair because your partner in the affair is someone you have sex with.
I know many people, and none of them refer to their
significant other as a 'partner.' For example, I know
one guy that is 50, who refers to his same-aged
significant other as his 'girlfriend,' and it doesn't
seem to bother him that 'girl' is in the name instead
of 'woman.'
"Partner" tends to better describe mature stable adult relationships better than any of the suggestions. Without a huge set of religious conditions, "husband" and "wife" carry no more baggage than "partner" used in a business context.
Others have pointed to the juvenilization potentially implied by "boyfriend" and "girlfriend." Furthermore, "-friend" fails to connote the appropriate level of commitment - even absent the impact of Facebook.
"Partner" cuts through messy reality. Polyamorous relationships. Separated spouses. Concubines (and their male counterparts).
a) You might not want to disclose the sex of the other person.
b) Some people object against the term 'girl' and 'boy' for grown up people.
c) Political reasons, there is a wider variety of relationship permutations than the above 4.
It's a 3D chart serialized on to 2D. Look at one of the corners, then go to the opposite one. Repeat twice more. The fact that this approach is basically fundamentally geometrically unsound doesn't help the chart's coherence. (Unless they really are claiming that these three things are in fact dependent on each other in exactly the way the 2 dimensionalization of the chart implies, which I doubt.)
The problem with boyfriend/girlfriend is that it seems strange to use the same term for a relationship in high school that lasts two months as you would for a relationship later on where you live with a person for years.
It does in some areas though. E.g. you have provisions like this one from the housing act, talking about when tenancies can be automatically transferred, on the death of one spouse, to the other one:
"a person who was living with the tenant as his or her wife or husband shall be treated as the tenant’s spouse, and a person who was living with the tenant as if they were civil partners shall be treated as the tenant's civil partner"
(Interestingly, an identical provision in another act - but with only the wife/husband language, as this was before civil partnerships - was used by the courts to give a similar benefit to a surviving member of a gay couple, using the non-discrimination provisions of the Human Rights Act to interpret the provision broadly to include gay couples living as partners (Ghaidan v Godin-Mendoza)).
and some places have the requirement of length of time and publicly stating that you are man and wife. This causes some to be very careful of saying wife for the sake of brevity. Girlfriend doesn't distinguish between a year and 5+ years, so many people will default to partner, better half, or significant other.
sure, but I've never know someone, when introducing their spouse, to say 'this is my common-law [husband|wife]'. Among other problems, it's quite awkward.
Hah yes, that's why I started switching to saying "Co-Founder", most non business people assuming you are a couple when you are two guys (or even a girl and a guy) and introduce the other as your partner.
Some people still give you weird glances and awkward pauses when you use it though.
In situations where it doesn't matter (and that's most of them) I've stopped correcting people who assume we're married and I've taken my partner's surname.
It actually makes things easier. If they assume you're married, they generally have no problem talking to you about whatever they called to talk to your partner about. When they find out you're not married, sometimes suddenly you can't be trusted.
But then it reinforces the belief there there aren't other options. Or rather, it does not show alternatives as more normal than one would assume. I guess that was the point of the article.
So a woman in her 50s is supposed to refer to her equally old significant other as her "boyfriend"? Seems odd to me. "Partner" seems more dignified and has a connotation of "in it for life".
I prefer "significant other" if the relationship (with any combination of genders and genitals) is more serious than "boyfriend/girlfriend" but not to the level of "husband/wife".
Just because you shouldn't have to lie about it, doesn't make it good advice to never lie about it. There are, sadly, many places in the US (and many in the rest of the world) where expressing your true self will cause you (physical/emotional) harm. If you live in such a place, be careful.
I'm not a Baptist. Or any stripe of Christian. Or Jew. Or some other checkbox on the list of tolerable beliefs. I live in Alabama. There's a price.
Impeded relationships. Reduced opportunity.
Yet, the emotional harm of lying about who am is significantly greater than what one person can inflict upon another. Because like truth, that harm is permanent.
People inclined to fuck up someone because they are different, don't deserve a free pass. It is their fucking up which is uncivil, not my choice to abstain from praising Jesus before eating chicken fingers at a business lunch.
>Yet, the emotional harm of lying about who am is significantly greater than what one person can inflict upon another. Because like truth, that harm is permanent.
What about if there's no harm? What if you ENJOY lying about who you are?
Or, in another twist, what if lying about who you are opens a new world to you, and makes you a different person, perhaps even who you lied about being in the first place? (In the sense that you invent a new identity for yourself, like a Nothern Jewish family boy like Robert Zimmerman emerged into scene as the "wretched hobo poet" Bob Dylan).
The author faces a situation where telling the truth causes suffering.
The identity of his situation with that of a person who enjoys lying is premised upon pleasure being nothing more than the absence of suffering.
This reduces the enjoyment of a person who enjoys lying to an absence of suffering. Belief systems which might take this approach to pleasure tend to treat trying to avoid suffering as suffering - i.e. all the way down, turtles suffer.
An actor might be described as "a person who enjoys lying about who they are." The reference to Dylan is indexical.
[Deeper]
Who the hell knows who they are in any sense other than who they choose to be? Am I the teenager who didn't understand the harm of casual racist behavior or participation in high school homophobia?
No. I am the adult who regrets those things and has chosen learn from the experience.
But I am also on the slippery slope to lying with the qualifiers "casual" and "high school."
It's important to think about it carefully and choose your battles. But it's also very possible to over-think it: most of the bad things that can happen are minor in comparison with the importance of coming out. Even a tourist in the most rednecky parts of Mississippi (and, yes, I grew up queer in a somewhat similar area) isn't going to be thrown in jail by the cops on some pretext or have some thugs at the local diner pull him outside and beat him just for being upfront about being gay.
Why not? Because so many people have come before and been open about it. Being gay might be wrong in some of the locals' minds, but it's already pretty normal. And it does good: that trucker dude you had a lovely discussion with one morning at Waffle House who had never met an (out) gay person in his life? Well, now he knows that gay people actually exist and can be totally fine folk. He's not going to be helping plan any Pride parades soon, but baby steps.
Edited to add: this is with reference to random people you meet in day to day life. Coming out to parents and friends is much riskier, which is usually why it takes much planning and support of other loved ones in your life.
I totally agree about all the baby steps, which, over time turn into a flow and then a torrent.
Example? Look at the attitude change regarding gay weddings in the US during the last twenty years.
In ten years married gay couples will be pretty normal and it started with only a small number of "weirdos" some 20 years ago, who where true to themselves.
Fort the record: I'm straight but feel that it's beyond the pale that people should be denied love and happyness, just because we don't share the same sexual orientation.
It reminds me of the quote from Lincoln. (paraphrasing) "Just because we know which direction is true north doesn't mean we should instantly head full speed in that direction, for we risk getting stopped by impassible obstacles."
We live in a world where we are lucky to be able to be mostly open about what we believe in. But there are still situations where being honest about yourself may lose you a job, or a customer, even with something like being gay.
But what if your true belief pushes in a stronger direction against society and/or the government? "I believe in pirating tools that I cannot afford." "I believe that the age of consent should be 13." "I believe that the US should have a nearly nonexistent military." "I believe that all forms of non-consensual advertising (billboards, web ads, tv ads, intentional product placement) should be illegal."
These things may not come up as much as being gay, but when they do I find that speaking too quickly or even going more than a little against the grain can lose you a lot of friends. Most people won't take the time to hear you out. As soon as they know what you believe, you are judged.
Our society places a lot of pressure on others to accept homosexuality. When you explain your orientation to someone who may judge you for it, they must be careful about responding because the rest of society is likely to judge them in return. Such pressures don't exist for many of my core beliefs.
Does that pressure come at the business end of a bat? Have you ever known someone had their face smashed in for calling someone a homo or for disliking billboards?
The drive to not be literally exterminated is a powerful one, so you can be damn sure that pressure for tolerance will continue to be applied now that its "officially" acceptable to apply such pressure.
Be careful. Sound advice in any situation. But, most things I have found that are the right thing to do cause physical/emotional harm, at least in the short term.
Just because you shouldn't have to lie about it, doesn't make it good advice to never lie about it.
^^ This.
I know many people in flyover country who are atheists, but who go to church every Sunday simply to avoid having them and their children not be ostracized from the majority of social activity.
All decisions should, in part, be made in reference to your own happiness. If "coming out" as an atheist (or homosexual, or...) is going to make your life substantially worth with no real upside for you, "lying" about yourself is a reasonable, and possible necessary, alternative.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but is he telling us that we should try to be offended?
I'm referring to the second to last paragraph: You can't know if your values are being violated if you're ambiguous about what they are. Second, learn to develop a sixth sense for when your line is being crossed. It may be a gut feeling. A nervous laugh. A habit of rationalizing.
Maybe I'm reading too much into it because some people (especially in the media) seems to set out to be offended, and they're really annoying.
Of course there are many valid reasons to be offended and we (as individuals and societies) should treat everyone with respect and try to offend no-one. But it is possible to be too easily offended, and I'm afraid one might end up in that category by following his advice.
People have the misconception that a gay person comes out once. It's not true. If you're gay and you're authentic, you're coming out constantly. You're on a business trip, for example. A cab driver asks if you have kids, and you say that you do. Then he asks about your wife. Even though you may be exhausted, you find yourself summoning the energy to have a transformative conversation with a total stranger on whom you are depending to get to the airport and whose reaction you have no way of predicting.
The author's own situation is clouding his judgement. It is entirely easy to predict that asking if you have kids is going to lead to asking about a wife. This is the way family life has gone on for centuries. It's only recently (in generational terms) that gay couples could adopt children or even be openly gay and married... yet the author thinks that there's no way to predict how someone is going to steer a conversation. I wouldn't take offense if someone steered a conversation in the wrong way because it's more about their reaction to the surprise news ("oh, i have a husband not a wife") than to how the conversation found itself. Maybe I perhaps steered the conversation the wrong way instead of the cab driver.
As an aside: I had to rewrite this many times because I didn't want to come off as being homophobic, discriminatory, or what have you. I really don't like walking on egg shells, but some topics really cause other people to pounce.
I think you're missing the point. The author is very well aware of the fact that the question "Have you got kids?" is very likely going to lead to a question about their spouse, that's why he chose that example!
The problem is how should he respond to that first question about kids? He can lie, and say that he doesn't have any, heading off the awkward situation, or he can tell the truth "yeah, I've got a couple of boys" or whatever. But if he tells the truth, he knows there's a good chance that he is going to get asked about his partner, and once again he has to decide whether he is going to lie or tell the truth.
The real problem comes from the fact that he is in the back of someone else's car, and he knows that violence against homosexuals is a depressingly common phenomenon. He doesn't know the driver, and hence can't know if they guy is going to be cool, or if he's going to decide that tonight's the night that he looks the passenger doors and drives off into the night to kill his passenger in some dark alleyway. Being less melodramatic, he could very easily find himself being dumped on the sidewalk halfway to his destination.
Hence the lies. But lies are tiring. You have to keep track of which ones you've told "Wait, did I just mention that I have to get up really early tomorrow to get the kids to school for a rehearsal? Damn - I told him I didn't have kids!" Anyway, that's what he's getting at.
You don't have to walk on eggshells when talking about issues like homosexuality or anything else. Just say what you think, and actually listen if someone brings up a valid criticism. The bigger problem here is feeling like you should never be criticized, which leads to unnecessary self-censoring and resentment over it.
I'm getting tired of my current HN account so let me trash it.
Fuck Gays.
I'm Jose Gutierres from the Bronx in case you want to beat me up. There, no more walking on egg-shells.
In all seriousness, being too PC is also harmful. I'm not homophobic but really dislike that you cannot have a conversation without somebody getting but hurt.
And to finish it off. Fuck muslims, hindus, christians, mexicans, jews, scientologists, hispanics, etc.
If you feel I left you out then fuck you too.
"Your ability to stand up for your truth is a muscle, and the more you exercise it the stronger it gets."
His attitude is commendable and helpful in a lot of different situations:
- people with stand-out religious beliefs
- people with strict diets
- people who don't drink
It makes me very appreciative that I don't have anxieties over anything that would require me to correct people or divulge personal information.
Being gay in his situation, and in general having anxieties attached to information you must always carry, is a pain in the ass. This might be a good reason to act "flaming" (when its an act): get the information out there immediately. I do that in certain situations too.
> First, know what you're coming out about. Identify your truths. Write a personal values manifesto. You can't know if your values are being violated if you're ambiguous about what they are.
most people would come out about the fact that they don't give a shit about the value of the product their employer produces.
many would have to admit they delight in sabotaging the system they hate.
Okay, how do you do what he's saying _without_ being the guy who bitches about everything and is all up in everyone's business thinking he knows better than everyone how to do their jobs?
In any situation, you don't want to be the lone wolf of honesty. Your company or team needs a culture of honesty. It's simpler than you realize. Have a conversation, make an event out of it. Say, "Look, for this to work, we have to be outspoken and honest. Our success depends on it. It will be uncomfortable at times. It will be frustrating at others. But there's no reason to invest this much, to work this hard, just to stop short of honesty. If you can take a startup, you can take honest feedback. And we should all expect a ton of it."
The TechStars program does this really well. They promise you brutal honesty. They tell you to brace for it. You are guaranteed to be told when your idea sucks. You can see this in practice each week as the teams present their pitches. Because honesty is the expectation, the quietest guy in the room will raise his hand and say, "For the first ten minutes, I had no freaking clue what you were talking about." Ouch! But the permission was there. The guy wasn't a jerk, he was embracing the culture. And you know what? It needed to be said.
In the early days, Rackspace had a saying: "Bad news first, full disclosure, no surprises." More than a slogan, it was permission to be honest. People would say, "It sucks to bring this up, but as we say, bad news first and full disclosure..." Again, amazingly effective.
People want to be honest. And in the end, they want you to be honest, too. There just needs to be permission.
You don't. That's why successful executives often seem like jerks[0]. It's very important to question everything and ask "Why don't we do X instead of Y?" 90% of the time there really will be a good reason for Y, but that other 10% of the time pointing it out will stop a really stupid mistake. Plus, the 90% of the time that you're wrong, you learn something.
If you're really lucky, you're in a company where feedback doesn't seem personal, and everyone can feel free to question everything. If not, then you just have to play the part of the jerk to ensure some level of quality.
His example of standing up for the truth is easy, because it is simply undeniably true that he is gay and his partner is a man. He can correct wrong assumptions from the comfortable position of what is actually the case in 'reality'.
Unfortunately, in most cases the truth you want to defend is in the gray of philosophy, ethics, politics, aesthetics, where you yourself may even agree something isn't a universal truth. Then you're not defending the truth: you are preaching.
Seems to me this suffers from the lack of defining "lie", be it of omission, commission, or in the case of simply remaining silent whether one has committed any act at all.
If I say "the product is GREAT!" when I believe it to be otherwise, then I'm very obviously lying by commission and that's obviously not a good thing. I do however often cause social consternation when I don't engage in the usual "white lie" that is generally accepted as "correct" for many people. "Do these pants make me look fat?" asked by wife elicits a truthful answer, which she's used to but many who witness the exchange are not.
A lie of omission would be something on the order of "is the product ready for market?" with a response of "we've done focus groups and the response was positive" leaving out some useful information like "positive by +.1%", which would be a valuable piece of information to have for the questioner but one in which the respondent does not want to provide since it would probably negate the response.
Remaining silent seems to me often to be none of the above. CEO declares a new initiative, I may at first blush disagree but lacking any real information or thought-out objection, and also understanding that he may have more information than I and certainly a different set of responsibilities, I remain silent rather than blurt out an objection with no real argument with which to back it up. My silence in this instance is neither an endorsement nor an objection.
I have been reading HN for half a year without ever bothering to login, but this post was so inspiring for me that I had to chime in and say 'thanks'. Never compromise. This is just what I needed.
Wish I'd seen this a bit earlier. I read a great article today from Leo Babauta from Zen Habits on essentially the same topic.
Set a value system, and stick to it. That's exactly what this author is encouraging. I think it's unfortunate that the context the author chose to illustrate the point is distracting to many, but it doesn't change the validity of his message.
Big fan of this article. The world asks us to sell out our integrity for such a pittance on almost a daily basis. "Convenience," "convention," "getting along." These are the meager rewards for our silent assent. It's great motivation to read someone standing up and saying "stop it. Your integrity is worth more." Need the reminder sometimes.
Well yes they do, it's just that they can do it by bringing home the boyfriend/girlfriend to meet the parents or whatever you want to consider normal first steps in expressing your sexuality.
In a large part of the world though, probably most of the world where you can, if you are gay you basically have to explicit come out to your closest friends and relatives to get over whatever initial shock, embarrassment, anger, violence, or whatever may occur.
Except it's totally not, being straight in most places in the world is the default and everyone is seen through a lens of being straight. Coming out refers to revealing to people that you are not straight.
Fine, I'll yield the semantic argument. "Coming out" in the context of sexuality typically refers to homosexuals publicly expressing their preference for the first time and adjusting their public identity to match.
I was attacking the idea that most aren't judged upon first expressing their sexual desires. It's important anywhere and everywhere. Bringing home a partner of a different color? Size? Class? "Looks"? Judgement is issued. In some cultures the kind of partner you're able to pull speaks directly to the honor or worth of the family. It's never not a big deal.
People are judged for their relationships in general.
People are judged for who they have sex with based on all sorts of physical characteristics (sex, skin tone, size, looks, etc.) as well as social attributes (economics, religion, behavioral awkwardness).
People are also judged for not having sex with certain people (being monogamous, or especially being a virgin over age 30). Or for people they hang out with in non-sexual relationships in general (friends from different race, class, religion, or sports fandom).
Relationships of all sorts are important anywhere and everywhere and never not a big deal.
It may be the expectation but the reality is that it may not be true. Until you take an action to express your sexuality, everyone is just expecting you to be like them. Bringing home the boyfriend/girlfriend is implicitly declaring your heterosexuality, telling your family you are gay is explicitly declaring you are gay. You could also implicitly declare it by bringing home a same-sex partner. Coming out is simply expressing your sexuality.
> Bringing home the boyfriend/girlfriend is implicitly declaring your heterosexuality, telling your family you are gay is explicitly declaring you are gay.
Well, if most people you know implicitly assume you are straight, bringing home the expected kind of partner doesn't declare anything because it was already assumed that you were straight.
> Coming out is simply expressing your sexuality.
No, coming out has its roots in being gay and explicitly revealing that information to others. The entire history of the concept and phrase of coming out exists in that context, you can't just re-contextualize it without throwing away the experiences of people who have come out in the past.
> Well yes they do, it's just that they can do it by bringing home the boyfriend/girlfriend to meet the parents or whatever you want to consider normal first steps in expressing your sexuality.
No, this isn't coming out. In most places, people are seen as a default of straight. Coming refers to revealing to people you are not straight, so straight people by definition cannot come out.
It's not really about the odds though, it's more about creating norms and normative behavior. For folks that deviation from "normal", they tend to face microaggressions from others, and possibly outright discrimination and physical violence.
Personally instead of tripping over myself trying not to make every permutation of human diversity feel uncomfortable, I think I'll let them just deal with their hurt feelings i.e the consequences of "microaggressions". Its character building. As for outright discrimination and violence we have laws for that.
Microaggressions aren't character building, they tend to be the most common way racism and sexism are expressed by most people and they create cultures that alienate and attack the validity of people of different races, genders, etc. If you are curious for more, this a decent article from the APA about microaggressions that covers some basics: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2009/02/microaggression.aspx
I think I'll let them just deal with their hurt feelings i.e the consequences of "microaggressions". Its character building.
Except that it's not character building. It's not helpful and it's not good for people. It's harmful and doesn't help people. The original article refers to it taking a lot of courage and work to consistently out themselves. What makes you think consistently putting those barriers up where people need to come out is helpful? Punching someone's arm every hour will not make them stronger, and consistently presuming gay people don't exist won't help gay people.
Do you still want to do it, even if it turns out you're actually hurting people?
Gay marriage is legal in only a few states. At the federal level it is explicitly excluded from the "full faith and credit" clause of the constitution. And in most states it is expressly illegal. More so, in some states homosexual acts are technically illegal and in theory punishable by jail time. There are a lot of folks who are extremely anti-gay. Who are publicly against not just gay marriage but the "gay lifestyle" and the very existence and/or acceptance of homosexuality. Not to mention friends and family members. According to statistics, as a gay man or woman you'd have roughly the same chance as a coin flip for each one of your friends or family on whether or not they would accept your homosexuality and consider it "morally acceptable". Those aren't the best odds.
It's still not statistically normal, and it's still not immediately obvious. So there's always going to be a point where you tell people, and there's always the possibility of an off reaction, like when you mention that you have an unusual hobby.
Add to that the fact that there's still a lot of judgement, and for some people it's easier to handle in a single conversation with everyone, and I think the coming out will be with us for some time yet.
Why does it matter if it's statistically normal, or obvious? Why is there a point when you have to tell people? It seems counter to the equal rights argument.
A good friend of mine, living in SF, recently came out to his parents who live in suburban Colorado.
His mom asked him the typical questions--"Are you sure? Have you tried dating girls? Are you sure you just haven't met the right one?" while his dad set quietly at the table.
Then all of his sudden his dad broke into a yelling rage, in the middle of a packed brunch place, accused his son of being scrawny because of AIDS, and stormed out of the place.
You really need to stop a second and try to see things from different perspectives.
I'm pretty sure that's not was what meant by GP. The story wasn't told so we would empathize with the shouting dad but so we'd be reminded of the son's situation.
If you've been hiding it for a long time because you're worried about the response you might get, then at some point you decide to tell others, then it's going to happen that way.
And across a lot of the world, even in 2013, there's still a lot of negativity about homosexuality.
Sharing information about yourself is always a good idea and big news is often shared with a group of people. For instance when I decided to be a programmer I told everyone I could because it was a big thing for me. Later I learned that in order to avoid discrimination I had to describe myself as a software developer...
The point is that some people that come out may face immediate discrimination and possibly physical violence. Not everyone is tolerant of someone being gay and some of those people will take actions to fuck you over if you come out. Because of this, some people do not want to reveal that information and they have a right to do so.
I'm not so sure this advice is generally applicable. At the same time, I understand the author probably doesn't mean for it to be, but maybe that is a problem with the inherent vagueness of language. I don't care to do philosophy of language here.
When I behave as I truly am, stuff like this applies:
[quote]
b) Poor Understanding of Social Situations:
Their good verbal skills enable adults with WS to initiate superficial social contacts. However, they tend to lack understanding of the underlying, 'unwritten' rules governing all types of social intercourse. They are often too open, direct or personal in their interactions with others, and do not recognize the social constraints that would be apparent to other people in the same situation. In other cases their social naivetŽ and lack of inhibition can lead them to tell tales or to say things that might hurt or embarrass other people. Such behaviour is rarely intentional or malicious, but occurs because the individual may not understand the social implications of his or her utterances. Similarly, adults with WS will not hesitate to try and gain other peoples' attention with comments and questions, or to reprimand others. Consequently they may give the impression of being rude, bossy or attention seeking, which again may antagonize others if they are not fore-warned.
-- ADULTS WITH WILLIAMS SYNDROME: GUIDELINES FOR EMPLOYERS & SUPERVISORS By Orlee Udwin, Mark Davies, Chris Stinton & Patricia Howlin
[/quote]
Generally I get asked if I'm stoned or something like this, when I'm only trying to be myself. And if I tell people about my Williams (like my heart conditions and other obvious elfish features, including psychological), it doesn't matter how much truth or scientific backing or reading I bring to the table. Given the linguistic problematic of Williams, everyone just gets frustrated since there is the unfortunate problem that if you self-diagnose, and talk about it, you have to present symptoms/evidence/whatever-makes-you-think-you're-X in a sequential fashion.
I'm learning that this hypermetropolitan-supraurban lifestyle is too fast-paced for a conversational exchange where Demonstration is feasible in conversation. It's like presenting evidence has been restricted to purely scientific settings. It's unfortunate.
So many people missing the point of the gay analogy in this thread and once again, at the mere hint of the concept of privilege, people race to get defensive and shut their ears before even understanding the issue at play; further showing that people continue to have knee-jerk reactions to the phrase "privilege" just as some think that "feminism" = "hates men" instead of "wants gender equality".
To explain further, there's two issues:
1. That my sexuality is a topic that I constantly have to correct people on. It hurts because of internalized homophobia from two decades of growing up in the Midwest. It hurts because it's a constant reminder that I'm a minority and that people make incorrect assumptions about me. It hurts because it's annoying. I had a friend that would introduce me as "DriveBy, my gay friend". That's the sort of feeling I get when I have to stop and say "No, I'm gay". Hell, I even have some awkward feeling when it's someone I suspect is homophobic because I don't want to make them uneasy.
2. When I correct people on my sexuality, I've challenged their assumptions. I've changed their perspective and reminded them that not everyone is straight, even the people that "oh my god, I never would have guessed". This isn't about "shoving sexuality in peoples' faces". It's not about evangelizing LGBT issues every day just to force it.
"Last week, the pest control guy came to the door. "Are you Mr. Smith?" he says. "No, I'm Mr. Pallotta, Mr. Smith's partner," I reply. "Partner?" he asks. I'm being questioned in my own home. "Yes, partner," I answer. "We're a gay couple." "Oh," he says, trying to process this and maintain his composure."
The writer assumes that because the pest control guy doesn't immediately grasp the context of the word "partner" and questions it that he's being interrogated. Then he assumes that the pest control guys is somehow disturbed by the open admission of sexuality and is trying to maintain composure.
There's a good chance these perceived slights are in Mr. Pallotta's head; he's misinterpreting the pest control guy's confusion as some type of muted bigotry.
There's a lot of ambiguity when the word "partner" is used. I run a business with a partner, so when someone says they're someone's partner, my brain assumes it's meant in a business context because that's the world I spend 95% of my time in.
When I'm informed otherwise, I'm sure there's a noticeable hesitation as my brain processes the change of context from business to relational and re-establishes the rules of social interaction from "this is so-and-so's business partner" to "this is so-and-so's significant other." It's definitely not because I'm "disturbed by the open admission of sexuality and am trying to maintain composure."