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This document discusses the oppression faced by queer individuals and communities. It argues that queer people must fight for their rights and freedom through force if necessary, as straight people will not give these up voluntarily. It portrays straight people as the enemy who actively work to eliminate queer people through a culture that kills them. The document calls on queer people to take pride in who they are and to transform all spaces into queer spaces of pleasure, desire, and satisfaction.
Исходное описание:
was distributed at the June 1990 Pride March in New York City and was written by anonymous queers.
This document discusses the oppression faced by queer individuals and communities. It argues that queer people must fight for their rights and freedom through force if necessary, as straight people will not give these up voluntarily. It portrays straight people as the enemy who actively work to eliminate queer people through a culture that kills them. The document calls on queer people to take pride in who they are and to transform all spaces into queer spaces of pleasure, desire, and satisfaction.
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Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
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Скачайте в формате PDF, TXT или читайте онлайн в Scribd
This document discusses the oppression faced by queer individuals and communities. It argues that queer people must fight for their rights and freedom through force if necessary, as straight people will not give these up voluntarily. It portrays straight people as the enemy who actively work to eliminate queer people through a culture that kills them. The document calls on queer people to take pride in who they are and to transform all spaces into queer spaces of pleasure, desire, and satisfaction.
Авторское право:
Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Доступные форматы
Скачайте в формате PDF, TXT или читайте онлайн в Scribd
|C |||dc mc|c| |n |cv `c|| C||,. Ancn,mc: occ|: c!!c| |||: |cpb||cc||cn c! CEER5 REA0 THl5 c: c ccn|||b||cn |c ||c m||||cn| occ| |cndcnc,. \c c|c cxc||cd |c !|nd c |cx| c|mc:| C ,cc|: c|d ||c| :c c|cocn||, cxp|c::c: ||c dccp cnqc| cnd ||c dc:||c !c| ccn!||c| ||c| vc !cc| cvc|, dc, ||v|nq |n c :||c|q|| vc||d. |c c||c|: dc!|nc :||c|q||nc:: c: d|!!c|cn| !|cm |c|c|c:cxc|||,. o||c|q||nc:: |: c !c|cc |n ||c vc||d cnd |n:|dc ccc| c! : ||c| vc m:| p|qc |p. o||c|q||nc:: |: nc|mc|||,. |c nc|m !c| occ| pccp|c |: |c |c|c cpp|c::|cn |,|nq dcvn. |c:c c||c|: |qc : |c !|q|| bcc|. |c, c:| v|,, v|cn vc c|c bc|nq bc:|cd cnd ||||cd, vc !|cc| c| c| cnq|, occ|: v|c cc||, bcnnc|: ||c| :c, BAo| BAC| |p|o. C! cc|:c, vc cc|d nc| cq|cc mc|c. C|||c| |c!c|cncc: |n |||: |cc!|c| c|c, c| ||mc:, c|dc|cd, b| ||c |cqc |: ||mc|c::. \c |cpc ,c cn|c,. |,, CC How can I te you. How can I convnce you, brother, sster that your fe s n danger: That everyday you wake up ave, reatvey happy, and a functonng human beng, you are commttng a rebeous act. You as an ave and functonng queer are a revoutonary. There s nothng on ths panet that vadates, protects or encourages your exstence. It s a mrace you are standng here readng these words. You shoud by a rghts be dead. Don't be fooed, straght peope own the word and the ony reason you have been spared s you're smart, ucky or a fghter. Straght peope have a prvege that aows them to do whatever they pease and fuck wthout fear. But not ony do they ve a fe free of fear; they faunt ther freedom n my face. Ther mages are on my TV, n the magazne I bought, n the restaurant I want to eat n, and on the street where I ve. I want there to be a moratorum on straght marrage, on babes, on pubc dspays of affecton among the opposte sex and meda mages that promote heterosexuaty. Unt I can en|oy the same freedom of movement and sexuaty, as straghts, ther prvege must stop and t must be gven over to me and my queer ssters and brothers. Straght peope w not do ths vountary and so they must be forced nto t. Straghts must be frghtened nto t. Terrorzed nto t. Fear s the most powerfu motvaton. No one w gve us what we deserve. Rghts are not gven they are taken, by force f necessary. It s easer to fght when you know who your enemy s. Straght peope are your enemy. They are your enemy when they don't acknowedge your nvsbty and contnue to ve n and contrbute to a cuture that ks you. Every day one of us s taken by the enemy. Whether t's an AIDS death due to homophobc government nacton or a esban bashng n an a-nght dner (n a supposedy esban neghborhood). 1 AN ARMY OF LOVERS CANNOT LOSE Beng queer s not about a rght to prvacy; t s about the freedom to be pubc, to |ust be who we are. It means everyday fghtng oppresson; homophoba, racsm, msogyny, the bgotry of regous hypocrtes and our own sef-hatred. (We have been carefuy taught to hate ourseves.) And now of course t means fghtng a vrus as we, and a those homo-haters who are usng AIDS to wpe us off the face of the earth. Beng queer means eadng a dfferent sort of fe. It's not about the manstream, proft-margns, patrotsm, patrarchy or beng assmated. It's not about executve drectors, prvege and etsm. It's about beng on the margns, defnng ourseves; t's about gender-fuck and secrets, what's beneath the bet and deep nsde the heart; t's about the nght. Beng queer s "grass roots" because we know that everyone of us, every body, every cunt, every heart and ass and dck s a word of peasure watng to be expored. Everyone of us s a word of nfnte possbty. We are an army because we have to be. We are an army because we are so powerfu. (We have so much to fght for; we are the most precous of endangered speces.) And we are an army of overs because t s we who know what ove s. Desre and ust, too. We nvented them. We come out of the coset, face the re|ecton of socety, face frng squads, |ust to ove each other! Every tme we fuck, we wn. We must fght for ourseves (no one ese s gong to do t) and f n that process we brng greater freedom to the word at arge then great. (We've gven so much to that word: democracy, a the arts, the concepts of ove, phosophy and the sou, to name |ust a few gfts from our ancent Greek Dykes, Fags.) Let's make every space a Lesban and Gay space. Every street a part of our sexua geography. A cty of yearnng and then tota satsfacton. A cty and a country where we can be safe and free and more. We must ook at our ves and see what's best n them, see what s queer and what s straght and et that straght chaff fa away! Remember there s so, so tte tme. And I want to be a over of each and every one of you. Next year, we march naked. 2
ANGER The strong sisters told the brothers that there were two important things to remember about the coming revolutions. The first is that we will get our asses kicked. The second, is that we will win. l'm angry. I'm angry for beng condemned to death by strangers sayng, "You deserve to de" and "AIDS s the cure." Fury erupts when a Repubcan woman wearng thousands of doars of garments and |ewery mnces by the poce nes shakng her head, chuckng and waggng her fnger at us ke we are recactrant chdren makng absurd demands and throwng temper tantrum when they aren't met. Angry whe |oseph agonzes over $8,000 a over for AZT whch mght keep hm ave a tte onger and whch makes hm scker than the dsease he s dagnosed wth. Angry as I sten to a man te me that after changng hs w fve tmes he's runnng out of peope to eave thngs to. A of hs best frends are dead. Angry when stand n a sea of qut panes, or go to a candeght march or attend yet another memora servce. I w not march senty wth a fuckng cande and I want to take that goddamned qut and wrap mysef n t and furousy rend t and my har and curse every god regon ever created. I refuse to accept a creaton that cuts peope down n the thrd decade of ther fe. It s crue and ve and meanngess and everythng I have n me ras aganst the absurdty and I rase my face to the couds and a ragged augh that sounds more demonc than |oyous erupts from my throat and tears stream down my face and f ths dsease doesn't k me, I may |ust de of frustraton. My feet pound the streets and Peter's hands are chaned to a pharmaceutca company's recepton desk whe the receptonst ooks on n horror and Erc's body es rottng n a Brookyn cemetery and I' never hear hs fute resoundng off the was of the meetng house agan. And I see the od peope n Tompkns Square Park hudded n ther ong woo coats n |une to keep out the cod they perceve s there and to cng to whatever tte fe has eft to offer them. I'm remnded of the peope who strp and stand before a mrror each nght before they go to bed and search ther bodes for any mark that mght not have been there yesterday. A mark that ths scourge has vsted them. __________________________________________________ *AZT: azdothymdne s an ant-retrovra drug to suppress HIV. 3 And I'm angry when the newspapers ca us "vctms" and sound aarmed that "t" mght soon spread to the "genera popuaton." And I want to scream "Who the fuck am I?" And I want to scream at New York Hospta wth ts yeow pastc bags marked "soaton nen / ropa nfeccosa" and ts orderes n atex goves and surgca masks skrtng the bed as f ts occupant w suddeny eap out and douse them wth bood and semen gvng them too the pague. And I'm angry at straght peope who st smugy wrapped n ther sef-protectve coat of monogamy and heterosexuaty, confdent that ths dsease has nothng to do wth them because "t" ony happens to "them." And the teenage boys who upon spottng my 5ilence=Death button begn chantng "Faggot's gonna de" and I wonder, who taught them ths? Enveoped n fury and fear, I reman sent whe my button mocks me every step of the way. And the anger I fee when a teevson program on the qut gves profes of the dead and the st begns wth a baby, a teenage gr who got a bood transfuson, an edery baptst mnster and hs wfe and when they fnay show a gay man, he's descrbed as someone who knowngy nfected teenage mae prosttutes wth the vrus. What ese can you expect from a faggot? I'm angry. OUEER ARTISTS Snce tme began, the word has been nspred by the work of queer artsts. In exchange, there has been sufferng, there has been pan, there has been voence. Throughout hstory, socety has struck a bargan wth ts queer ctzens: they may pursue creatve careers, f they do t dscreety. Through the arts queers are productve, ucratve, entertanng and even upftng. These are the cear-cut and usefu by-products of what s otherwse consdered antsoca behavor. In cutured crces, queers may quety coexst wth an otherwse dsapprovng power ete. At the forefront of the most recent campagn to bash queer artsts s |esse Hems 1 , arbter of a that s decent, mora, Chrstan and Amerkan. For Hems, queer art s qute smpy a threat to the word. In hs magnngs, heterosexua cuture s too frage to bear up to the admsson of human or sexua dversty. Oute smpy, the structure of power n the |udeo-Chrstan word has made procreaton ts cornerstone. Fames havng chdren assures consumers for the naton's products and a work force to produce them, as we as a but-n famy system to care for ts , reducng the expense of pubc heathcare systems. ALL NON-PROCREATIVE BEHAVIOR IS CONSIDERED A THREAT, from homosexuaty to brth contro to aborton as an opton. It s not enough, accordng to the regous rght, to consstenty advertse procreaton and heterosexuaty... t s aso necessary to destroy any aternatves. It s not art Hems s after... IT IS OUR LIVES! Art s the ast safe pace for esbans and gay men to thrve. Hems knows ths, and has deveoped a program to purge queers from the one arena they have been permtted to contrbute to our shared cuture. Hems s advocatng a word free from dversty or dssent. It s easy to magne why that mght fee more comfortabe to those n charge of such a word. It s aso easy to envson an Amerkan andscape fattened by such power. Hems shoud |ust ask for what he s hntng at: State sponsored art, art of totataransm, art that speaks ony n Chrstan terms, art whch supports the goas of those n power, art that matches the sofas n the Ova Offce. Ask for what you want, |esse, so that men and women of conscence can mobze aganst t, as we do aganst the human rghts voatons of other countres, and fght to free our own country's dssdents. 5
IF YOU'RE OUEER, ueers are under sege. Oueers are beng attacked on a fronts and I'm afrad t's ok wth us. In 1989, there were 50 "Oueer Bashngs" n the month of May aone -voent attacks. 3,720 men, women and chdren ded of AIDS n the same month, caused by a more voent attack-government nacton, rooted n socety's growng homophoba. Ths s nsttutonazed voence, perhaps more dangerous to the exstence of queers because the attackers are faceess. We aow these attacks by our own contnued ack of acton aganst them. AIDS has affected the straght word and now they're bamng us for AIDS and usng t as a way to |ustfy ther voence aganst us. 2 They don't want us anymore. They w beat us, rape us and k us before they w contnue to ve wth us. What w t take for ths not to be ok? Fee some rage. If rage doesn't empower you, try fear. If that doesn't work, try panc. SHOUT IT! Be proud. Do whatever you need to do to tear yoursef away from your customary state of acceptance. Be free. Shout. In 1969, Oueers fought back. In 1990, Oueers say ok. Next year, w we be here? 6 I HATE ... l hate |esse Hems. I hate |esse Hems so much I'd re|oce f he dropped down dead. If someone ked hm I'd consder t hs own faut. I hate Ronad Reagan, too, because he mass-murdered my peope for eght years. But to be honest, I hate hm even more for euogzng Ryan Whte 3 wthout frst admttng hs gut, wthout beggng forgveness for Ryan's death and for the deaths of tens of thousands of other PWA's*-most of them queer. I hate hm for makng a mockery of our gref. I hate the fuckng Pope, and I hate |ohn fuckng Cardna fuckng O'Connor, and I hate the whoe fuckng Cathoc Church. The same goes for the Mtary, and especay for Amerka's Law Enforcement Offcas-the cops-state-sanctoned sadsts who brutaze street transvesttes, prosttutes and queer prsoners. _____________________ *PWA's: Peope Wth AIDS 7 I aso hate the medca and menta heath estabshments, partcuary the psychatrst who convnced me not to have sex wthmen for three years unt we (meanng he) coud make me bsexua rather than queer. I aso hate the educaton professon, for ts share n drvng thousands of queer teens to sucde every year. I hate the "respectabe" art word; and the entertanment ndustry, and the manstream meda, especay The New York Tmes. In fact, I hate every sector of the straght estabshment n ths country-the worst of whom actvey want a queers dead, the best of whom never stck ther necks out to keep us ave. I hate straght peope who thnk they have anythng ntegent to say about "outng." I hate straght peope who thnk stores about themseves are "unversa" but stores about us are ony about homosexuaty. I hate straght recordng artsts who make ther careers off of queer peope, then attack us, then act hurt when we get angry and then deny havng wronged us rather than apoogze for t. I hate straght peope who say, "I don't see why you fee the need to wear those buttons and t-shrts. I don't go around teng the whoe word I'm straght." I hate that n tweve years of pubc educaton I was never taught about queer peope. I hate that I grew up thnkng I was the ony queer n the word, and I hate even more that most queer kds st grow up the same way. I hate that I was tormented by other kds for beng a faggot, but more that I was taught to fee ashamed for beng the ob|ect of ther cruety, taught to fee t was my faut. I hate that the Supreme Court of ths country says t's okay to crmnaze me because of how I make ove. 4 I hate that so many straght peope are so concerned about my goddamned sex fe. I hate that so many twsted straght peope become parents, whe I have to fght ke he to be aowed to be a father. I hate straghts. 8 WHERE ARE YOU SISTERS? l wear my pnk trange everywhere. I do not ower my voce n pubc when takng about esban ove or sex. I aways te peope I'm a esban. I don't wat to be asked about my "boyfrend." I don't say t's "no one's busness." I don't do ths for straght peope. Most of them don't know what the pnk trange even means. Most of them coudn't care ess that my grfrend and I are totay n ove or havng a fght on the street. Most of them don't notce us no matter what we do. I do what I do to reach other esbans. I do what I do because I don't want esbans to assume I'm a straght gr. I am out a the tme, everywhere, because I WANT TO REACH YOU. Maybe you' notce me, maybe we' start takng, maybe we' exchange numbers, maybe we' become frends. Maybe we won't say a word but our eyes w meet and I w magne you naked, sweatng, openmouthed, your back arched as I am fuckng you. And we' be happy to know we aren't the ony ones n the word. We' be happy because we found each other, wthout sayng a word, maybe |ust for a moment. But no. You won't wear a pnk trange on that nen ape. You won't meet my eyes f I frt wth you on the street. You avod me on the |ob because I'm "too" out. You chastse me n bars because I'm "too potca." You gnore me n pubc because I brng "too much" attenton to "my" esbansm. But then you want me to be your over, you want me to be your frend, you want me to ove you, support, you, fght for "OUR" rght to exst. WHERE ARE YOU? You tak, tak, tak about nvsbty and then retreat to your homes to nest wth your overs or carouse n a bar wth pas and stumbe home n a cab or st senty and potey by whe your famy, your boss, your neghbors, your pubc servants dstort and dsfgure us, derde us and punsh us. Then home agan and you fee ke screamng. Then you pad your anger wth a reatonshp or a career or a party wth other dykes ke you and st you wonder why we can't fnd each other, why you fee oney, angry, aenated. 9 GET UP, WAKE UP SISTERS!! Your fe s n your hands. When I rsk t a to be out, I rsk t for both of us. When I rsk t a and t works (whch t often does f you woud try t), I beneft and so do you. When t doesn't work, I suffer and you do not. But gr you can't wat for other dykes to make the word safe for you. STOP watng for a better more esban future! The revouton coud be here f we started t. Where are you ssters? I'm tryng to fnd you, I'm tryng to fnd you. How come I ony see you on Gay Prde Day? We're OUT, Where the fuck are YOU? WHEN ANYONE ASSAULTS YOU FOR BEING OUEER, IT IS OUEER BASHING. RIGHT? A crowd of 50 peope ext a gay bar as t coses. Across the street, some straght boys are shoutng "Faggots" and throwng beer bottes at the gatherng, whch outnumbers them by 10 to 1. Three queers make a move to respond, gettng no support from the group. Why dd a group ths sze aow themseves to be sttng ducks? Tompkns Square Park, Labor Day. At an annua outdoor concert/drag show, a group of gay men were harassed by teens carryng stcks. In the mdst of thousands of gay men and esbans, these straght boys beat two gay men to the ground, then stood around trumphanty aughng amongst themseves. The emcee was aerted and warned the crowd from the stage, "You grs be carefu. When you dress up t drves the boys crazy," as f t were a practca |oke nspred by what the vctms were wearng rather than a ponted attack on anyone and everyone at that event. What woud t have taken for that crowd to stand up to ts attackers? 5 10 After |ames Zappaort, an openy gay man, was murdered n cod bood on Staten Isand ths wnter, a snge demonstraton was hed n protest. Ony one hundred peope came. When Yuseuf Hawkns, a back youth, was shot to death for beng on "whte turf" n Bensonhurst, Afrcan Amercans marched through that neghborhood n arge numbers agan and agan. 6 A back person was ked BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK, and peope of coor throughout the cty recognzed t and acted on t. The buet that ht Hawkns was meant for a back man, ANY back man. Do most gays and esbans thnk that the knfe that punctured Zappaort's heart was meant ony for hm? The straght word has us so convnced that we are hepess and deservng vctms of the voence aganst us, that queers are mmobzed when faced wth a threat. BE OUTRAGED! These attacks must not be toerated. DO SOMETHING. Recognze that any act of aggresson aganst any member of our communty s an attack on every member of the communty. The more we aow homophobes to nfct voence, terror and fear on our ves, the more frequenty and ferocousy we w be the ob|ect of ther hatred. You're mmeasuraby vauabe, because uness you start beevng that, t can easy be taken from you. If you know how to genty and effcenty mmobze your attacker, then by a means, do t. If you ack those sks, then thnk about gougng out hs fuckng eyes, sammng hs nose back nto hs bran, sashng hs throat wth a broken botte-do whatever you can, whatever you have to, to save your fe! reeuO yhW ueer! Ah, do we reay have to use that word? It's troube. Every gay person has hs or her own take on t. For some t means strange and eccentrc and knd of mysterous. That's okay, we ke that. But some gay grs and boys don't. They thnk they're more norma than strange. And for others "queer" con|ures up those awfu memores of adoescent sufferng. Oueer. It's forcby bttersweet and quant at best-weakenng and panfu at worst. Coudn't we |ust use "gay" nstead? It's a much brghter word and sn't t synonymous wth "happy"? When w you mtants grow up and get over the novety of beng dfferent? 11
WHY OUEER We, yes, "gay " s great. It has ts pace. But when a ot of esbans and gay men wake up n the mornng we fee angry and dsgusted, not gay. So we've chosen to ca ourseves queer. Usng "queer" s a way of remndng us how we are perceved by the rest of the word. It's a way of teng ourseves we don't have to be wtty and charmng peope who keep our ves dscreet and margnazed n the straght word. We use queer as gay men ovng esbans and esbans ovng beng queer. Oueer, unke GAY, doesn't mean MALE. And when spoken to other gays and esbans t's a way of suggestng we cose ranks, and forget (temporary) our ndvdua dfferences because we face a more nsdous common enemy. Yeah, OUEER can be a rough word but t s aso a sy and ronc weapon we can stea from the homophobe's hands and use aganst hm. NO SEX POLICE For anyone to say that comng out s not part of the revouton s mssng the pont. Postve sexua mages and what they manfest saves ves because they affrm those ves and make t possbe for peope to attempt to ve as sef-ovng nstead of sef- oathng. As the famous "Back s beautfu" sogan changed many ves, so does "Read my ps" affrm queerness n the face of hatred and nvsbty as dspayed n a recent governmenta study of sucdes that states at east one thrd of a teen sucdes are Oueer kds. Ths s further exempfed by the rse n HIV transmsson among those under 21. We are most hated as queers for our sexuaness, that s, our physca contact wth the same sex. Our sexuaty and sexua expresson are what makes us most susceptbe to physca voence. Our dfference, our otherness, our unqueness can ether parayze us or potcze us. Hopefuy, the ma|orty of us w not et t k us. 12
OUEER SPACE Why n the word do we et heteros nto queer cubs? Who gves a fuck f they ke us because we "reay know how to party?" WE HAVE TO IN ORDER TO BLOW OFF THE STEAM THEY MAKE US FEEL ALL THE TIME! They make out wherever they pease, and take up too much room on the dance foor dong ostentatous coupes dances. They wear ther heterosexuaty ke a "Keep Out" sgn, or ke a deed of ownershp. Why the fuck do we toerate them when they nvade our space ke t's ther rght? Why do we et them shove heterosexuaty-a weapon ther word weds aganst us-rght n our faces n the few pubc spots where we can be sexy wth each other and not fear attack? It's tme to stop ettng the straght peope make a the rues. Let's start by postng ths sgn outsde every queer cub and bar: RULES OF CONDUCT FOR STRAlGHT PEOPLE 1. Keep your dspay of affecton (kssng, handhodng, embracng) to a mnmum. Your sexuaty s unwanted and offensive to many here. 2. If you must sow dance, be as nconspcuous as possbe. 3. Do not gawk or stare at esbans or gay men, especay bu dykes or drag queens. We are not your entertanment. 4. If you cannot comfortaby dea wth someone of the same sex makng a pass at you, get out. 5. Do not faunt your heterosexuaty. Be Discreet. Rsk beng mstaken for a ezze or a homo. 6. If you fee these rues are unfar, go fght homophoba n straght cubs, or: 7. Go Fuck Yourself. 13
I HATE STRAIGHTS l have frends. Some of them are straght. Year after year, I see my straght frends. I want to see them, to see how they are dong, to add newness to our ong and compcated hstores, to experence some contnuty. Year after year I contnue to reaze that the facts of my fe are rreevant to them and that I am ony haf stened to, that I am an appendage to the dongs of a greater word, a word of power and prvege, of the aws of nstaaton, a word of excuson. "That's not true," argue my straght frends. There s the one certanty n the potcs of power: those eft out of t beg for ncuson, whe the nsders cam that they aready are. Men do t to women, whtes do t to backs, and everyone does t to queers. The man dvdng ne, both conscous and unconscous, s procreaton ... and that magc word --- Famy. Frequenty, the ones we are born nto dsown us when they fnd out who we reay are, and to make matters worse, we are prevented from havng our own. We are punshed, nsuted, cut off, and treated ke sedtonares n terms of chd rearng, both damned f we try and damned f we abstan. It's as f the propagaton of the speces s such a frage drectve that wthout enforcng t as f t were an agenda, humanknd woud met back nto the prmeva ooze. I hate havng to convnce straght peope that esbans and gays ve n a war zone, that we're surrounded by bomb basts ony we seem to hear, that our bodes and sous are heaped hgh, dead from frght or bashed or raped, dyng of gref or dsease, strpped of our personhood. I hate straght peope who can't sten to queer anger wthout sayng "hey, a straght peope aren't ke that. I'm straght too, you know," as f ther egos don't get enough strokng or protecton n ths arrogant, heterosexst word. Why must we take care of them, n the mdst of our |ust anger brought on by ther fucked up socety?! Why add the reassurance of "Of course, I don't mean you. You don't act that way." Let them fgure out for themseves whether they deserve to be ncuded n our anger. 14 But of course that woud mean stenng to our anger, whch they amost never do. They defect t, by sayng "I'm not ke that" or "Now ook who's generazng" or "You' catch more fes wth honey... " or "If you focus on the negatve you |ust gve out more power" or "you're not the ony one n the word who's sufferng." They say "Don't ye at me, I'm on your sde" or "I thnk you're overreactng" or "BOY, YOU'RE BITTER." They've taught us that good queers don't get mad. They've taught us so we that we not ony hde our anger from them, we hde t from each other. WE EVEN HIDE IT FROM OURSELVES. We hde t wth substance abuse and sucde and overachevng n the hope of provng our worth. They bash us and stab us and shoot us and bomb us n ever ncreasng numbers and st we freak out when angry queers carry banners or sgns that say BASH BACK. For the ast decade they et us de n droves and st we thank Presdent Bush for pantng a fuckng tree, appaud hm for kenng PWAs to car accdent vctms who refuse to wear seatbets. LET YOURSELF BE ANGRY. Let yoursef be angry that the prce of our vsbty s the constant threat of voence, ant- queer voence to whch practcay every segment of ths socety contrbutes. Let yoursef fee angry that THERE IS NO PLACE IN THIS COUNTRY WHERE WE ARE SAFE, no pace where we are not targeted for hatred and attack, the sef-hatred, the sucde --- of the coset. The next tme some straght person comes down on you for beng angry, te them that unt thngs change, you don't need any more evdence that the word turns at your expense. You don't need to see ony hetero coupe grocery shoppng on your TV... You don't want any more baby pctures shoved n your face unt you can have or keep your own. No more weddngs, showers, annversares, pease, uness they are our own brothers and ssters ceebratng. 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