So, I’ve had this on my mind a lot lately. I think it started when a friend of mine mentioned a GSA meeting she had been in, and their topic of conversation (being sexual fluidity). One of the meeting leaders had expressed the opinion that sexuality and gender expression is a fluid thing, and the other had disagreed with her, stating that you are attracted to what you’re attracted to and there is no changing that. My friend has brought this up to me and asked my opinion, and well, it’s got me thinking about this on a deeper level.

To start, my opinion on sexuality is that yes, I believe it’s fluid. It’s apart of growing and changing - you tastes are bound to differ with your experiences and as you learn more. My own sexuality has shifted and grown and changed as I’ve experienced life and grown and delved into learning the complexities of what the GLBTAQ (etc) community is. I have identified as straight, bisexual, lesbian, and then finally pansexual. I never felt like I was faking any of these things, it was how I identified that part of myself at the time, and it was what felt right for me at the period I was at.

However, I think all of the labels and all of the stigma not only the straight, but the GLBTQA community puts on sexuality and gender and sex itself is something that is completely counter-productive to their goal of “gay rights” (which is something else that I completely disagree with, but we’ll get to that later). It puts all of these complexities into something very simple: love between two people, love which is personal between those two people and is honestly, not something that anybody in the outside world should have a say in. Even the GLBTQA community, people are bound to tell you that you are wrong for loving the person you love. (like the meeting leader mentioned earlier who feels that pansexuality is a cop-out or a way to make something easier on the person involved) Say a lesbian meets a boy, and falls in love with him. People like that are bound to tell the lesbian in question that they were wrong with their choice of identifying themselves, which is ridiculous and completely counter-productive to acceptance of all people. It shouldn’t matter to anybody beyond the person or people it effects regardless. It’s none of your business what anybody identifies as, and putting so much stigma to have a label for your sexuality, your gender and even your sex makes it an almost negative thing for everybody. It simply shouldn’t matter. Who cares if you’re straight, gay, bisexual, transexual, queer, asexual, pansexual or fucking purple? You’re human. You are equal to every other human on this planet. You deserve to be loved, to be treated with respect and to be accepted for whoever it is you choose to be.

Which brings me to why I disagree with “gay rights.” There are two points about this that bother me intensely, and they are as follow:

Firstly, something that the GLBTQA community doesn’t seem to realize is that they demonize a lot of the Straight community as much as the Straight community demonizes them. The whole entire ordeal has changed the issue into a war of “us vs. them.” By hating homophobic or ignorant people, you are sending back the same negativity that they’re sending you. You’ve continued the cycle of hatred that you claim to be trying to stop. You’re keeping it a war by retaliating with a “fuck you, we’re here” attitude. The way I see it, the homophobic people and the ignorant people (etc.) are the people who need the most sympathy, for they can’t find it in their hearts to be accepting or sympathetic of a group of people who view the world differently than they do. Yelling, screaming, protesting and parading isn’t going to help people understand and accept (which, I agree, is something they should be doing anyways, but I’ll touch on that later) your point-of-view or your side of anything. It’s going to make them want to yell and scream back. And while it’s not fair, and believe me, I know it takes a lot of self-restraint not to yell back at somebody who is screaming at you and telling you that you do not deserve to be here, you need to. Respond in peace. With patience and acceptance. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar. The cycle needs to stop somewhere.

Secondly, the fact that gay rights is simply rights for the GLBTQA community. For a certain group of people - albeit oppressed people - to have simple, humane rights. What bothers me about that is that there are many humans out there - many humans who don’t fall into the GLBTQA community and therefore don’t fall under the ‘war’ they’re fighting, who are oppressed. Women who forced into slavery and abused, children who are made to fight wars and be pawns for the adults of their country. There are people who will be persecuted for simply believing what they choose, all because somebody decided that they were wrong somehow or lower than somebody else, rather than accepting them as human and beautiful. There is so much coverage over the “Us vs. Them” war between the GLBTQA community and the Straight community and so little for the other oppressed peoples of the world, and I feel like that is something we should all be fighting for (tooth and nail, as I believe this is the only cause really worth fighting for): equal rights for all humans, because we are all beautiful and we are all equal. None of us is above or below anybody else. As long as it’s not hurting the world or the people around us, of our beliefs, or cultures, our lifestyles, our decisions should be respected and accepted by the world around us as a whole. Because truly, it doesn’t matter. We’re all human, and we’re all here under the same sky. We’re all still learning, and still growing.

Simply put, I believe in acceptance of all people and equal rights for all of humanity as a whole.