[femmsational]

Originally Posted by Dance-with-me

I don't know how to write this without it possibly sounding snarky, so I'll just open by saying that I don't mean it that way at all.

But it's easy to say that you're not going to have anything to do with a specific general community when you have choices. When you don't have choices -- when one general community is pretty much all you've got -- you find yourself deciding that it's worth the effort to try and find the kindred spirits in that community, even though they're intermingled with the ones that you really want to avoid. If I want a social life here, I cannot keep myself fully separate from the ones who show their asses publicly because they are going to be at the only public events available to them or to me. I can ignore them, I can look for the ones who seem put off by them, but I can't separate myself from them.

And honestly? I wouldn't be doing this to say anything to them: Those folks will hopefully not come to a discussion like this. I'm hoping to do this quite specifically so that people who are NOT like that can identify themselves.

I'm wondering about why you feel so determined to be a part of this group of people??

I understand how it is to not have any *like* people around. We live in lower Alabama. We have either people who are gay who don't "approve" of us or straight people who don't "approve" of us. We stick with people who DO "approve." All our interactions of a personal matter are with straight people who have grown to know and love us for individuals. I mean, we know NOBODY here that is gay, of any gender. But that's ok......for US.

Do you need to be a part of this group?? Could you maybe find a few people who you click with and start with that? I understand wanting to change how people view things but I've learned that when I come in *trying* to change hearts and minds, it never works. Feelings get hurt and usually they are mine.

I try to find individuals and connect one on one. Maybe you could try to start smaller. If you keep putting yourself out there, and be true to who you are, you might just make more progress than you'd think. One of our best friends is a man who used to be a high ranking KKK member. By spending time with us, he's had some sort of awakening. He's our biggest chearleader and protector. All we did was speak our truth and we now have a serious supporter and a voter for gay marriage.


Don't try so hard. Unless for some reason you HAVE to. It would make me exhausted to try to change all those minds. PHEW!


Take Care,
julie