Being out and proud
Posted: January 2, 2012 at 6:10 pm | Tags: bisexuality, lgbtiq, personal identity, polyamory, privilegeI have discussed this on my poly blog (which will one day be migrated to here) before, that it is rare to have a negative experience when I out myself as either poly or queer these days. Now there are many reasons for that, some of which are internal and some external (white, middle class, cis-female, able bodied privilege ahoy). Oh and the fact that I get to choose my audience also plays a large part. It is rare that I am outed and feel that I have to justify myself and my choices – though that happens from time to time.
There is a big difference in power between telling someone something in an environment in which you are comfortable and have an expectation of the reaction and having someone else tell someone with the potential for accusation, interrogation and a negative reaction, not to mention real and actual harm. I don’t go around telling people I know who will react badly because I don’t want to waste the energy on ameliorating that reaction and any relationships that may be impacted. Though sometimes I am tempted to be evil and tell people so they go away and leave me alone – sadly those situations are usually ones where my parents would be impacted instead of me and I don’t think that’s fair on them.
