Sunday, July 21, 2013

< Rant >

Before I vent a bit, let's be clear.  Yes, I am a feminist.  And if you're concerned, no, I do not hate men.

But.  To the people out there who are prone to hitting on women I have to say...  Gas stations are NOT the place to pick up women.  Neither is any place or situation where a woman has already made her disinterest clear.  Is it really too much to ask that we can leave home, run errands, and go about our business without being harassed??  

A quote I love from A Dress A Day: "You Don't Have to Be Pretty. You don't owe prettiness to anyone. Not to your boyfriend/spouse/partner, not to your co-workers, especially not to random men on the street. You don't owe it to your mother, you don't owe it to your children, you don't owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked 'female.' "  I think the same goes for a lot of other things.  Just because I am female does not mean I owe you my name, my age, or my relationship status.  I do not owe you gratitude for your "compliments."  I do not owe you a conversation at all.  And if you're demanding any of those things, it's not me who's being rude, it's you.

This is not to say you shouldn't strike up conversations with strangers.  On the contrary, I enjoy when people do that!  There's a lot to be said for intentions though, for people who take a genuine interest in me as a person, and for conversations that revolve around something other than me and my appearance.  If I can't tell whether you're being creepy or not, that's not really in your favor.  Gahhh.

</Rant>

Friday, July 19, 2013

Pink Menno & Hope

I thoroughly enjoyed being at convention with Pink Menno.  I had the flexibility to float around to various events and seminars I found interesting, plus the chance to try my hand at the Mennonite game and to make some new Pink Menno friends.  Pink Menno had a lot going on throughout the week: hymn sings, inclusive worship services, and seminars on the intersection of various forms of oppression, to name a few.  Since Pink Menno was once again not allowed in official convention space, these events were held at a nearby hotel in a room that also served as our meeting/hangout spot.

The convention itself did host conversation rooms on human sexuality and sexual orientation.  These were facilitated discussion spaces that helped keep conversations civil by laying ground rules and requiring small group members to paraphrase each other's comments before responding.  To my surprise, the group I was a part of in the conversation room on sexual orientation was more or less on the same page about wanting inclusion of LGBTQ people in the church.  Other groups were more varied, and it was good to get the conversation started among all of us who were there.  One queer friend of mine did say that while the conversation in his group was civil, it felt a little ludicrous to be sitting there hearing opinions on his sexuality, "as if we were discussing how they felt about me being white."

Pink Menno had good turnout to our events, and quite a few people were turned away from the sexual orientation conversation room after it filled up.  Not everyone who showed up to our events agreed with our stance, and there was at least one instance of (literal) Bible-waving.  Most dissenters just ignored us or gave us disapproving looks when we handed things out in the convention center.  At one point convention staff instructed us to leave the convention hall where we were handing out fliers with our schedule of events (none of our events being including in the official convention materials, of course).

As the week went on, Pink Menno leadership felt as if the church was getting a little too comfortable with our presence, that as long as we kept to ourselves and didn't cause a fuss they could tolerate us.  We don't really want to be tolerated and eventually ignored though.  So on Friday we did an action during the morning delegate session.  We trickled one by one into the delegate space, some of us carrying photos from the Strangers No More project or posters using quotes from sermons throughout the week (like this one using a quote from Rachel Swartzendruber Miller during one of the youth worships: " 'You matter; you're an equal.'  BUT I can't be ordained as a pastor in the church."), and all of us wearing pink.  We stood amid the delegates for several minutes and then were given the chance to make a statement.  The moderator, Dick Thomas, made a thoughtful reply, and then we all sat down for the remainder of the delegate session as a sign of respect for the discussion of the resolution on immigration.  It felt really good to be more public with our hopes and frustrations within the church and to be able to do it in a conscientious way.  All the feedback I heard after the action was positive!

There is most definitely a lot of work still to do.  Too many LGBTQ people still can't come out to their own communities.  Another gay teen committed suicide this past week.  It's great that we reached youth at convention who had never before heard that it might just be ok to love queer people, but the fact that they could make it to high school without having a clue that inclusion is even out there is worrisome.  So our small steps within the Mennonite Church are just that, very small.  Still, I was pleased by the progress I did see, and I'm hopeful for what's next.