Thinking about it

[kitanzi]

I've been thinking more about the incident I posted about yesterday.



If anything relating to that comes up again, I will say something. I'll try to think out, generally, what I want to say in advance so I can try to be clear (and not stammer) but not accusatory or confrontational. I'll try to ask questions instead of make statements. I'll answer the inevitable question of whether I'm saying this because I am gay with the truth - I'm bi - rather than playing semantics games and saying no. (Though it would be literal truth, I'd feel that I was splitting hairs, and I doubt I'd sound convincing. I almost never am in that circumstance, because I feel like I'm lying, and I'd rather tell the full truth and believed than the half truth and be called a liar anyhow. Being poly is unlikely to come up - I'm pretty sure the concept just isn't in their world view.)

I don't know if it will come up any time soon, but we'll see. I feel better about it for having decided a personal policy. At previous jobs I've kept my mouth shut, but I've never heard this level of bile at any of them. I've always divided my home and work life fairly strictly that way (with a couple exceptions) and rationalized it as being no one's buisness. It's not their business - but just how angry that made me makes me realize it must have bothered me more than I thought. Maybe I'm changing, figuring out my own mind and growing up a bit more... maybe I'm just being stubborn. That wouldn't be anything new. Obviously, all this is subject to change, but I've been doing quite a bit of intensive thinking about it in the last 24 hours or so.

Anyhow, as for why I think my job is particularly vulnerable and why I don't think the legal avenues against sexual orientation discrimination would do me much good - I'm a temp. The company I come to work at daily doesn't need a reason to let me go - they can just tell the temp agency they don't like me any more, or don't need me. If the temp agency fired me, well, I'd just be another contractor they didn't happen to have work for. They would never need to say they did fire me - "We'll call you when we have something." This is not to say that that would necessarily happen, but I am aware that I would have a lot less leverage against it that a permanent employee would.

I'd also like to add that I looked back at yesterday's post and it started out sounding awfully anti-South. Sorry for that - I was feeling very adversarial just then, and it felt a lot like them vs me, but I do like it here and those were bad lines to imply for the them vs me split.

Anyhow. Back to my day.

Comments

[jenny_evergreen]

I actually think of my bisexuality as an asset in these situations. I am a bisexual woman living a heterosexual lifestyle. (I'd be poly, but the right woman hasn't found me and I gave up looking.)
This alone tends to cause people's minds to go sproing, because they're creating a dichotomy where there isn't one.
They are both like and unlike me, which can sometimes open up dialogue better than if I was either straight or gay. (Although the really rabid "dichotomizers" will, of course, assert that one is, in fact, either gay and "overcoming" it or straight and is/were "pretending" to be gay. Sometimes the introduction of poly can deal with that (sometimes it can cause them to dismiss you entirely or just change the discussion completely. But "poly for others" seems to be less of a hot button for most people.), sometimes simply being Really Convincing about the fact that you can be attracted to and love BOTH men and women will have an effect. And, of course, sometimes nothing works.

All this is part of why I'm really angry that bisexuality isn't better represented...I believe that if we stop allowing this "dichotomizing", it would go a long way towards easing hostilities. As long as we make it always about "straight or gay", it will equate to "bad or good". IMO.

[kitanzi.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see less dichotomizing, too, but that was more or less beside the point for this particular instance. This is more like GLBT Education 101, with that being addressed in 102. *G* At the moment, I am also effectively a bi poly woman living monogamously with my male sweetheart. Given the right time and person, I hope to change both of those - but to the casual observer, neither fact is obvious. *shrug* And I do still think it's none of their business here, but....

[jenny_evergreen]

*nod* For me, GLBT 101 includes stressing the existence of bisexuality...I strongly avoid letting people talk in terms of straight/gay as part of 101. That's my thing. =) It doesn't always work, of course.