Doug PollardTalking 'bout my generation
June 27th 2009 08:53
There is a yawning gay generation gap. On my side we can remember when we could be jailed or subjected to forced psychiatric treatment just for existing. Our parents threw us out of home. We watched dozens of friends and hundreds of acquaintances die from an unknown illness while most people shrugged and said, why worry? It only kills faggots and junkies. We were always in a fight, and we still are.
On the other side stand you who were legal from the day you were born, whose parents never withdrew their love and support, who didn’t have to watch your friends die while the world looked on with indifference. For you, the big fights are over, and it’s just about the details. Chill.
There isn’t much communication across this gap. Fifty-somethings have for the most part given up being snubbed by twenty-somethings, and twenty-somethings tend to flee from us like nervous virgins, for fear they will be unable to resist our charms and wake up in chains in our dungeons. They should be so lucky!
But thanks to this column, and my radio program, I get to hear first hand some of the thoughts and opinions of people of younger generations, through online feedback. For example,on my Facebook page I recently expressed my frustration with the governments stance on same sex marriage.
“Why are you in such a rush?” asked one young man. “Why all this fuss over a bit of paper most people don’t want anyway? We’ve made incredible strides in just one generation, from persecuted minority to near-equality. The rest will all fall in to place quite naturally in 15 or 20 years time.”
I have a couple of problems with that. Firstly, it’s already taken too long to get this far. Equality is almost within our grasp. It would be lazy and foolish to settle for second class status now. Some countries say a woman is worth 50 cows, others say 100 goats, some say half a man. We’re a little better off than that, but why should I tolerate being valued at 90% of a heterosexual for the next 20 years?
Secondly I may not even be alive in 2030, although with a bit of luck, and some major breakthroughs in medical science, I suppose I might be. With plastic surgery, a transgenic pig heart, and a new set of balls grown from my own stem cells, I might even find a third career as a Michael Jackson lookalike. And as I stand at the altar to finally marry my husband, part of me (one of the original bits) will probably enjoy the irony that at last I am considered 100% human.
And finally, marriage is only a happy ending in fairy tales. There’ll still be more to do. There are a lot of people – especially lesbians, it seems - who want something more than traditional marriage. Or something different altogether.
For myself, I’ll be happy to settle for equality. But not for anything less.
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