"Never blend in".

Tomorrow marks the beginning of February. It is also the beginning of the UK's month-long celebration of LGBT history. (It's not the same everywhere; for example, the US celebrates in October, to coincide with National Coming Out Day.)

To mark this, the LGBT+ campaigns people in my university are getting ready to launch a month of events and awareness and fun. They made a poster, and it's pretty good. An open door, with rainbows bursting out, colourfully proclaiming that's it's LGBT History Month.

Underneath is the slogan: "Never blend in."

I have issues with this slogan, and its message.

On a base level, it says to me that, as a person who either has sexual orientation and/or gender expressions that vary from the norm, I should never blend in. Ever.

First, I'll take this from a public perception angle.

So, if I'm a gay girl who likes skirts and dresses, that's not okay. I shouldn't be like the heteronormal public. I should be yelling from the rooftops that I lick vaginas at night and that I wear androgynous clothing to label that I do indeed lick those vaginas and I listen to angsty female singer/songwriters (mostly lesbian ones, by the way) to signal the aforementioned licking does really take place. A lot. Because I'm very gay.

This is obviously ridiculous. The queer community always gets shirty whenever the General Public are like, "But are you really gay? You don't even like pink/Cher/tofu!" and we say, "Just because we're gay, doesn't mean that we definitely like those things. We're all different."

So, can we really stand up and say the exact opposite message? Never blend in? Never accept the parts of us that just happen to coincide with the heteronormative public?

I like knitting. I like skirts, and dresses, and flowers. I like cooking and I moisturise daily. I call my boyfriend every day and I mark in a pink pen. I'm not less queer because I happen to like, and do, a lot of things that heteronormative girls traditionally would be perceived to like.

Second, am I obliged to tell people that my relationships differ from theirs? Do I need to yell to everyone I meet that I am different, and thus require acknowledgement of my differentness?

I recognise there is a case to come out in the face of adversity (it's harder to be bigoted when someone you personally know and respect tells you that they're gay), or if they're misusing pronouns and you wish to correct them, but in the case where you're in a liberal, well-educated, set of people, and there's no need for them to know, do you need to shove it in people's faces that you are queer? Do you need to remind them that there's this barrier of "Well, I'm different. You can try to understand my issues and relate to me, but remember, I'm really different to you"?

There's more to you than being queer. There's more to anyone than their sexuality or gender. Straight people don't talk about their relationships all the time. Why should we?

If you truly like a different set of things to what people would expect from your (perceived) gender, then fine. Don't blend in. Be yourself. I don't have a problem with people being different, and letting them know that.

But for those of us who happen to quite like what the rest of society are doing... leave us be. Don't make us be something we don't want to be.

As one of my friends said: "Just accept it: assimilation *is* evil."

Shady's back, tell a friend...

Guess who's back, guess who's back,...

Yup. After a hiatus of several months, I realised I wanted a place to rant again. Probably not so much about my life (that's better fixed with actually talking to people), but maybe a little bit. After all, what's a blog without a little narcissism? :p

Just to summarise what's been going on though, in case you really wanted to know.

• You know how I was sort of ill last time? I got really ill. I'm pretty-much-okay now.
  
• Still dating my best friend. Still going fabulously.
• Fourth year sucks. Project is hard, modules are harder.
• I still bake and knit when time permits.
• The two main characters in my novel fucked for the first time. It was fun to write that.

I'll try and post more. Hopefully it'll be interesting.