Thursday night I attended the BYU
section of Understanding Same Gender Attraction. When I walked into the room
and saw a co-worker, we both kind of just stared at each other for a moment,
and then smiled and waved hi, and I went over and sat next to him and his
friend. At the very beginning to the meeting, I found myself wanting to know
what everyone’s sexual orientation, even though in part of the mission
statement, it says that those attending the meeting weren’t supposed to either
ask or assume, but feel free to tell your sexual orientation. But at this, I still
found myself curious and realized that it was because I wanted to be able to classify
everyone in my own head, to put them into categories so I could know how to
think about them. It was a satisfying feeling to be able to put that desire to
know aside.
We
started with a prayer. That, for me, was almost surprising. I guess I have
assumed somewhat that Queer members of the church tend to be more anti-church
due to its policy on gay marriage and families. That assumption was quickly
overturned, and even as I felt surprise at it, I was ashamed of myself, because
I know several friends who identify as being gay or lesbian or transgender and
are very faithful to the church, who love the doctrine and has a strong
testimony of its truth despite the controversy regarding same-sex marriage. It
was interesting to see this little society that exists outside of the cultural
hegemony of Mormonism, and see their own cultural norms and hegemonic status. The
cultural capital associated with the dichotomy strength of testimony vs. association
with queer society was very prevalent, although it was so interesting to see
that there were older adults, parents and grandparents of college-age children that
attended. It was neat to see how many visitors there were (in addition to
myself) and I felt very welcomed.
This
week’s meeting was centered on the new literary journal called peculiar, founded by a graduate of UVU.
It’s a literary journal based in Utah, and accepts submissions only from queer
writers in Utah, so there was a lot of beautiful poetry about feeling
unaccepted, locked in a cage, having to hide oneself, and learning to accept
the good with the bad. I was so impressed with the manner in which the church
was treated. I was conditioned to expect that queer Mormons are bitter and
struggling, but that’s not necessarily what I found. Instead, I found students
who were searching to discover how to succeed at the fringes of a culture that
rejects their inner thoughts and feelings, and how to belong to that culture in
the ways that they can. Each issue of the journal had something related to
religion, and how through discovering oneself, one can also discover God.
The
President of BYUSGA was enthusiastic and kind, and invited everyone to
participate in any event by BYUSGA, regardless of sexual orientation. I found
myself originally a little uncomfortable because of the way that some of the
presenters spoke, specifically one of the gay men, and found myself making
assumptions based on his vocal fry, or the creaking noise in the voice at the
lowest vocal register often associated with unintelligence (see Kim
Kardashian), and his uptalk, a manner of speaking in which every sentence sounds
like a question regardless of the statement itself. But, then I heard him read
poetry, and speak about it, and again, I was ashamed to have judged him on the way
he spoke. He was intelligent and engaging, even if the way he spoke has the social
denotation of unintelligence.
This
event helped me to understand better my own prejudices that have been ingrained
in me for so long. I was better able to analyze myself and my opinions and think
more about how I treat and think about those that are different from me, from
my opinions, and the way that I tend to categorize everybody that I look at. It’s
easy when reading articles about prejudice, deficit thinking, and cultural
hegemony and accept it, think that it’s wrong, that I would never do that.
However, when actually in a situation where I was faced to confront those kinds
of issues, it made me realize how ethnocentric I really am. That kind of
realization is, I think, the first step in learning to fix the problems that
have been in our society for centuries. We’ve come a long way, and I think as I’ve
grown, I’ve also come a long way in my views and opinions on the world and
different cultures, but I’ve also realized that, while the world still has a
long way to go, so do I.
The
purpose of education includes bringing knowledge, skills, and essential truths
to the public eye in order to help cultivate responsible citizenship and
compassion, in order to improve our communities. The kind of education I want
to bring to my students will hopefully encourage in them tolerance, compassion,
and understanding in order to create better citizens and communities.
