It’s that time of year already—the holidays, and soon 2010 will upon us.
Everything I want, would be too big to fit into one article, so I’ve decided to focus on something I really care, and the only places I’ve ever truly felt at home—the bisexual & LGT communities.
Laws that acknowledge our rights and protect us. The Hate Crimes Law was a great first step, but more is needed. ENDA is a major one and for me an important one. While it stalls, many BLGT people worry about loosing their jobs—if the wrong person finds out about their sexual preference or gender identity. DADT as well—while we are fighting two wars, we can’t afford to leave some of our best soldiers such as Lt. Dan Choi behind just because they’re dating the wrong gender.
It’s time for DOMA to go. Last but not least, legalizing same-sex marriage all over the country would be a nice New Year’s present. As I write this my hometown of Washington DC has just done so (hopefully it will last this time!), and the BLGT community here is jubilant about it. That needs to happen in more places—state-by-state.
It would be good to see religious leaders and institutions that get political, called out on it. I know there were several churches collecting money for Prop 1 in Maine and Prop 8 in CA; I’ve heard a similar effort is being undertaken here in DC. Church and state don’t mix. A lot of officials are afraid to do this because of the power conservative religion holds in our society—but how much longer can these institutions get away with breaking the law? Their efforts, their money, and the lies they have been able to spread with it—have been the biggest road blocks to equality that we’ve faced.
We are already seeing more acceptance of same-sex dating in our culture, but there needs to be more. Celebrities who are bisexual, gay, or trans[sexual], especially men, shouldn’t be afraid to come out for fear that it will ruin their careers. I’d like to see none of my friends have to worry about being the victims of hate crimes.
More unity in the BLGT community is especially important. A great recent example of unity was the equality march—but if we’re ever going to get equality, we need to stop the squabbling amongst ourselves. We still see gender bias, misogyny, biphobia, transphobia, and many of the other problems that plague the straight community in the BLGT community as well. What is really encouraging is there is more and more of an effort to address these problems and come together for a dialogue—especially among younger people and activists—and I really want that to continue.
More people are focusing on the whole “queer commonality” of the entire community. There has been more of a growing acceptance of bisexual and transgender people, as well as others, and more of an effort to focus on our similarities (which are considerable) instead of our differences. Yes, it is slow moving and that can be frustrating, but slow and steady usually wins the race.
Last, but definitely not least, it would be nice to see my own bisexual community continue to grow. In the past year as a community we’ve really made strides not only in standing up for our place in the larger BLGT community, but also developing our diverse community of all those who are somewhere between gay and straight. It appears to be (slowly) getting more acceptable to actually say the word bisexual and biphobia is being called out as wrong! It would be nice to see that continue in 2010 and beyond. Better late than never!
So these are all my biggest hopes for our community, in this coming year and beyond. While I realize that most or all of them won’t happen in their entirety this coming year—it would be great to just see some major strides taken in these areas. Hopefully next year at this time we can look back and say “we came a long way this year!”
Happy New Year to everyone!
Maria,