I don't mean to be presumptuous, but are you straight? Not feeling compelled to tell people about your sexuality is a luxury afforded to people who fit into the norm. It's what LGBT activists would call "privilege", and it's something that we as straight/white/male/other dominant group need to be aware of if we don't wish to alienate minority groups.
I understand your point, but it seems a bit laborious in this case.
If a cab driver asks me how my day was, and i'm exhausted, I say "good" and stop talking. This is true whether you are gay, straight, or whatever.
In the example in the article, if he was too exhausted to tell "the truth" (as he calls it) and have a "transformative conversation", he should have just said "i'd rather not talk about it". This does not require denying anything, pretending about anything, etc. It's unlikely the cab driver cared either way, to be honest, and if you give them the hint that you'd rather just drive in silence than spend your energy , they will.
Again, it just seems the author acts as if he has to educate everyone, and it's a laborious process. I agree there are plenty of cases he needs to educate people, and that is laborious.
But I think it goes too far when he gets into the realm of people just trying to make small talk, who actually don't care one way or the other.
The cabby is likely just trying to stave off boredom and get a good tip, not an ignorant person whose mental state about the world needs to change. In all likelihood, he's probably playing a probability game (IE i'm sure he asks young drunk looking college kids about women or partying, forlorn looking businessmen about where they are traveling from, etc). You can see this as offensive if you like, but it's really not about ignorance.
Maybe he welcomes the small talk but finds the process of correcting false assumptions laborious? I get what you're saying and I don't think you're trying to be homophobic, but realize that that attitude often comes off the same as "I don't mind people being gay, I just don't want to see it or have to hear about it". It's a subtle form of oppression, where gay people are made to feel that they are not free to engage in the same small talk as hetero people, lest they offend someone's sensibilities.
I didn't say anything approaching what you claim the attitude is.
My point was that small talk, particular cabby small talk, almost always involves false assumptions, and this has nothing to do with being ignorant.
Otherwise, they have exactly the problem you mention in the last sentence. They see people from all walks of life. If they didn't make some set of assumptions (be it about sexuality, gender, typical behavior of males, typical behavior of females), they'd never be able to engage in any small talk, lest they offend someone's sensibilities.
As I said, you may find this offensive, but it's not about ignorance.
I don't find this offensive, merely annoying. In your previous post you make it sound like it is easy to avoid the kind of small talk that reveals that you are gay. This is not the case. Sure, you can be blunt and give 1 word answers every time somebody tries to make smalltalk with you, but that will just make people think you are in a perpetually bad mood. About half the time I will just play along and mentally substitute the genders to avoid any awkward situations, but you can't really do this if you may see the person again, or when people who know that you are gay are also present (because then you will confuse them). If you do use the correct genders then more often than not there is an awkward situation, sometimes resulting in complete silence and then the other person will try to get away from you (not because they hate you, just to get out of the awkward situation).
The author isn't making a point about ignorance. Everyone wants to act like he's blaming the cabby and he's not. As someone who is constantly in this situation, it's tiring. It's a reminder of how many people treat me as a gay man first rather than a software developer.
It's the same problem with the people that say "Oh, women at conferences should be flattered by the attention". They want to be seen as equal. I want to be seen as equal. Having to stop and explain, "No, I don't have a wife" is a reminder of the fact that most of our society still walks around assuming every stranger is straight.
How is the author acting like he's trying to educate anyone? He's saying that casual conversation regularly forces him to correct someone, lie to someone, or evade answering someone regarding a fact about who he is.
I can imagine that regularly responding with "I'd rather not talk about it" when people make basic, friendly conversation is not a pleasant option. And it really doesn't seem the same as saying "good" when someone asks me how my day is.
It's not about education; it's about risk and the willingness to face it.
By responding to, "How's your wife?" with "My husband's fine," he's admitting homosexuality to a potential homophobe. You could lie and say, "She's fine," and that'd be that. You could be neutral and say, "Fine," but that just postpones it. And for some people, they're aware that's a deliberate skirting of the issue and is basically a lie by omission. That atrophies the very muscle the author wanted to discuss. You might find it acceptable, but it's clear that the author does not.
The guy's "transformative conversation" is akin to staying up late and going to forums and 'correcting' them. Why? Because somebody is wrong on the Internet!
Why would my "sexuality" be a topic for anyone other than those close to me? If my wife and I like to dress up as robotic ninjas in order to get satisfaction, well then that's between my wife and I despite how "out of mainstream" it is and is no business of anyone else.
I tire of the "acceptance" desire of so many people in so many areas of their lives. Tolerance != acceptance, it merely means that someone can tolerate an alternative without resorting to an attempt to suppress it. I don't have to accept the choice of people to paint their cars in zebra stripes, but I don't reach for an orbital sander and remove the paint because I can at least tolerate such a choice.
We're talking about sexuality in the sense of the physical sex of your partner; not your fetishes.
Unfortunately that's a difficult topic to avoid since we can hardly start referring to our partners as 'it' when the topic comes up.
Choosing to answer vaguely and switch the topic is the easiest way for gay people to get out of these issues, but it is also how you end up staying in the closet to a lot of people.
This article talks about choosing, in those situations, to not closet yourself and let the conversation flow as though the sex of your partner were a normal thing, knowing full well that it isn't for many people.
Hrm, let's perform an in situ experiment! Right now, get on the horn with the people in your world and announce that you're actually gay/straight, whichever is different than currently. Then live accordingly for a few years so we can see what changes!
Are you seriously trying to compare same-sex relationships to having sexual fetishes? Your fetishes will never come up in any sort of everyday conversation, and no one has ever been discriminated against for their sexual kinks.
Asking someone to be private about who they're partners with is very discriminatory. It's not required of opposite-sex couples. And very simple freedoms you might take for granted, like holding your partners hand in public, or engaging in simple discussions, can be a battle sometimes. Compare to mixed race relationships in US history and the present day.
It's no more fair and civilized to suggest a 'don't ask don't tell' on same-sex partners than any other type of partnership. And comparing same sex attraction to a sexual fetish is frankly insulting.
Actually, "fetishes" would most assuredly come up in the same kinds of meaningless conversations in everyday life. "Oh, it's your anniversary? So you're going to go out for a nice romantic meal?" The assumption being that's what "normal" people do for such occasions. I do not feel compelled to correct their mistaken assumption simply because it's none of their damned business unless I decide they are important in my life.
You misunderstand the idea of "it's no one else's business" with "you must be silent!" Holding your partner's hand in public is already publicly declaring the very thing that would alter the direction of a conversation regarding the sex of your significant other, which has no bearing on the original post or my response. This is about feeling the need to actively correct the incorrect assumptions of people who have no meaningful value to you and your partner's life.
As for suggesting DADT, well when I suggest such a thing feel free to argue against it.
If you read the blog post, you would see that it's much harder to avoid than a "robotic ninja fetish". Simple small talk can often lead to it being brought up, and it's counterproductive to the goal of an inclusive society to expect him to lie about it.
Because the cab driver isn't going to say "Oh, you have kids? I bet you hate dressing up as robotic ninjas" forcing you to have to correct them and explain that, no, you don't fit his presumptions. It's not the cab drivers fault necessarily, people are socialized to expect that other people are straight, often because many people hide it.
Hence the circle. By pointing out that I'm gay, when NO ONE (literally, I mean no one, most people don't believe me) expects it, I break that assumption and cause that person to second guess that assumption in the future.
There are plenty of other reasons you might have kids but not a wife. Maybe you're a widower. Maybe they're actually your brother's kids, but he and his wife were killed by a drunk driver, and you're the godfather.
Perfectly legitimate cases where you just have no reason to get into it with the freaking cab driver, and probably don't get into a serious conversation, and probably also don't tell him to mind his own damn business.
Wouldn't it also be inappropriate for the cab-driver to follow up, "Do you have kids?" with the question "Are they biologically yours?"
In all the examples you gave the reason is some unfortunate tragedy and not a part of his identity that we as a society are trying to become more inclusive of.
You're comparing same-sex relationships to a tragedy having occurred. It's not really a fair comparison.
You're also operating under the presumption that a same-sex partnership should be something hidden, or that it should be a touchy topic and only brought up sparingly, when frankly that's oppressive and discriminatory.
Privilege/oppression may be a real thing, but this isn't an example of it. No one expects absolutely literal, radical honesty from a simple inquiry like "how's it going?"
Just because I'm gay doesn't mean that I go around proclaiming the fact to others unless it's relevant to the context of the conversation.
Your comment makes zero sense in the context of the submitted blog post. Where did you see anything approaching the exchange "Hey, how's it going." "I'm gay."?
Maybe, but the point is that he shouldn't. And besides, that's harder than it sounds. Like he said, even small talk about kids or whatever can lead to it.
I'm pretty gay, and fairly often I don't want to bother with it. "Tell me about your girlfriend?" can be answered to a cabbie with "Eh." and it's really not the end of the world for me.
