Here we are, nearly 3 months into the administration of a newly elected leader of the free world. Yes, Donny's out... Joey's in. Although things are certainly much more pleasant now, and it's nice to see a President and First Lady sharing apparent mutual respect and affection for each other, let's face it folks, they are politicians so perhaps we should just "Duck and cover" and hope for the best. Spring and COVID are in the air so 'Damn the torpedos and full speed ahead!'
But honestly, I don't really care to be writing about politics, not while my neurotic little mind, with all its anxiety disorders, is so busy thinking about other stuff...
Other stuff like love and my surging hormones kind of other stuff. But that's not tonight's topic either...
What's on my mind are terms we use to describe others. Labels that can share both positive and negative rhetoric of things we feel about the people of our human family that we share our worldly experience with and how this rhetoric changes with time.
Friday last I'd gone to my neighbor's home for a visit. We were a rather curious little group of 3. My neighbor is a gay man around 30ish, his friend is a gender-neutral person also around 30ish, and I of course am a thoroughly neurotic old-school trans chick at an unbelievably ancient age of 66. Our conversation drifted from things like the medicinal value of psychotropic plants and whether we should eat the mushrooms I'd brought while we smoked weed and sipped alcoholic beverages, to our favorite music, and the value of a gypsy spirit.
It was the term 'having the Gypsy-Spirit' that shifted the conversation...
My new gender-neutral friend (I'm refraining from using names) corrected me and told me that while they knew I didn't mean anything degrading, the term 'Gypsy' was now considered slang and insulting to many with 'Roma' being preferred. Of course I accepted this but still needed to talk a bit about it. I told them of my old friends that were the real-deal Gypsies that traveled working Renaissance Fairs and things like that doing their art of fortune-telling and various acrobatics including such things as sword-swallowing dancing and so on. They liked the term Gypsy and were of a very close-knit family spread all over the country and the world, they accepted our off-beat group as a sort of honorary membership welcomed to their world. I also had a friend whose father had been in a Nazi Death camp because he was Gypsy. He still had the number tattooed on his arm. He managed to escape after losing his first wife and children and came to America. He preferred the term Gypsy and was proud of his heritage. I also explained that in my generation 'Gypsy' was really a rather positive term as it described the free-spirited nonconformist that followed their heart. Having the 'Gypsy Spirit' also meant you had the Bohemian gene of a creative artistic soul. All very positive things.
We talked about lots of things including my perspective as someone born into a very different time and they asked what my greatest fear was when growing up. I told them that the riots of the 60s were very frightening as was the Viet Nam war but the worst thing I'd feared was a nuclear war. Nuclear war seemed a reality that was going to hit - it was only a matter of time. I didn't want to use the survival techniques we were taught because to me surviving a nuclear holocaust was a far greater nightmare than living through it. I hoped that I'd be hit by the very first gamma-ray burst and disintegrated instantly which would be quick and painless.
I had wanted to ask about the term 'It' being used as a pronoun for gender-neutral or genderqueer people. This was a term that to me is extremely offensive because when I was young it was often used when referring to transgenders. It is totally dehumanizing to me and is used by psychopaths so they can 'not see' their victims as people. Coming from cops or other authority figures really made me angry. Another term is queer which used to be a terrible term used to describe a gay man but is now okay.
Well things do change and I so respect the upcoming generation. I'd like to advise them though to use caution with the words they speak because someday they could be accused of having used slurs that in the future people may find offensive.
You may be wondering why on earth I'm including the picture of me in my chatroom outfit because it certainly doesn't seem to fit any of tonight's topics; You are absolutely right but sex sells. Hope you enjoyed our little discussion.
Big hugs and Lotsa love always...
