A Closet is No Place to Live

In looking for inspiration to create this week's blog entry, I came across this beautiful TEDx talk by Ash Beckham:

"coming out of the closet [...] and not just the gay closets... we all have closets, your closet may be telling someone you love them for the first time, or telling someone that you're pregnant, or telling someone you have cancer, or any of the other hard conversations we have throughout our lives."

I want to further expand on this as I feel like this is an attempt to provide an inclusive framework that addresses the much needed "hard conversations" about the fear that is aroused in exposing the truth about ourselves. And of course, I do want to acknowledge the specific experiences of coming out of the closet for LGBT*Q identified persons within a culture that normalizes heterosexuality and reinforces binary gender classifications and roles. But to move beyond this, Beckham goes on to explain that "the experience of being in and coming out of the closet is universal - it is scary, and we hate it, but it needs to be done." In addition, she warns against ranking any experience as "harder" than any other experience, because there really isn't a hierarchy (as there is no hierarchy of oppression) in which we all need to politically engage in a conversation that is "hard," to ultimately let go of the truth we've kept to ourselves for so long.  

I think there is something quite profound in what she is saying, and now I will attempt to link this to my CSL work within the Gender Based Violence Prevention Project, specifically the gender inclusive washroom project. Recently, I've been working on collecting community feedback in regards to these much needed washrooms on campus - and here I will highlight the "hard conversations" that I've engaged with people in an attempt to draw a connection to Ash Beckham's discourse on closets. Notably, I think the reasoning for using the term gender "inclusive" washrooms over gender "neutral" washrooms is an attempt towards raising awareness that violence is a very much gender based issue that allows us to focus on "an analysis of power & dominance, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism," and so on (Gotell's Lecture).

With that being said, there were instances (in explaining the project) which people had expressed the need for an inclusive bathroom by coming out of the closet with their own experience - whether it was because they were taking care of a disabled person of a different gender, or having children of a different gender, or to the one facing a chronic illness that goes against the dominant discourse of ideal "health", or to the those that face the challenges of fitting into a strict gender norm, or to the girl who feels more comfortable in "boy" clothes, and to anybody else that refuses to strictly define what they know as their truth ...  & I guess what I am trying to say is that I do believe that these closets are very much real, and for myself as a gender creative individual, fighting for a gender inclusive bathroom is my "hard conversation," and thus it is how I can fully come out of my own closet. There seems to be a political solidarity in coming out of these closets that allows us to see that we are not alone and to "show the world that we are bigger than our closet(s) and that a closet is no place for a person to truly live."


Here is the 10 minute video for those interested: http://www.upworthy.com/a-4-year-old-girl-asked-a-lesbian-if-shes-a-boy-she-responded-the-awesomest-way-possible?g=2&c=fea

Thank you and have a lovely long weekend!