On Community

This weekend, my bff from high school and I are going to the NWA Pride Parade. In August, I'm hanging out with some friends at Diversity Weekend in Eureka Springs.

Behold. My extent of"community" support.

I guess I've never been much of a joiner, but I do try to get more involved in the tiny gay community in Arkansas. I'm a member of the GLBTQA organization on campus- that conveniently only meets when I'm in class/fraternity meetings. I wrote Lambda 10 about my fraternity having a non-discrimination clause that includes sexual orientation. I even tried volunteering for the NWA Center for Equality, but I chickened out/panicked and never showed up at the offices.

My heart's in the right place. I want to help promote tolerance and understanding an all things PC. But maybe I just haven't felt the brunt of that discrimination yet. I mean, I've only had two bad coming out experiences- my mother, who's still a little freaked by the prospect that I like vaginas, and a girl I was planning on rooming with who completely lost it. Oh well.

Maybe it's that I've never really felt like "a lesbian." I've never actually come out as a lesbian to anyone. I usually just say that I'm gay, or, better yet, that I'm attracted to girls. Honestly, most of the time I don't get along with girls, so I worry that trying to be friends with lesbians will only end in a train wreck.

Furthermore, the "community" in NWA is centered around Fayetteville, and I'm most definitely not. It seems like I'm trying to join a club where everybody knows everyone, and I'm the little kid on the outside.

Yes, little kid, because I don't see a lot of people my age working with the NWACfE, or working the Pride parade. And I wonder if this is an Arkansas trend, or a national one.

I mean, I know a lot of gay/bi students at my college. But few of them actually belong to our GLBTQA group, even though they're out. Maybe, since we've all grown up in a more tolerant generation, the need to fight for rights doesn't seem as pressing.

Besides, we're young right now- too young to be worrying about marriage or adoption rights, or dying and leaving a partner of twenty years out on the streets due to a malicious family. All we worry about right now is meeting that person.

Or, meeting a lot of persons for a lot of short term fun until the gray hairs start showing.

I think larger, metropolitan areas have a stronger political community composed of people in their twenties. I'd love to see this happen in Arkansas, but I don't think it will until we stop chasing tail and start settling down and worrying about the rights we lack. And I know I'm not ready.

But I also remember the first Diversity Weekend I attended. With my parents. On accident. At seventeen, with my two best friends who were also in the closet. I remember losing my parents at some point, and getting crammed in for a photo at the park, surrounded by happy, gay adults. It made a difference to us then, and I'd like to think that the community now makes a difference to teens. I'm just not sure how.