Being QUEER is this Radical?
Being DIFFERENT is this Radical?
I don’t know the answer to these questions. I have been looking, seeking and sorting out where I fit in in the BIGGER QUEER community.
Over the years, I have gone along into so many different groups and events, places and communities, searching for that QUEER identity. I have looked for the place that I will fit in. I have found identities that seem relevant to me and yet I have never been able to experience that integrated feeling of FITTING IN. I have looked at what FAERIE means. I have looked at what GAY means. I have looked at QUEER SPIRITUAL communities. I have looked at the MEN’S movement. I have looked at WORKSHOPS and RETREATS for GAY MEN. Although I can identify I never really feel that I am a part of that bigger gay or queer world.
I have discovered that this feeling of difference is rooted for my in my inability to assimilate myself into whatever group I might be a part of. Not that I don’t long for that feeling of being a part of. Not that I don’t yearn for that feeling of being like everyone else. I do. I want so much to be able to fit in and when I am unable I am often disappointed.
Recently I have looked at the work of Harry Hay, supposedly a founder of MODERN QUEER culture. What I got from reading and exploring Hay was that the act of ASSIMILATING is contrary to QUEERNESS.
“We know how to live through their eyes. We can always play their games, but are we denying ourselves by doing this? If you’re going to carry the skin of conformity over you, you are going to suppress the beautiful prince or princess within you.” ~ Harry Hay
I can totally understand this. At this point in my life, my inability to be chameleon like and simply conform myself and bend myself and my expression of who I am into any structured or even unstructured group seems an impossibility. This is at the root of why I never felt like I fit in. I simply was not able to give myself over to ASSIMILATION. I have never, in all of my life, been able to say to any group I am fully a part of you. I have never been able to say I identify so strongly with your beliefs that I can say YES I am this kind of QUEER, YES I am this kind of MAN, YES I am this kind of MALE, YES I am this kind of GAY. Until reading Hay, and understanding his statement about ASSIMILATION and how QUEER this inability to ASSIMILATE actually is. My own identity has become stronger in knowing that I DO NOT have to ASSIMILATE. I can actually feel myself as QUEER.
This sense of INDIVIDUAL QUEERNESS is totally RADICAL to me!
I think I have finally found my QUEER IDENTITY. This identity is rooted in that part of me that feels so different, so unlike what is out there. I feel best when I simply embrace my difference and let myself feel powerful. I feel much better, much happier, when I am able to feel myself as being, UNUSUAL and INDIVIDUAL. This RADICAL INDIVIDUALITY is not unlike each star, planet and constellation all through the universe. Each are individual and totally different. I am able to be myself when I realize and operate out of a principle or value that says it is OKAY, actually GOOD be be DIFFERENT, to NOT ASSIMILATE and let my RADICAL QUEER SELF shine.
This great sense of difference has led me to a place where I am calling out to those others who feel this difference. Those who feel this queerness. Who feel separate from the rest. This call is to gather, share, and commune together. Celebrating DIVERSITY. Celebrating DIFFERENCE. Celebrating QUEERNESS.
Please know that I am looking for a group of committed and loving men to start this journey into QUEER COMMUNITY. This communing will take place at gatherings that I will call the: Queer Heart Talking Circle.
For more information about these gatherings, which will take place on the second Sunday of any month, at the Awaken Studio, please contact me through the website or email me at: phillip@phillipcoupal.ca
Queer Heart Talking Circle – Awaken Studio – Toronto MORE? phillip@phillipcoupal.ca