No T, All Shade

There I was, minding my own business. One of my ONYX brothers posted about a change in the rules for the International Leather SIR/boy (ILSb) and International Community Bootblack contests. As I started reading the article, I poked around in the room where I keep all my fucks and discovered that I had none.

Then I came across this little nugget:

“For any person who wants to run for International Leather SIR, Leatherboy you must be a [biological] male in order to run. …ILSb used to be [biological] male only and we will be returning it back to the Drummer days. We are not turning our back on any segment of the community. It is okay for an international title to belong to a gay man. But we welcome everyone to the party as far as the weekend events and so on. As far as the Leather Sir and Leatherboy, it will belong to the gay male community.”

And there it was, way in the back. One single fuck, and boy was it a big one!

“ILSb used to be [biological] male only and we will be returning it back to the Drummer days.” Ah, the good old days, when Negroes knew their place and women kept their goddamn mouth shut. Nothing lends your policy legitimacy like saying that’s how it used to be. Well, they also used to beat gay men in this country and homosexuality was considered a mental disorder. And then there was Stonewall and that all began to change.

There is a reason we celebrate Pride every June and it is not to buy new outfits, get blackout drunk, and go on whoring tours of the country. Pride is a time to remember that WE ALL used to be considered freaks and deviants, worthy only of pity at best and extermination at worst. It would seem that some of us have gotten fancy and forgotten that it wasn’t too long ago that the vast majority of this world saw no difference between the L, the G, the B, the T, and the Q.

“We are not turning our back on any segment of the community.” Ummmm… yeah, you are. That is EXACTLY what you are doing. What the hell else do you call it when you tell a segment of the community that they can no longer participate?

“…we welcome everyone to the party as far as the weekend events and so on.” In other words, we will take your fuckin money and smile in your face, but when it comes right down to it, you are not one of us!

Imagine discovering that you feel somehow wrong, or incomplete in your body. You live your life in secret, afraid to share the most intimate of details for fear of being shamed or worse. Then imagine that you find a community of people who accept you, and encourage you, and support you. Finally, imagine waking up last week to discover that at least some of those people never accepted you, and frankly, wanted nothing to do with you. You don’t have to be a transman or transwoman to know what that feeling of betrayal is like.

Throughout the history of this country, success has been measured by the ability to transition from the oppressed to the oppressor. You have arrived when you can look down upon and exclude someone else. How fortune for the biological gay men of the ILSb that they have arrived!

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