Originally Posted by
RogueScholar
Shari, you left me speechless with this one. How funny that with others in this thread trying to deride you for how you approach people here, I find myself taken aback by how you've always treated me better than I deserved.
You're one of a kind, and not just as a Mod on a gambling forum.
Then why are you always the most vocal contributor to the off-topic threads that stray into discussions of a sexual nature?
Let me give you a piece of the education that you're so obviously lacking. We live in a heterosexist society, and it is orders of magnitude worse on anonymous communications media like SBR than it is in real life. You, in fact, are the paragon of the heterosexist: someone who professes the discriminatory assumption that all people are attracted to members of the opposite sex. This bias is your way (and society's) of justifying your substandard treatment of anyone who challenges you by openly espousing a different sexual preference.
The LGBT community has been around for just as long as humanity itself has, and yet it's only in the most recent decades that we've emerged from the shadows and received some representation in mainstream media. Straight people don't even think about how much they advertise their sexuality when they do simple things like setup a picture of a spouse at their work desk or greet their significant other with a kiss in public. I assure you that GLBT people notice every little event like this, because from the time we recognize that we don't fit into that most basic of assumptions, we have to worry about the response we might encounter if we tried to display pictures or kiss our loved ones like that. In this wider view of gay/straight relations, your little homophobic diatribes here don't even register on the seismograph.
You're right when you accuse me of making a point of showcasing my sexuality here, as is Shari when she notices that I play into certain stereotypes with my posts. In the course of daily life, it's much more problematic to be so vocal to absolutely everyone I deal with that I'm gay. They all know and I don't tolerate any discrimination based on it, but in realizing that I'm part of a minority, I have no choice but to tone down my inner queen. We all have our responsibilities in real life that demand compromise, but what would be my excuse here?
Above I referenced the very recent inclusion of LGBT characters and themes into mainstream media. That has such a profound impact on my quality of life that I feel a very serious obligation to do everything I can to take it to the next level (total acceptance and the extermination of any negative stigma for LGBT people) for those that come after me. One way I do this is by refusing to take the easy road and just try to fit in here.
As a sports bettor, I have every right to be here just like the rest of you, but unlike many of you I don't have the luxury of just checking the truths of my reality at the login screen. I'm trying to live as though the next generation of LGBT youth were all my children, and I battle these anachronistic attitudes like your own in the hopes that they won't have to. The scariest part, especially for your side PWAD, is that it totally works. When I first came to SBR, every gay reference I would make on the forum would draw 20-30 posters expressing their disgust and hatred of me. Five years hence, I can't remember the last time I saw one of them bother trying to attack me for being gay here (unless you're one of them, and if so, the fact that you had to abandon your old handle is proof-positive that I already won).
So by all means, go ahead with your crusade to save the forum from homosexual influences like myself. You see, you're not even the real enemy in this crusade; people who are small in the mind and in the heart will always be around and easy to expose for what they are. The real victories in this fight come when decent folk who just happened to be raised around intolerance of gays think about posting something mean to a gay person, but after seeing you get your ass kicked repeatedly, decide that it's not worth the trouble to express it. That's how societies evolve and grow, and really I should thank you for being such an easy target in this crusade.
You're probably here just to blow off steam and get away with saying things that you wouldn't dare say in real life. I'm here to actively make the world a better reflection of the awesome, unrealized potential I see in humanity. Who do you really think is going to win here?
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