A Whole New Experience

*FYI: This is kind of like a personal journal entry... Hope you enjoy it! 

Reading articles about ‘L.G.B.T.Q.I.A’ communities, especially the ‘Generation LGBTQIA’ written by Michael Schulman, from the New York Times couldn’t have had a greater impact on me. Having lived my entire life in two countries, Korea and India, where the ‘L.G.B.T.Q.I.A’ communities are practically non-existent, topics on the ‘abnormal’ sexual orientations and gender identities open up a whole new world to me. In spite of its novelty, I believe that the environment that the United States creates where ‘non-straight’ people can express their inconveniences and personal stories openly to the public is conducive to the well-being of its entire people.

High degrees of courage and boldness that people like Stephen Ira, who posted a video on ‘We Happy Trans’ display, astounds and surprises me as a foreigner who is still trying to grasp the culture here in the United States. Furthermore, the fact that a considerable number of higher education institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania and the school I currently attend, University of California at Berkeley actively support and encourage these communities is something I have never experienced before neither in Korea nor in India. Furthermore, people are nonchalant and even proud to be a part of the ‘L.G.B.T.Q.I.A’ communities. For instance, Santiago Cortes, a student at the University of Pennsylvania claims “I wrote about an experience I had with a drag queen as my application essay for all the Ivy Leagues I applied to.”

More appalling to me, so to speak, were the reactions of the public to these communities and people and how widespread and accepted they were in the United States. Obama’s second inaugural speech which talked about gay rights, circulation of articles regarding the issues of the ‘nonconforming’ gender identities and the support provided by a lot of the educational institutions seem to be signs of acceptance or at least attempts to understand the minority groups. However, there is no denial that people still have to work on fully understanding and accepting people of the nonconforming sexual orientations and gender identities as can be seen in Sadie’s recent letter to the President Obama.

In contrast to the type of environment that the United States creates, the atmosphere in my home country, Korea, is that of secrecy and absolute contempt from the public once one declares to be not straight. In 2000, a television figure and a comedian, Hong Suk Chun, came out of the closet, declaring to be gay. General public’s response to this coming out was extremely vile and rejecting. Undoubtedly, Mr.Hong disappeared from the television channels and went into seclusion. Most of his friends had left him and watched from distance. Moreover, he was to be between jobs and barely get by for the next three years.

I feel like I am slowly learning more and more about the people of nonconforming gender identities. I hope that at the end, I will be able to understand them as much as possible and further help them get across their messages all around the world, making the world more equal and human.

Thank you so much for reading :)

Is Gender THAT Important?

“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs” – Kathy Witterick

The quote above seems to be the crux of the article, ‘Boy or Girl? 4-Month-Old Being Raised Genderless’. The story in the article presents a married couple who keeps the gender of their four-month old baby a secret. The couple announces that they wouldn’t want their child, Storm, to be restricted in many ways due to his or her gender. Furthermore, they seem to be hoping that Storm’s innate originality comes up, intact and protected from the social prejudices and cultural norms. By and large to the public, this is an outright protest against the social norms regarding gender. The couple wishes to keep the gender a secret until Storm finds out later in life. In response to this unprecedented idea, experts in the field of psychology have made numerous remarks of which were mostly negative and condemning.  Dr.Ken Zucker confesses, “While I love the concept, I don’t think the benefit outweighs the negative repercussions, at this point and time in the world.”

In addition to the remarks from experts, the article has seen a large number of comments from the public. In fact, most of the comments criticized the couple’s idea. Their arguments range widely from “the child will find out sooner or later and won’t be able to deal with it” to “the social norms are hard to depart from and we must succumb to them.” On the brighter side, there are people who show support saying “I think it takes a lot of courage to raise a child this way. These parents appear to be doing a terrific job with all of their children.” In the midst of these intense arguments about the idea of keeping the child’s gender secret, I would like to weigh in and present my point of view…

Since my first year at the elementary school, I mostly hung out with girls around me playing the games that they played and watching romantic/comedy movies that not a lot of boys liked. Because I had been spending a lot of time with girls, I grew more comfortable hanging out with them more than my male friends. Later, I would grow to like the pink color which is almost considered the symbol for female sex. Although this inborn interest of mine in the so-called ‘girly stuff’ didn’t inhibit me from getting along with my guy friends, it did throw me off my comfort zone a few times in my life. India, where I went to high school, was a rather conservative place to be in. One day, I wore a pink shirt with jeans and walked into the school weekly assembly. All eyes were turned around toward me and some of my friends told me that I looked ‘gay’. Well, because I was expecting this kind of response (knowing what the social norms stated about guys wearing pink clothing) I wasn’t that hurt or offended. However, it got me to think about things that have been set by our society that restrict, not by law but by peer pressure and in many other ways, our freedom to expression and presentation.

Instead of not revealing his gender, I think that the parents should plant in Storm the ability to later question and dispute the social norms that we take for granted, thereby letting him exercise his freedom of expression when he becomes an adult. This way, he will be able to avoid the paramount psychological and the cultural shock that a lot of psychologists suggest would take and argue/explain his way through difficult situations he might face.

A little poem ;) 

“I Hear It Was Charged Against Me” by Walt Whitman

I hear it was charged against me that I sought to destroy
institutions;
But really I am neither for nor against institutions;
(What indeed have I in common with them?– Or what with the
destruction of them?)
Only I will establish in the Mannahatta, and in every city of These
States, inland and seaboard,
And in the fields and woods, and above every keel, little or large,
that dents the water,
Without edifices, or rules, or trustees, or any argument,
The institution of the dear love of comrades.

Thank you so much for reading J