The Obsession that Saved My Life

 

I confess, I have a problem. That's the first step, right? Admitting that you have a problem? QUILTBAGgers, ladies and gentlemen, all variations thereof, and none of the above, I have an addiction. Here she is.

Behold the object of my sick obsession! Gaze upon her, in all her political commentator's glory!

It's true. Every hour, every weeknight, from eight to nine, I shun all responsible adult duties and obligations to watch the Rachel Maddow Show. I read her blog. I bought her book on American military policy, Drift. (If you're into that sort of thing, you should too.) I follow the "Hey Girl, It's Rachel Maddow" tumblr. I know the name of her dog, for Christ's sake.

It's Poppy, by the way.

But why, Ingrid, you ask. Why Rachel Maddow? Hypothetical reader, I am glad you ask. The root of the answer is the reason the Religious Right is so hung up about the scourge of homosexual teachers,  actors, babysitters, pastors, youth leaders, authors, and any other authority position you can think of.

You see, yours truly was once an awkward, fumbling baby-dyke in the buckle of the Bible Belt. I'd grown up in a family that thought of "my sort" as wicked perverts, blah blah blah, you know the story. You've read my bio. Heck, you've probably lived my bio. Anyway, in the posh suburb of Dallas i lived in, gay life was practically nonexistent. I'll go one better. All through my childhood up until the beginning of high school, I didn't know a single openly gay person. None! Only two of my teachers were vocal LGBT allies. I found out about the Gay-Straight Alliance at my school, but at that point in my school career it was as barren as Michele Bachmann's gaze. Besides, when anyone besides me showed up, 'twas always a queer male or so. The only safe space available to me was a sausage fest of two.

Desperately, I delved into the annals of lesbian culture. I checked out a copy of Sappho's poetry and started listening to the Indigo Girls. I drew black triangles on my clothing. I haunted online lesbian forums on certain sites.

You know who you are.

I stopped short of cutting my hair, though.

Looking back now, the rush to become a stereotype was a fruitless and frantic attempt to ward off loneliness. As my straight friends paired off, I began to get the irrational feeling that I was the only lesbian in the world. I would lie awake at night weeping into my pillow, hopelessly grasping at the weightless, unearthly ghosts of women I would never meet who may or may not be like me. A screen name is nothing. A set of broken fragmented poetry is nothing. I needed something alive and real to show me that there was a life for gay women out there in the Real World.

Cue Rachel!

You have no idea how long I've been waiting to use this gif. (S)

Finally, every day, I had someone real in the culture I could point to and say, "See? See? She's smart! She's funny! She's successful and beautiful! And she's gay! She's gay like me. There's life for lesbians after high school, and I can be a part of it!" Before I discovered Rachel Maddow, I was a geeky, clumsy baby-dyke with no girlfriend and no hope for life. Now, well, I'm still a geeky, clumsy baby-dyke with no girlfriend. But there's hope! As Harvey Milk said (all together now!), "You've got to give them hope!"

Now, the Religious Right doesn't want gay children to feel safe and happy about themselves.  Those hate-filled caricatures of people don't want the big secret to get out; that things really do get better when you're free from the small-minded bullying of small-minded people. The last thing they want to give any of us is hope.

Yeah, Harvey, I think it's lame, too.

What do they do, then? They take away the lifelines to the Real World: adults. They take away  sources of wisdom and sympathy, the hands that hold, the ears that listen, and the voices that can help. They smear LGBT adults with sick accusations of molestation and rape, when LGBT adults can be the strongest, maybe the only, testament that a queer life is worth living. That's why we must be visible. We older paragons of queer knowledge don't have to seduce unsuspecting straight children, take over the media, or even campaign that hard to coax younglings out of the closet. Our job is so much simpler than the bigots think. If simply make ourselves visible, they will come to us for help.

Anyway, I shall probably continue to use the lovely Rachel to explain LGBT issues in the future. I've got a lovely post on femme invisibility planned. Stay tuned, stay safe, stay united.