Phuck Phred

By now you’ve heard that Fred Phelps, leader of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka of ‘God Hates Fags’ fame is on his deathbed.

Lots of people have an opinion about this. They mostly fall into two camps: “I’m glad the asshole is dying and I hope he burns in hell!” or “Even Fred deserves forgiveness and peace. I wish him no ill will.”

I understand the first camp, though I don’t consider myself a member. The second camp I don’t get at all, though I respect the fact that there are people who are morally superior to me. I don’t feel guilty about being judgmental about certain folks. I didn’t give a shit when they took out Bin Laden. I know I should be a good liberal and cluck my tongue and wish that he’d received a fair trial, but the truth of the matter is that I’m just not that evolved. Hitler? If he’d been burned alive after having railroad spikes put through his eyes and a meat tenderizer shoved up his ass I wouldn’t ever give it a second thought.

When it comes to Fred, I’m ambivalent. I’m not exactly happy he’s dying, but I’m not sad either and I sure as hell don’t wish him a peaceful end. (Not that I wish him a bad end. Just whatever happens, happens.) His estranged son Nathan has written a lot about how Fred verbally, emotionally and physically assaulted his family on a regular basis. That, to me, is Fred’s real crime. People talk about how many people Fred hurt with his protests. In the case of some of the early funerals the Westboro Baptist Church protested I suppose that’s true. I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like to have been Matthew Shepard’s mother, for example, and have to put up with the Phelpses’ perverted circus of hate after her son had been tortured and left to die.

But people organized pretty quickly to counter and shield the WBC’s funeral protests, and I think Fred Phelps ended up doing a lot more to further gay rights than he did to get people on his side. Consider that many people who were on the fence about gay rights may have been pushed into the light when they saw for themselves that discrimination is nothing more than a thin veil for hate and vitriol. Fred and his “church” put an ugly, concrete face on LGBT hate. As far as anyone knows, Fred and his church never physically attacked any gay person and I honestly don’t think his shenanigans incited anyone to attack gay people. Anybody who was going to do that was going to do it with or without Fred’s blessing.

But if Nate Phelps is to be believed—and I for one believe him—then Fred terrorized his own family in ways that are the stuff of nightmares.

Here’s what I hope: I hope that with Fred’s passing comes the end of his stupid church. I hope it falls apart. I hope that more of his children and grandchildren open their eyes and their hearts and realize that Fred was full of shit.

Nathan reports that his dad was excommunicated from his own church in 2013. Wow. Why? Could it be that Fred repented? Or even better—that he came out of the closet? Just imagine what a sadly ironic end to a life gone wrong that would be. The LGBT community is too good for the likes of Fred.

Even though I'm not unhappy he’s dying, I also wouldn't bother protesting his funeral. Because he's not worth it.

You androgynous pangender queer kids get off my lawn!

While I like to think of myself as being pretty open-minded, hip and with-it, I know I am getting old because the vocabulary of self-identifications is getting, in my humble opinion, to be a little excessive. (My friend Phoebe will probably chastise me for worrying about being old when I’m not, but that’s not what my concern is. I just sort of find the different phases of life fascinating. You go from knowing you’re the shit, to being pretty sure you’re still the shit but seeing that people just behind you are going to become the shit, to growing into an age when people younger than you think you’re the shit because they think you know everything when you know damn good and well that it’s the people just in front of you who know a lot more. It’s weird.)

Speaking of “self-identify” — a term that’s being thrown around a lot as of late—while not exactly redundant, still seems a little silly to my aging ears. If one “identifies” as something doesn’t it follow that one necessarily “self-identifies?” I dunno.

In writing, I often use the acronym LGBT, which I think most people understand to stand for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender. I believe I first heard the term around 1990, and considered myself very progressive for embracing it enthusiastically. Pretty soon, people began tacking a “Q” on to the end, which stands for “Queer.” Now queer is fine, nothing wrong with that word at all—in fact I like it—but I’ve resisted using it only because it seems unnecessary. Doesn’t queer just mean gay or lesbian?

Well I looked it up, and no, that’s not necessarily what “queer” means anymore. (Say whaaaaa???) According to the wisdom of Wikipedia, queer may be used by those who reject traditional gender identities as a broader, less conformist, and deliberately ambiguous alternative to LGBT. Okay. I get that, I guess. If you wanna use “queer” amongst yourselves in the college library or at a rave and truly understand what that means, that’s fine. But are you really going to tell your grandma you’re “queer” and then correct her when she tells you she knows what “queer” means because that’s a word she’s heard her whole life and then go on to inform her you have reclaimed the word from her generation freeing it from its negative connotations because you “reject traditional gender identities?” Isn’t it just easier on grandma (and everyone else) to say you’re gay or lesbian or bisexual or in the process of changing your gender?

Facebook has jumped on the self-identification bandwagon and now offers 53 gender identities (self-identities?) for users to choose from. This I think is a good thing, because Facebook is mostly about interacting with your peer group. If you wanna be pangender amongst your friends, go for it.

Following are just a few of the “new” genders that the young people have added to the American lexicon:

Agender—Apparently agender people see themselves as not having a gender, or not willing to “self-identify” as a particular gender. Doesn’t that just mean “too cool for you?”

Androgynous—Pssssh. My generation wrote an entire book on this identity. See: David Bowie, Annie Lennox, Grace Jones, Adam Ant, Prince, Boy George, Joan Jett, etc. etc.

Bigender—someone who self identifies as two distinct genders. Could be male and female or could be queer and female or any number of combinations. I tend to think of myself as a mostly heterosexual female with less girlie tendencies than a lot of my girlfriends. Never thought about being “bigender.” I’ll have to chew on that one … Nah.

Cisgender—this means heterosexual. Do we need a new word for heterosexual? Sorry, but I call bullshit.

Gender fluid—this means someone whose identity flows to any number of genders and identities. Can’t we just say “bisexual” or “bi-curious” and be done with it? Does it really matter what a person is wearing?

Genderqueer—this is supposedly somehow different than “queer” but when I look up the definition I just don’t see any difference.

Intersex—this is a person born with some aspect of both male and female genitalia. This one makes sense to me. And it’s more precise than “hermaphrodite” which implies someone who has fully formed male and female genitalia which is rare to the point of impossibility.

Oh and also the word “transvestite” has fallen totally out of favor. Even though Eddie Izzard, a totally cool comedian of my generation who occasionally enjoys wearing women’s clothes and/or makeup still refers to himself as an “action transvestite” and not “gender variant.” C’mon, admit is. Isn’t action transvestite just more fun?

I’m not gonna list any more gender definitions. Because I’m tired now. And because I think it’s a little silly. The fact of the matter is that most people’s sexuality and gender and self-identity is fluid. That means that there could be the same number of descriptions of gender and sexual identity as there are people on the planet.  For all practical purposes I’m a hetero female. Not because I want to put myself into a box—it’s just a shortcut for quick identification.

So you kids go on with your transmasculine gender questioning. That’s okay. I’m gonna stick (mostly) to LGBT. And Grace Jones. Because Grace Jones fucking kicks ass.

I asked my good friend Michael, as a gay man, what he thinks about all the new labels. He has this to say:

You know I'm not your typical fag. I think it is silly too. The whole political correctness, gets on my nerves!! The only label that we need, is the label human being. Although that is the one that always seems to be forgotten. I don't know why we as a society feel the need to label everything. The way I look at it, is that it does more harm than good. All it does is separate us! When what we really need is to come together!

That, I think, says it all.