Given the prominence of GLBT issues on our civic radar, I'd like to sound a cautionary note about over-quantifying. There is a broad matrix of possibility and intentionality to be considered and not just about the usual concepts of gender and sexuality. When 100,000 people or so come out to see the GLBT parade in late June, we are demonstrating interests that range wide afield. These gala occasions connote more than readily understood stereotypes. There is a transgressive air more analogous to the freedoms of the May Day parade: a time apart from the usual strictures we accept in our lives, a celebration of difference, a collective nod to enthusiasms not usually found in the mainstream, an artful moment, if you please.
There are indeed avowedly gay, and lesbian, and bisexual, and transgendered components to our annual efflorescence but there are also empathies and curiosities and supportive presences whose personal proclivities are less significant than an immanent desire to express tolerance and respect for difference. This is complex stuff. Time is a factor: people have epiphanies they themselves could not have predicted beforehand. There is much more here than a culture of youth that simplifies nomenclature and loves a parade. Consider people who arrive at new directions later in life, who find commitment and shared lives that outgrow the norms they took for granted in earlier years. How shall these be counted? As they were, as they are, as they might be thirty years hence? There is an excellent parallel in the meltdown of race/ethnicity categories in the U. S. Census. Multi-racial, multi-ethnic individuals, families, households - hard to find simple declarative categories these days. There's one category I noticed in the data downloads: "minority" as opposed to White, Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, non-Hispanic American Indian, non-Hispanic Asian, and so on. Just "minority" as if we would implicitly know to lump those "others" into a group provided we knew who "we" were who were doing the lumping, right? The phenomenon of assimilation is at work as what was considered aberrant - abnormal - slips out of our grasp when we come to realize that there are no "others" just lots of different kinds of "us". Quantifying remains a necessary tool but beware convenient simplicities. We don't actually live like that in practice. Fred Markus Horn Terrace Ward Ten _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
