Just whoever they like

I haven't had a chance to listen to Tom Robinson's radio documentary about bisexuality. It's the first time there's been a whole radio program devoted to the topic, and it's on my beloved Radio 4, so these things alone would be more than enough to make me need to listen to it.

But a lot of people I know have been interviewed for it, which makes it fun. Even more fun, though, is that one of them is me! It was only a half-hour program, though, and I knew there were lots of people interviewed, plus I figured they'd have to give that Tom Robinson time to talk as well. I didn't think there was anything particularly unique in what I'd said, and I didn't expect I'd have made the cut.

But that night (I think?) tartful_dodger told me I in fact had been on it. I started to worry at this point, because I couldn't remember at all what I'd talked about in my interiew and hoped I didn't sound stupid. The bit that was used was somethig I'd forgotten saying but it's a favorite story of mine -- a friend going on and on at me about how abhorrent bisexuality was... and then going right on to ask if I'd ever had any threesomes -- sort of the real-life equivalent of a tabloid telling you there's a story that's so disgusting/shocking/unspeakable etc. that they just can't talk about it, and then proceed to describe it in loving detail, along with about 20 pictures so the readers can scrutinize for themselves how terrible it all is.

So anyway, tartful_dodger told me that, having heard this story from me already, and missing me since I'd been away since Friday, it was a little like having me around after all. Aww.

Tom Robinson, for those who don't know, wrote "Glad to Be Gay," a great protest song about the way the police, the media and the public were still treating gay people so awfully not long after homosexuality was decriminalized. It's a powerful, sarcastic, scathing song. Tom Robinson then fell in love with a woman and got married, leading all the gay people shouting about how he'd "betrayed" them and that sort of thing. So he added this verse to the end of the song, and it makes me feel even more warm and fuzzy than my friends being nice about me being on the radio.

"For 29 years now I've fought for the right
For people to love just whoever they like
But the right-on and righteous are out for my blood
Now I live with my kids and a woman I love
Well if gay liberation means freedom for all
A label is no liberation at all
I'm here and I'm queer and I do what I do
And I'm not gonna wear... a "straight" jacket for you"

The positive power of plus

The thing I like most about the Lib Dems' organization for lesbian, gay, bi and trans equality changing its name from "Delga" to "LGBT+ Liberal Democrats"... and there are a lot of things I like, not least that few people know what Delga means and even the guy who originally proposed the name has been wanting to get rid of it for years -- is that people are already using it...and it seems to be affecting how they think.

At least once in a training session yesterday, and I think in Stephen Glenn's summation of the conference accreditation motion (but that was Sunday morning, which I am sure was about a year ago, so I may be misremembering there), I heard people, after referring to "LGBT+ Lib Dems", then go on to talk about what we do for "LGBT people, and others."

It'd be great if this affects the way (some) people think about sexual and gender minorities, even people who might not understand what those "others" might be (I think not just cis straight people but a lot of cis gay men and lesbians use "LGBT" is as if it's a synonym for "gay"; I saw someone talk today on twitter about "gay marriage" for "LGBT people", for instance).

The "+" makes the acronym something different, so people stop and think a little more about what they're saying rather than just rattling it off as we are all wont to do.

The great thing is, I think this could work not just for the "others" (for instance asexual, intersex, genderqueer, people affected by the extreme pornography bill of a few years ago, and of course, still others) but all that's included in "LGBT" in the first place. As someone who's sick of it seeming used as a synonym for "gay" -- and especially irked that its opposite seems to be "straight," not "straight cis" -- I certainly hope this turns out to be the case.

Love, life and the Lib Dems

Doing #ldconf, with a lot of late nights and early mornings and having to "work" through a migraine has only reinforced to me that I'm not well enough to be working "properly" yet.

I wonder about this every so often when I get restless or when I slip into the notion that the only way to lead a worthwhile life is via gainful employment (or something else inapplicable to me, like have kids or be a student).

I feel accomplished and happy with what the organisation I was there for (I feel no sense of connection to my local party and I wasn't a voting representatives, so I felt like LGBT+ Lib Dems and their stall I was nominally responsible for were my main focus), but I was clearly overdoing things.

I was up too early and too late, I was doing a lot of things I find difficult. Pretty much everything debilitating about me is variable, and it seemed like it all -- vision, anxiety, insomnia, depression, etc.etc. -- was hitting me really hard. I was aware that I wasn't able to listen to my body as well as I normally do; it was a shock to the system to be unable to, say, curl up in a quiet room away from people until I slept off the migraine, which is what I have learned is the best way for me to deal with them. I felt particularly blind, because I was in unfamiliar places, though this was exacerbated by tiredness (and worrying about seeing/finding things exacerbated my anxiety in return; nice how these things work, eh?).

Of course it is possible to work while being a person who has migraines -- I've done it; Andrew does it -- or is blind or suffering from anxiety, but they're examples of how much better my current lifestyle allows me to look after myself than I perhaps give myself credit for.

But as a disaybulled person who can't even get benefits, I am endlessly grateful to Andrew for supporting me financially as well as all the other ways he does. It's ridiculous that a partner working more than 24 hours a week is enough to ensure I get no income-related benefits (and the other kinds are proving impossible); Andrew works a lot more than that -- he's just done a month of 60-hour weeks and he's right now probably more ill than I am -- and he gets paid a lot more than minimum wage, but we still struggle. And he never complains, never resents that he'd actually have a nice quality of life if he had that salary to himself. He thinks it's crazy that I even think he might react this way; this teaches me as much about love as it does about how people with various mental and physical conditions should be treated.

I don't really know where I'm going with this, but I'm glad I went to Conference and I'm glad it's over. I'm glad what I called the bi/Lib Dem Singularity of August and September is now nearly over (there's the Homo Hero awards on Thursday, Bi Visibility Day on Friday...and of course there's a lot of LGBT+LD stuff to do/follow up on/etc).

I am looking forward to doing fun stuff the next couple of weekends, and glad that without planning it that way at all, it's worked out that there'll be good things coming up soon.

I have such a lot to be happy and grateful for.