LGBTQ+ Community: Nothing is Permanent, Everything is Transient
Human rights come and human rights can go
All humans want to be safe, free from hunger, happy, successful, comfortable. We work very hard to gain these states of being and like to assume that once achieved, they will be here to stay.
All humans want to avoid pain, hunger, suffering, unhappiness, failure. So we work very hard to keep these states away, to avoid them and we like to assume that once avoided, they will stay away forever.
We have a tendency when comfortable to take for granted what we have and assume that we will always be comfortable. We have a tendency to be happy to be rid of pain and discomfort and assume that we will always avoid them.
One of the main Buddhist tenets is that suffering is a part of life for everyone. We experience suffering because we hold on to things when we should let them go. Nothing is permanent, everything is impermanent. Yet we strive to make things in our life permanent and therefore we suffer.
Issue One: Government
For me, the Trump Era put this dichotomy of permanence vs impermanence very much into focus. That which I believed to be true about living in the United States of America, about our government being for the most part concerned with its people, about the role and behavior of our President, and a number of other issues were called into question.
With so much progress, or at least what I consider progress, being reversed and with so much “gaslighting” with lies being spread as truth and truth being spread as lies, I began to realize that the Buddhist lessons of permanence and impermanence were closer to the surface than I had realized. Things were and continue to be not as I believed!
Issue Two: Men vs Women, Marriage, Abortion, Gender
From the beginning of “Gay Liberation” in the 70s, there was (and still is) a split between gay men and lesbians. Perhaps an oversimplification: this is the same split and battle that continues to take place between men and women in general.
Who in our lifetime would have thought that women’s bodies would come under control again by governmental and legislative actions? Who would have thought that Roe vs Wade would be overturned?
Who in our lifetime could have imagined “Same-Sex Marriage,” but it came to be. And now those “rights” are in danger of being reversed.
Who in our lifetime could have imagined equal rights in the workplace and housing for gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people? But now those “rights” are in danger of being reversed.
Who in our lifetime would have thought that gender fluidity, gender identification, and medical procedures to make some of those changes possible would hold such a common place in our discussions.
Issue Three: Youth Culture vs. Old Age Culture
I am not jealous that younger gays have it easier. I just worry that since many young people have not suffered the health battles and rampant discrimination many of us suffered in our youth, and which continues today in many places around the world, that they will forget the lessons learned and take them for granted.
We must be forever vigilant to protect those rights gained. One can try to share with others, our life experiences and lessons, but it only really works when others experience or learn those lessons by themselves.
Issue Four: Health, HIV, Monkeypox, STDs
For a long time, gay men were very careful about unprotected sex, not so currently with many younger gay folks, who seem much more permissive and indulging.
In my day, Safer Sex was a new concept and only slowly embraced by the LGBTQ Community. Whoever heard of gay men using a condom to fuck, let alone for oral sex? We lost so many friends and family members to HIV, which is not gone now but is under control with antiretroviral drugs used for effective treatment and (taken as PrEP) for prevention.
Now, we are experiencing monkeypox, which like most diseases is first announced as “nothing about which to worry” and then moves to being declared a national epidemic.
While it is not being called “The Gay Disease” like HIV was, it is being described as predominantly showing up in gay men, bi-sexual men, and other men who have sex with men.
This happens because of the concentration of gay sexual experiences. Soon it will move to the general population. The only difference between HIV and monkeypox is that people are not dying of it!
Gonorrhea, syphilis, and other sexually transmitted diseases decrease and increase over time. Over time, people are more or less careful with their sexual encounters. Usually it is young people, not having learned the lessons themselves, who contract these STDs.
Issue Five: In the End … the Beginning
As we have seen, nothing is permanent. Things and people, ideas and beliefs, legal protections and rights are always changing. You and I are not the same people we were this morning: cells slough off, new ones grow, we learn new things, have new experiences, gain new understandings and insights and hopefully become new people because of these changes.
Rights gained are easily lost. We have come to take for granted that gaining rights for women, minorities, immigrants, the LGBTQ Community, etc. are permanent. Currently they are in danger of becoming impermanent!
We must vote our beliefs, speak up as often as we can, and keep vigilant. I believe there is power in numbers and as was coined during the HIV era, SILENCE = DEATH!
