In print | Published November 3, 2005

To the Editor:

Every year members of the queer community and our allies chalk Swat’s walkways to mark the start of Coming Out Week. And every year it seems that folks within and without the queer community take issue with the chalkings, asserting that they hurt our cause and that we should censor ourselves or each other.

In response to last week’s letter: I’m not enraged, I’m just tired.

I’m tired of always having to engage this conversation, because in all honesty, honey, the chalkings aren’t a big deal. They’re a fun way to start the week, to express ourselves publicly in ways that we generally can’t or don’t, and to playfully push people’s buttons a bit. And they wash away. There’s excitement in drawing a giant condom-covered cock, or your favorite sex-toy, or in proudly writing the word “faggot” on the ground for the first time since you’ve come out. Try it, it just might turn you on.

I’m tired of being told that the chalkings don’t promote conversation or speak to important issues for the queer community. The coverage in The Phoenix illustrates the potential for constructive dialogue they inspire (excluding the broken-record criticism). Not all dialogue takes place in a room full of people; ours is queerly multi-textual. Furthermore, while issues like marriage or adoption are priorities for some, others of us have differing agendas. I chalked about alternative sex practices, safer/consensual sex and gender variance; as a queer person at Swat, these are issues that I see as requiring more discussion to challenge assumptions and norms within the entire community. (Are you familiar with the pronoun “ze”? Do you know all of the uses of a dental dam?)

Most importantly, I’m tired of the “closet” (which, I should add, is an option some of us limp-wristed sissies and swaggering butches never really had). Homophobia may not (frequently) surface in outright violence or harassment at Swat, but any suggestion that we are completely queer-positive is both naïve and incorrect. I can’t even imagine what such a place would look like. Asking queers to keep quiet about ourselves and our issues is in of itself homophobic — why would we be expected to maintain silence so as not to be controversial or to offend folks with who we are? Why should we use pre-approved tactics or language that folks are comfortable with? Why should we only seek rights to privacy, when we have a right to safety in the public world?

These are exactly the closets we are all tired of.

Harris Kornstein ’06

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