Here's some real activism for you: Stop feeling bad. Yup. I said it. Feeling guilty and ashamed and afraid to tell our deep truths may be dramatic, but it isn't working. Not only is shame itself utterly useless, shame does a ton of damage to us by preventing us from addressing real issues -- it prevents us from making real changes.
There is a lot of hate in the world. As LGBT folks, we get a big share of the hate from people outside our community, but we are also some of the biggest offenders when it comes to turning hate inward. We direct our hate for the world into our own community and we individually direct hate toward ourselves.
It's a simple truth. If we're going to be accepted by the world, we've got to learn to accept ourselves first. And to do that, we need to get over feeling bad. If we're going to do it, if we're going to give up feeling bad, we need to dispense with this foolish notion that shame and feeling bad are helping. We were taught the "usefulness of shame" in two different ways: 1. Shame makes you a better person and 2. Shame teaches you not to make mistakes in the future.
But
Feeling bad doesn't make us better.
Shame teaches us nothing except how to keep being ashamed.
When I lived in Philadelphia, I loved lipstick. I still do of course, but back then I was around 25 years old and lipstick was a declaration for me. "Here I am world, I'm me and proud." I would perform in the Philly cabaret circuit, singing songs of deep longing (sometimes in French for extra pathos!) and I always wore lipstick. I wore heels and fishnets and a bowtie. I wore eye shadow and facial hair. I was decked and I was brave. It was a special kind of bravado. I had recently come out and my pendulum of "look at me world I exist and I won't be ashamed about it" had swung way out.
One night I was riding the subway home, wearing my dark purple Weimar-inspired lipstick -- a personal fave color, and a group of teenage boys got on the train and into my face. They started almost immediately calling me "faggot" and threatening me. It was fight or flight, and I flew as fast as I could, getting off the train at the next stop.
As I sat on the platform waiting for the next maybe-safer train, I realized something: I didn't have to feel bad. The whole situation just became as clear as crystal right there in the station. Those boys were trying to police me. They were trying to use shame and feeling bad to get me to become their idea of a better person. And people have been doing that to me all my life and I had started doing that to myself.
Wow! We talk about this on my podcast all the time: I had been policing myself for years at that point, thinking that feeling bad (withholding affection from myself!) is the key to... to... to what? A better life? Being a better person?
The theory is something like this: I am flawed and if I feel bad I'll learn not to be flawed. You know what's actually flawed? That logic. There is nothing wrong with me and there is nothing wrong with you. We don't need to police ourselves and we don't need to be policed by the world and we don't need to police our community or the world.
Here's a new premise: If we can ditch the shame and stop using it as a "learning tool" with ourselves and others, maybe we can see clearly enough what needs to get done -- what comes next? How do we want to work together? How can we step forward, without shame, and change this world for the better?
Can't wait to see what we come up with...
Jeffrey Marsh is a Vine superstar with over 150 Millions views on Vine.
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