Possum Gargoyle & Panti Bliss

So there I was, minding my own business, expecting to get my hair done, and she says to me, ‘Would you want a cat?’  A big ole neutered tom, age in double digits who still had the collar mark in his fur from being turfed out, probably because his old fella died and the family too mean to keep him.  She has another cat, also a stray and not adjusting to the tom, so last in, first out.

He seemed nice enough when we met him, and we reckoned a cat that age would sleep all day.  He turned into Son of Satan when we got him home. 

All attempts to re-home him through official channels, even via cat rescue and the vet were met with the suggestion to put him down.  Life as we knew it ended, but since, among all his other health problems, he has a brain tumour, we keep telling ourselves we’ve only got 18 more months of this.

I should mention that the tumour is on whatever affects growth, so he looks like a gargoyle with possum hair.  Not this kind of possum,

But this.

There’s not even the cute factor to make us like him, but in an odd sort of way, we do.  He’s well treated and adores (has taken ownership of) the Butler, even shows respect for the other cats’ personal space.  A modicum of respect.

So what does that have to do with Panti Bliss?  Well, when we tell folk that gargoyle death is the only option for getting our life back, people are all, ah . . . the poor thing.  Even cat rescue said to put him to sleep?  Ah . . . and this is a cat.  Not even the same species. 

Now let’s look at the LGBT community.  Fellow humans, for those who are unsure.  Humans whom we publicly debate about – whether they should get married, play sports, have children, work with children, be around children as if being LGBT were an infectious disease.  We publicly debate this, in print, on the internet, the telly, in groups.  We spread the word that whole nations kill LGBT people and praise or boycott Coca-cola for including a gay couple in its Super Bowl ad.  Just in case there’s any LGBT folk out there who haven’t copped onto themselves that they really aren’t the same as the rest of the civilised world.

Then Panti Bliss got into a bit of bother over an interview on RTE. 

Panti Bliss talk on homophobia

This speech about homophobia says many wonderful things, but what impacted me the most is Panti’s description of what it feels like to live in an environment that relentlessly signifies being LGBT.  A trans woman once said if she’d committed murder, her family would visit her in prison, but this . . . they wished she’d died rather than come out to them.

So you haven’t lived until you’ve been ostracised at least once and if you’re old enough to read this blog, I assume you have been.  And by ostracised, I mean there you are, doing nothing beyond simply being, living, breathing in air and for that, you’re criticised.  For breathing in air. 

There she is, breathing in air, the right bitch. 

And then when you don’t stop yourself from breathing in air, people start looking at you funny and when you speak to them, they get a little smirk or pretend they didn’t hear you.  Before you know it, all the standard little things stop happening or take on great importance such as being able to stand in a queue outside a club or picking up milk during daylight hours or living in a house that doesn’t have graffiti sprayed on it or being spoken to civilly by your colleagues.  If you’re stupid enough to ask someone in authority to help, somehow it’s your fault.  You breathed, now, didn’t you?

This really blows my mind.  Gargoyle possum draws all this sympathy and yet . . .

Any country that is part of the EU has agreed there are laws which say the debate is over, yet RTE paid silence money to a shower of bigots.  Trying to cure any form of LGBT-ism, opposing marriage equality, firing teachers for being gay, pummelling LGBT citizens with negative stereotypes, beating, raping, killing LGBT people, those are all hate crimes. 

To all those people who haven’t yet made up their minds, the debate has finished.  Get over it.  Start acting like an evolved life form.