Taylors PM3

Members of class PM3, year 2007:

(This very very cheong hei letter was intended for all members of class PM3, but as I could only discover the above e-mail addresses through cyber-stalking, please help me forward this letter along to your classmates.)

As you've all seen, someone by the name of Lainie has been hacking your classblog chatbox. You don't like it, and you've blasted her back.

I just knew of the spat not long ago, and I hope I'm not too late to come in to mediate the situation, and clarify some issues:

Who's Lainie, why she's upset about the things you wrote in your classblog, why you disagreed with her, why a little, seemingly insignificant spat like this has significant consequences that you don't realise, and how I feel about the events that have transpired.

How Lainie came to know your classblog:

Lainie's one of my co-writers on my LGBT rights blog, tiltedworld.org. Back when you put up a hoax threat on your chatbox, I asked my friends and team of co-writers, including Lainie, what my appropriate response should be. What appeared shortly after was a series of spontaneous responses by my friends and co-writers.

Why Lainie was upset:

Lainie's gay, and proud of being so. In addition to that, she's fiercely defensive of gay rights. When she saw what were perceived to be intolerably homophobic, insensitive and derogatory postings and remarks on your blog, she felt obliged to let you know that she wasn't pleased with what you wrote.

Why you were upset:

This classblog is yours. You never intended it for third party viewer ship. When anonymous strangers leave comments in your chatbox, you hold it as an unwarranted intrusion into a premise for private conversation. Furthermore, you felt that whatever references to gays which you made were harmless, as you intended them to be nothing more than jocular insults.

Did Lainie invade the privacy of your classblog?

The classblog was created with the objective of providing a platform for private exchange between members of your class. However, the URL for this blog was kept public, exposing the blog to third party viewers, trolls and visitors of good faith alike. Even though the content of your blog implied that strangers were not welcomed to participate in the ongoing exchange, you did not take active steps to safeguard the privacy of your blog.

Malaysia society, having just reached puberty in internet literacy, has yet to enact laws regarding internet neutrality. The only form of internet regulation in Malaysia, therefore, is self-regulation, which is subjected to the whims and biases of each individual website owner.

You can either take it that internet neutrality should be upheld, or treat the blogosphere as a level playing field where plurality rules.

If you hold the former view, then you are responsible in ensuring that the content of your blog is fair and objective, and, in the context of this issue, free of discriminatory remarks mocking gay people.

If you hold the latter view, then you are free to write whatever foul, damning insults targeting gay people you like, and people like Lainie are equally free to make any bitchy responses as they wish in your chatbox. If you don't want to be responsible for making discriminatory remarks, then you'll also have to accept that there'll be many people who'll be upset, and angry, at the things you wrote.

If I posted a malicious parody of Malay people on my personal blog, wouldn't that create an uproar? If you stumbled upon my blog and read a post about how lan si SMK DJ people are (which isn't true, of course, I know a quite number of ex-DJians myself and they're all nice kids), wouldn't that piss you off too? Bottom line is, nobody wants to see malicious writing, even on a private blog.

My suggestion is that, if you wish to preserve the homophobia-oriented humour that is the dear tradition of your class, and you know that inevitably some people will find it offensive, then consider keeping you blog private among yourselves, where you can express yourselves as you wish without fear of third party viewer ship or third party response.

I manage a total of four blogs. Realizing that the contents of one of my blogs may be distasteful to unintended readers, I keep it private. As for the other blogs which are open to public viewing, I try my best to ensure that they do not content any slander, biased or derogatory remarks.

If Lainie had written something pleasing and complimentary, would you have still minded her leaving comments? If yes, then she has invaded the privacy of your blog. If no, then you were upset not because she invaded your privacy by dropping a comment, but because you disagreed with the content of her comment, which brings us to the second conflict.

Were your jokes really harmless? Really?

You can determine whether a joke is harmless or not by its consequences.

What Lainie's upset about, I believe, is not so much the nature of the jokes itself, but the mentality that prevails behind those jokes.

You think it's funny. You think it's harmless. You think it's alright. You think everybody does it.

It's true that when you post a parody mocking gays on your blog, or crack a joke during an casual conversation, no harm is caused at that point.

What is disturbing, though, is when you keep making them over and over and over again, you develop this attitude in the long run that it's alright to discriminate against minorities because well, you think it's funny.

And when you keep making gay jokes over and over and over again, you imply to your friends that hey, it's okay to join in, let's bersama-sama crack gay jokes, funny right?

And when you keep making gay jokes over and over and over again, and you don't realise that a friend of yours may actually be a closeted gay, you don't realise that you're actually mocking and hurting your own friend, who doesn't dare to tell you that he's gay because he doesn't want to lose your friendship.

And when you keep making gay jokes over and over and over again, you do nothing when you see a person being bullied or harassed for being gay, because you're so accustomed to the assumption that it's alright to treat gays as sandbags.

You think, you assume, that what's said stays in your words only.

Hence, it's harmless to post a gay joke or two on your classblog.

Wrong.

The fact is that, whatever that manifests in your mind translates easily into words, and what manifests in words translates easily into actions.

When it becomes okay not to respect gays, it becomes okay to make gay jokes.

When it becomes okay to make gay jokes, it becomes okay to verbally harass gay people.

When it becomes okay to verbally harass gay people, it becomes okay to beat them up.

When it becomes okay to beat the crap out of them, it becomes okay to kill gay people, which indeed, manifests in hundreds of murders all around the world every year just because the victims were gay, or thought to be gay, and the murderers didn't like gay people.

When it becomes okay to kill gay people, it becomes okay for an entire society to be entrenched in homophobia and gay-bashing.

And you can go down, down, down and down the slippery slope....

Remember, all it takes for evil to proliferate is for good men to do nothing.

What men define as real, they become real in its consequences.

All violence starts with indifference, and indifference can be as something as simple as making a seemingly harmless gay joke, or posting a gay parody on your classblog.

xxxxx

Somebody from your class said, "We're not exactly insulting gay ppl. We're more like insulting the person by calling him gay. If we call someone stupid are u telling me that we're insulting all gay stupid ppl around the world?"

Smart excuse. Unfortunately, it's a logical fallacy.

Calling someone stupid as an insult isn't parallel to calling someone gay as an insult.

"Stupid" is subjective, as is retarded, or ugly. No one in the real world is actually concretely defined as stupid, or ugly. You can't insult stupid people because in the first place, no one is identified as stupid.

Being gay, on the other hand, is a genuine-specific condition, and something millions of people around the world identify with.

xxxxx

I supposed that all of you've never had a gay friend, or took the effort to know one. I'd like to introduce you to a few of my homosexual/bisexual friends:

A is a Stanford graduate. Currently based in San Francisco, she works for Yahoo! as an intellectual property manager. She's also a devoted Muslim. Although she hasn't returned to Malaysia for over a decade, she hopes to tackle gay rights issues in Malaysia through her writing. She's been in a committed relationship with another Malaysian girl for many years, but is still afraid of revealing her relationship status in public.

B is the director of The Annexe Gallery and a champion of the Malaysian arts scene. He's good-looking, intelligent and very, very talented. He's a professional photographer, stage actor, dancer, artist, writer etc, just to name a few of his pursuits. He's fiercely protective of gay rights, and has won much respect from politicians, artists, social activists and casual acquaintances alike. He remains one of the few well-known local personalities who succeeded in storming out of the closet to self-acceptance and embrace by the community, but not without after years of soul-searching and loneliness.

C is one of the leading youth entrepreneurs and education activist in Malaysia. She has done anything and everything from organizing youth festivals/concerts/human right's workshops, operating one of the leading education websites in Malaysia, touring all over the world for various community projects, developing websites, indulging in journalism etc. Still in her mid-twenties, she's made tremendous contributions to the community and was recently nominated for the AYA Dream Awards. She's bisexual and proud of it.

D is a choral master. He holds music as his vocation, having mastered singing, piano, classical guitar, harmonica and saxophone. Very tall and good-looking, he has performed as a stage actor in numerous local plays and musicals, and modeled in numerous advertisements. He's also a model student and the president of the student council in his college. Having grown up in church, he's also a devoted Catholic. Like many gay men, he still struggles to lead an open life with his boyfriend.

E is an architecture undergraduate. She operates a well-known political blog in Malaysia. Young, talented and holding permanent residence in a foreign country, she hopes to return to Malaysia one day to serve the country. Unlike Jen and I, she's still afraid to come out in the open about her relationship with her girlfriend.

F is a senior of mine. She's currently pursuing chemical engineering in the US. She's very tall, good-looking and intelligent. She's a basketball player, avid debater and violin player. During her secondary school days, she was one of the most respected students in my community. She's got a girlfriend, but, like E, is still hiding in the closet.

G is, truly, the most talented and articulate Malaysian youth I've ever met (a genuine compliment, considering that I've met many of the most talented young Malaysians). He's blessed with a wonderful talent for writing and poetry. He's passionate about literature, world issues and philosophy, among other things. He's represented Malaysia at the Greenwich Forum London, among other things. He's held dear by all those who know him for the compassionate and sensitive person that he is. A feminist, he's very protective of women's rights, and will be minoring in Gender Studies in Harvard University. He's also very, very humble and unassuming, despite all his dazzling accomplishments. Like many of us, he's struggling to come out to his parents about his sexual orientation.

I've many other homosexual/bisexual friends, all of whom are no less talented and passionate about their respective pursuits than the ones I've mentioned above. In a nutshell, I wish to say that one's sexual orientation does not influence one's ability to lead a responsible, productive and fulfilling life. Rather, it's social stigma and discrimination that make our lives difficult.

xxxxx

I'm a very fortunate person, in the sense that I've never faced most of the obstacles that gay people claim to face.

I've didn't have a hard time struggling with my own sexual identity, and being an agnostic, I didn't have any dilemmas with religion. I've only pursued one girl thus far, and I wasn't rejected, so I don't know what heartbreak tastes like. I'm totally frank about sexual orientation, and all my friends have been supportive and understanding, so I don't know what it's like to be deserted by a shallow friend. My classmates couldn't care less whether I'm gay or African or three-legged (Jen used to come to my class every morning and my chums hardly noticed her presence).

Others don't have it so easy.

Some gay people will never get to be with the ones they fell in love with.

Some gay guys get assaulted in the toilet.

Some gay children get disowned by their own parents.

Some gays want to commit suicide.

Some gays committed suicide.

When I was younger, I used to crack jokes about "ah quas". I didn't give any second thought about it, or what my words meant.

I didn't know that many transsexuals go through years of inner conflict and rejection by their friends and families. I didn't know that many of them are forced to work as prostitutes because they're turned away by the legitimate workforce. I didn't know that many of them wanted to go to church/masjid, but were treated as freaks by the religious authorities. I didn't know that of them have been raped and/or beaten up. I didn't know that they were afraid to seek police protection because the police were equally abusive. I didn't know that many transsexuals in Malaysia have died because of homophobia-inspired violence.

Now that I know, I stopped making jokes about "ah quas".

My hope is that, next time, before you joke or mock about a particular person or community, you'd just stop and ponder for a second or two about what your words mean, and how the persons that you're mocking will feel.

xxxxx

Obviously, most of the homophobic remarks on the classblog were made by the boys. Therefore, I'd also like to touch on why the boys in this class, or rather, boys in general, are prone to making homophobic insults - to reassert their masculinity. (Girls don't call other girls lesbians as an insult)

The most damning method a guy can use to put down another guy is by emasculating him; pointing out to him that he has failed to live up to the virile, manly, heterosexual ideal type. Hence, the insults at guys who fail to perform in sports, the ridicule at boys who fail to act tough, the bullying of boys who are small in stature, and - the "gay" label.

I'd like to quote a classic Alfred Kinsey study on men and attitudes towards male homosexuality. Kinsey divided a group of men into two: those who were comfortable with the notion of male homosexuality, and those who expressed disgust at male homosexuality. Next, he showed images of male homosexuality and erotica to both groups of men and tested their biological response. He found that the majority of the men who had previously vehemently denied any homosexual leanings showed signs of arousal, while those who were comfortable with the notion of male homosexuality were relatively nonresponsive. When men aggressively expressed their disgust at male homosexuality, is it to conceal their own uncertainty about their sexuality?

Do yourselves a favour - be a real man, not by hurling cheap, cowardly homophobic insults, but by being confident in your own masculinity.

xxxxx

I know you're all students capable of academic excellence, but why stop there? Why not develop the hallmarks of emotional intelligence - sensitivity and empathy, as well? And perhaps, a slicker, classier sense of humour too?

Lainie's the type of person who's compelled to voice out her displeasure as she sees fit, but she doesn't go around scrutinizing websites for homophobic content. I've yet to meet her in real life, but I can assure you that she's actually a very nice person in real life.

C'mon now, I know you're all really nice kids in real life, not gay-bashing homophobes. You just didn't realise the profundity of your own thoughts and actions, that's all.

You probably still hold many misconceptions about gay people. Therefore, I'd like to offer myself as an ambassador for the gay youth community, a peace child, a bridge of understanding - if you've any curiosities about homosexuality/gay people in general, feel free to shoot me your questions (wei, no math questions), and I'll try my best to answer them.

This letter is waaay too drawn out, but I intended it so, so that when you're free, you may re-read this letter again and chew on some of the things I've written (and partly also because I'm just bored with studying for A2 trials).

Before I sent this letter, I contemplated three types of responses: the first is that (hopefully) you'd consider with good faith what I've written thus far; the second is that you'd disregard this letter as a complete waste of time; and the third is that you'd retort back with even more childish homophobic slurs. Whatever your response, I hold it my personal duty, as a friend of Lainie's, and as a human rights activist myself, to try my best to engage you to reconsider the things you've written in your classblog thus far.

Aiyoh, cheong hei sungguh. Kay, I gotta get back to studying.

Cheers :-D

Chong Yong Wei/"frodo"