Death through social asphyxiation: How continuing boxes and norms are killing the LGBT community

You are killing me. Or I am killing you. I am sorry, somewhere along the way I got confused as to who was killing who. Wait, how is this, we are killing each other.

Shocking isn’t it? We are dying from social asphyxiation and we are both holding the pillows to each other’s mouth while we straddle each other’s one-dimensional “identity” between our legs. The person, our very being, in its most dynamic, multiple fluid forms is trapped inside of our bodies, screaming for air, screaming to be allowed freedom. Ironically enough, we both want our beings to be free, yet somewhere along the way, we were taught to keep it in the closet, that it’s not “normal”. Somewhere along the way we confused this idea of the normal, that it somehow exists; it’s this fairytale we convinced ourselves is there and we want to be it.

It doesn’t exist. I’m sorry to break it to you. I have finally realized it. Now please, remove the pillow from my head and allow me to be.

Now, you may wonder how I finally came to this conclusion. Was it drugs? No, fortunately this time it wasn’t. Was it idealism, liberalism or some other “ism” that has poisoned the mind? No, there were no “isms” involved. Where did it come from then? It came partly through issues of my own identities, class discussions, assigned readings and considering how social change comes about. For me, to a certain extent, this class wasn’t just about LGBT issues, but identity issues as a whole. I wanted to know how my numerous identities intersected each other and could join together in the movement for positive social change. I know, perhaps a bit idealistic, but allow me to take you through my personal, intellectual journey through issues surrounding identity.

To begin, I have considered how my various identities have somehow interconnected and clashed. I was told numerous times that my sexuality somehow separated me from my other identity as a Jicarilla, as a person of color and so on. Socially, I was also told that each of these identities were like small little buckets, separate from each other, that only shared the water it collected. In Lisa Kahaleole Chang Hall’s Bitches in Solitude, she considers this type of behavior as “exclusionary identity building,” as the excerpt below shows:

“There are at least two kinds of exclusionary identity building. One is the exclusion based on power and privilege, the ability not to have to take other people’s existences seriously. The other comes from the less privileged end of the spectrum. For some, identity becomes a fortress under siege that’s protected by denying connections with others and oversimplifying connections with “their own”.

As a woman of color with my certain sexuality, this was the exact case; the identity that others forced me to confront was a “fortress under siege”. I was to choose and define in precise words the “side” I was to be on, either the LGBT, or people of color. However, I never felt that either was my own and exclusive of the other.

I didn’t want to have to choose. Somehow I knew I shouldn’t have to; I knew that there was an interconnection between all these identities and it had to be more than this concept of the “normal”. Perhaps my mistrust of what “normal” is came from my cross- cultural experiences growing up on the reservation and then coming to Carleton (Blog Entry: Ideas of the normative that aren’t so normal.) In that blog entry, I hoped to argue that ideas and concepts that some commonly terms as the normative, like perspectives on sexuality, are different for other cultures. It is through a cultural and social lens that these normatives are created, but to assume that there is an overarching normative to confirm to, is something we as individuals have created.

Then the question came what to do with it. How is it that my individual identity, as a multidimensional dynamic being, could attach to society? Now enter Hall’s identity politics, which she nicely summarized in the excerpt below:

“For me, identity politics is about making connections between personal histories and larger political and social context. Basic but far from simple. Identity politics is important because it shatters the alienating slit that we’re taught exists between the realities of our personal lives and the public “political” reality. It’s important because paradoxically, not recognizing and acknowledging where we’re coming from makes it even hard to get beyond the limitations of our experiences. Both things are true, we are the world; we’re just not all of it.”

You see, that’s just it. Identity as we practice it today is thought of as one-dimensional and separate from each other. We are taught that “realities of our personal lives and the public “political” reality” is somehow different. ‘My actions are my actions and mine alone, and there is only the interconnections are those that I choose to create with you,’ is the overarching lesson the majority is taught through an American, western Judeo-Christian cultural sphere. Today, as a society, as Americans, somehow we are still stuck on this linear thought process of every man, woman and child for themselves as we move forward, and progress towards “normal,” the “ideal”.

How does this relate to the LGBT? It relates as everything does. Since it’s historical development in the U.S. gay men and women have strived to carve out a place for themselves in society (See Blog Entry: Development of the Homosexual Identity). From Stonewall, to today, where identity politics is still a heated debate where as a community we are trying to decide the “LGBT agenda” towards equality and freedom. Identity is still an issue. How is it that we define each other and how can we use that definition of identity to unite and move forward en mass as a group to conquer injustice and overcome oppression for all gay people? That’s it, isn’t it? We’re trying to overcome oppression and declare we’re “just like everyone else,” and that we are humans so accept us. That is what every oppressed minority person, group, thing demand, to not be define and confined to a normative that we really can’t define.

Then how does one overcome this perceived normative? How is it that we can share boxes? Identity politics is important because it awakens the person to the interconnections they share with other. When you can identity who you are as a being, then you are able to see how that being interconnects with other. Here, being is in the sense that it’s multi-layered and dynamic, human beings are “being” because they interconnect with what is around them and are in constant change. As Hall points out:

“Taking seriously the idea that identity is a complicated mixture of sometimes contradictory layers of gender, racial, sexual, and ideological identifications means that there exists a number of possible connections. Identity is as multiple as the communities we form.”

Identity is a mixture. Identity politics is then a mixture of one’s identities with the movement towards uniting and overcoming. Then why isn’t it working then, why aren’t we living in this utopia? It’s just that, we aren’t considering our own identities and how they connect. Hall hits it on the head when she says that we aren’t taking identity seriously enough.

You got the money, you got the cure!

The title of this entry lends largely to two aspect surrounding Antiretroviral drugs. First, I will address the popular misconceptions these antiretroviral drugs are a cure for AIDS and the associated social/personal consequences. Secondly, I will discuss that arguably, for many in America, the AIDS plague is over, but realistically, for many, the cost of antiretroviral drugs are too great to even afford “extended time” with the treatment.

To begin, the most popular “aids cocktail” of antiretroviral drugs is known as Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Therapy” (HAART). HAART therapy is a combination of several drugs that follow a strict pill regiment accompanied by severe side affects. For HAART therapy to work, there has to be a strict adherence to the pill regiment because incompliance leads to drug resistance within the body as well as the body’s viral resistance not building up. It’s an extremely strenuous therapy regiment that is both resource intensive and expensive. Another words, HAART therapy is just that, a therapy that enables the AIDS patients to have a chance at longer-term survival with a combination of drugs that increase the body’s viral resistance. It’s not a cure to AIDS.

There are serious social consequences in associating HAART therapy as a cure for AIDS because first, it allows people to become complacent in the fight to find the cure. They assume one has already been found. There is also the aspect that is lowers people’s inhibitions to practice safe sex, assuming that HAART therapy can fix the problem. Essentially, it’s putting a bowl under a leaky pipe and not trying to fix the pipe.

The second critique of HAART therapy is that people consider it a cure for AIDS and that these drugs are accessible to everyone. They are not. For those from lower socioeconomic status, the chances of receiving HAART therapy are slim to none considering the enormous price. Don’t feel too at ease though, even Americans that consider themselves a bit higher up on the socioeconomic ladder have limited access to HAART therapy because it’s likely they aren’t insured. Consider this, as of the most recent statistics released in 2006 from the Census bureau, 47.0 million Americans are without health insurance coverage. What if one of them contracts AID/HIV, where are they going to find the money to afford HAART therapy that can easily run thousands of dollars? They might not have the money to afford to buy the “extended time” HAART offers its patients with increasing the body’s viral resistance.

Fig. 6 Number of Uninsured and Uninsured Rate: 1987 to 2006

Perhaps better rephrased, “you got the money, you get the time”.

A Personal Note to Andrew Sullivan

Dear Andrew,

Thank you, for in your ignorance, writing off the struggle that Native people, alongside other communities of color such as Black and Latino face with the battle with AIDS/HIV. Below, I've copied an excerpt written by yourself, in "When Plagues End," that helped me see my "place" as a Native person in a society dealing with AID/HIV.

“with inner-city black and Latino, with intravenous drug users, there was no similar cultural transformation, no acceleration of social change. And that was because with these groups, there had never been a myth of power. They had always been, in the majority psyche, a series of unknowable victims. AIDS merely perpetuated what was already understood and, in some ways, intensified it. With gay men, in contrast, a social revolution had been initiated. Once visible, they were now unavoidable; once powerful subversives, they were now dying sons.”

Sitting in the library, I read your article, initially amazed that with a few strokes of the keyboard, you have the power to write off an entire people’s struggle with a disease by not even mentioning it in the long list of victims. Then I realized, that’s just it, apparently, as Native people, we weren’t supposed to survive this long, and why mention us now? Alongside other people of color, our extinction, way of life, and culture is left to crumple, with the access to “added time” in the hands of the privilege few.

Thank you Andrew Sullivan, for making me realize that from “majority psyche,” I am just another helpless casualty.


Sincerely yours,



"Just another unmentionable casualty."

P.S. Above, I have attached shows for your viewing pleasure from youtube.com

A call to arms, "Gay characters disappearing from broadcast TV!"

Apparently gay people are an “endangered species on network television”. Excerpts from the article in Reuters are below:

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Gay people are becoming an endangered species on network television. A new report says a total of seven series on the five broadcast networks feature regular lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) characters this season, down from nine last season.

The number has dropped for the past three years, according to the annual "Where We Are on TV" study by the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation.

"While we acknowledge there have been improvements made in how we are seen on the broadcast networks, most notably on ABC, our declining representation clearly indicates a failure to inclusively reflect the audience watching television," said GLAAD president Neil Giuliano.

So I know for many, there is a certain amount of validity in seeing characters on television that one can empathize with and connect on a personal level, may it be racially, culturally, politically, gender-wise, etc. But at the same time, is the LGBT movement moving forward with broadcast television? Are we really changing the minds of those in the hetero-dominant world by adding another stereotypical “gay” character to laugh at? Or is continuing participation in American consumerism furthering the idea of tolerance of gays, rather than acceptance?

I argue that yes, I would like to watch more lesbians on TV. Just as much as I would like to see more shows that are worth watching. Another words, for the LGBT community, our focus cannot be on superficial tolerance from the heterosexual majority by their “gay” character quotas. Rather we need to be striving to expand acceptance of all people, regardless of what identity categories, be it racially, culturally, religiously, sexually, economically or any other superlatives we can find to box people in.

Anal versus Oral: The “Immoralities” of Sodomy Uncovered

Alright, I’ll admit, perhaps the title is a bit misleading but it was catchy enough to get your attention. Now that I have it, I suppose it’s time to do something incredibly intellectual and profoundly moving with it. So in this entry, I hope to look at the etymology of the word sodomy through its groundings in the Biblical story of the City of Sodom, and its influences on contemporary perspectives of “natural” sex and American Sodomy Laws. It is through this analysis that I hope to bring you to the tantalizing climax that laws regarding anal sex, oral sex, and sex in general, with two consenting people, are not grounded in an ideal “natural law”, rather a generalized Judeo-Christian perspective on sex. All of this will be done in the hopes of pulling the fear of that many have of anal sex as “unnatural” into the realm of “just another sex position” for both men and women, straight or gay, and everyone in between to choose to enjoy, if they choose.

To begin, sodomy, in its broadest sense can be defined as an act of sexual intercourse involving anal or oral sex. Etymologically, the word traces itself from biblical story of the citizens of ancient Sodom and Gomorrah, whose so-called deviant and unnatural sexual acts incurred the wrath of God. The excerpt below from the New Testament, of the Epistle of Jude, considers the “immoral” sexual aspects of Sodom:

‘…just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire’ (v. 7, English Standard Version).

So what exactly are “immoral” and “unnatural” sexual acts that God is apparently punishing entire cities for? Did the Biblical story of Sodom and Gomorrah really establish homosexuality as a sin because of its aspect of anal intercourse as “unnatural”? The nature surrounding this Biblical story is still out to debate today. The major two views on interpretation of the text are divided as follows:

1. Historically, its been interpreted that the sins of Sodom was the homoerotic act of sodomy. Many point to this Biblical story as justification that homosexuality as an identity is “unnatural” and “sinful” through the eyes of Judeo-Christianity.
2. Others argue that the sins of Sodom had more to do with inhospitality than sexual transgressions or differing sexual identities against God. Biblical scholars such as Jimmy Creech further explain, “People of biblical times did not understand sexual orientation, there is nothing in the bible and nothing in the scripture to condemn loving same gender relationships.”

Although today, for the most part, legal interpretations of sodomy are still considered sexually deviant in nature because of the persistence in social thought regarding the first interpretation. The influence of social Judeo-Christian thought has been so great that many argue for sodomy laws claiming that it goes against “nature” and is “that most detestable sin.”
Thereby, sex under this working definition is supposed to be between a man and a woman, and must only be acts leading to procreation. But where does that leave the elderly, the infertile, or those on birth control that engage in sexual activity? Where does that leave women? As biological time clocks that are available for procreative sex only? What about those who may engage in “procreative sex,” but enjoy heating things up beforehand with “unnatural” sexual acts, such as oral sex? Is what Bill and Monica did, in our Nation’s very White House considered “unnatural” sodomy?

Notice that there is also a cultural perspective of what is considered “natural”. For many, biology is oversimplified alongside the human body, and the “natural” tends to mean procreative sexual activity between male and female organs. Although I would argue that the concept of “nature,” as ironic as it may sound, isn’t necessarily based on some uniform concept underlining all of creation; rather thoughts of “nature” and the “natural” really fall under differing aspects of cultural relativism. What one culture may find “natural” or “normal” doesn’t necessarily hold true for another. One may argue science points to the “natural,” yet what about those cultures where science holds no grounding or meaning?

Overall, as a nation, it’s time to consider that sodomy laws now in place in some states are still fundamentally grounded a debatable interpretation of the Biblical story of Sodom and it’s considered “unnatural” based on Judeo-Christianity’s perspective of the natural. For Americans to consider this, that a law is based on a certain theology, undermines the very concept of democratic freedom. We are not a nation of one religion, hence why should we continue to regulate private sexual activities and positions between consenting people under an umbrella of one religion’s perspective?

Let’s get nice and cozy: How the AIDS/HIV epidemic is continuing to be the silent killer.

Above, Isadore Boni of the San Carlos Apache Nation goes public with his HIV/AIDS
diagnosis in hopes of raising danger of the disease to
Native Americans.

My cousin Alpo had just returned from prison and I was home for the winter break from boarding school. It was the first time that I had seen him in four years and I barely recognized him. At first I thought that it was because the last memory I had of him was beating my dog as a small child, or because I didn’t recognize all the tattoos that littered his face and arms. When I walked into my gramma’s house, and saw him, I gave a quick jump, not expecting to see him and suddenly terrified at the thought that my scrawny 9-year-old frame was alone with him.

He eyed me up and down and spoke to me in Apache. His voice was hallow and empty, like he had just swallowed something too quickly. Our conversation, which I can still hear in my mind when I hold still, went something like this:

“Gramma told you?”
“Told me what?” I said.
“That I got the white man’s sickness?”
“No. Which one?”
“The one that eats your soul. Never heard of it till today, it’s called H. I don’t know, the white nurse at I.H.S. said I was going to die. I might get all sorts of diseases because my soul can’t fight them. She said it was because of all the tattoos.”
“What does your soul and tattoos have anything to do with each other?”
“I don’t know, she didn’t explain it too good.”
“You scared?” I asked.
“Yea.”

I remember eyeing Alpo when he told me this, not quite comprehending all that it entailed. I had never heard of this “H” sickness that he told me he had. I remember the white nurse that he went to see at Indian Health Service coming to see our family. I remember translating her words for my gramma to understand. I remember having difficulty understanding what she meant when she said that Alpo’s immune system will deteriorate. First, I didn’t really understand what an immune system was, and I also didn’t understand how it related to his soul and tattoos. I asked my gramma later, and she didn’t know.

I returned to school and a couple of months later I remember watching ABC News in our boarding school commons. They had a special on the “AIDS/HIV epidemic”. I remember being terrified watching this program, because I realized that it’s what Alpo had, and that there was no escaping this death sentence. I started crying thinking that AIDS was everywhere; on me and on everything I touched. It was this fear, that I was going to die from something so small, that I couldn’t even see or understand, that shook my core being. I tried to find out more about it, I remember going to see my principal, the school nurse and even the eighth grade science teacher, but no one really seemed to know.

I remember looking up the definition of an immune system in the dictionary and it had nothing to do with tattoos or Alpo’s soul. To this day I wonder what that nurse was trying to have me translate to my grandmother. Perhaps it was my nine-year-old mind not able to pick up on any of her subtle conversation. Then again, it wouldn’t really matter; Alpo’s soul had nothing to do with it.

Fast track eleven years later, Alpo has died, eight more known cases of people now living with HIV/AIDS on my reservation of only 2, 500 people have surfaced. One, my first cousin Donna, sixteen years old, has contracted it through rape a year earlier. Two of the other cases involved a man coming home from prison infected and unknowingly passing it onto his female partner.

Fast track to today, I sat in class discussing the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the gay community during the 1980s. We discussed about how the sickness was at first coined the “gay disease” and it’s numerous connections with issues of morality. We also considered how it no longer is just the “gay” disease, how it affects drug addicts, many blacks and latinos, “people of color,” (which in class feels like ironically it doesn’t seem to include Native Americans), and so on. We talked briefly about how HIV/AIDS doesn’t discriminate who is infected by race, gender, sexuality or social class, it is impacting everyone. We noted that medicine has also made leaps and bounds that now; HIV/AIDS is no longer just a death sentence. Prevention and information programs in mainstream culture in the United States have also made it so that people know more about it.

But what about the people, such as Native communities that are not receiving this information? What about communities in different African countries that beginning to encounter, or continuing to deal with this epidemic? What about the rate of people being infected daily with HIV that continues to grow? What about the places where even the language, or culture to discuss such things is not allowed?

Then a comment from a fellow classmate floored me, for him, AIDS/HIV was an issue of the past that today, most people don’t need to deal with; as if the fight is over. Now, it’s not something that as a gay man, he feels that this generation is having to deal with. To this student, I say that I am dealing with it, my community is dealing with it, and so are many others.

To me, his comment rang of the concept that it’s just an “African” problem, or the “Gay Disease”, or just a problem for this small group of people, not everyone. Now I’m not saying that we should all go out screaming in fear on the streets that AIDS/HIV is the end of the world. But at the same time, if we allow ourselves to think that the problem is contained or segregated, we are still allowing entire communities to parish in our ignorance that it’s not “our” problem. If one person a day contracts HIV, it is all of our problem, regardless of race, gender, sexuality or social class. As a human beings, we cannot allow ourselves to become cozy and fall into this rut of compliance, allowing it to infect another person. If we do, then AIDS/HIV will continue to be a silent killer that we are allowing to exist.

Alpo, in his younger days...
We will never forget you...

Naughty pictures

Recently someone asked me to explain the use of images on the side bar of my blog and why I chose to display pictures of certain Native "two-spirits". For Jicarillas, Nadleeyee, or "two spirits" have existed since the beginning of our creation story. Some have argued that linguistically, in Jicarilla, it parallels the English translation of a "cross dresser". Others have looked that how the word functions in a cultural sphere of understanding and how it's used in everyday terminology. My understanding of the word Nadleeyee, as a Native Jicarilla speaker, is a person whose spirit “chooses” what gender role to encompass. Traditionally and spiritually, it’s believed that Jicarillas are reincarnated and sometimes, the spirit and the body aren’t perfectly matched. So, when children are born, they have no sex and its left up to their “spirit” to show itself and “choose” what gender roles to encompass. Usually, this happens at the early stages of development and the child will usually decided where it feels more comfortable, with the men, or the women. After it’s seen that the child has “chosen,” the spiritual naming ceremony, occurs, usually around puberty. This is when the child is not only seen as an adult, but is also seen as having a fully developed societal role.

It’s important to note though, that the word Nadleeyee makes no implications in the sexual orientation of the person. For instance, a child that is born with male organs, and whose spirit “chooses” to reveal itself as a woman, may have either a male or female partner, or both. Here, as gender is seen to have fluidity, so is sexuality.

This concept of sexual fluidity, as well as gender fluidity is something that I see as imperative to the discussion of the LGBT identity and the concept of Nadleeyee lends to the understanding of that concept as practice today.