21 Oct A Queer Perspective
I totally celebrate who I am now – a bisexual person, married and in a committed triad. I am lucky to have had an incredible journey of life so far, discovering love for myself and others. But love and loss weave together. In offering a ‘Queer and GSRD’ (Gender, Sexuality and Relationship Diversity) Grief Tending session, I have been thinking about grief from a queer perspective.
Francis Weller’s ‘Gates of Grief’ can be useful lenses to look at our life experiences. These Gates are helpful to understand ‘grief’ as a range of emotions caused by a much wider range of circumstances than bereavement. Everyone’s histories are different, and people will be affected in different ways. Here are some of the ways grief that is specifically queer has shown up in my life, seen through these ‘Gates’.
‘All that we love we will lose’
Sitting with a cousin that I loved as he died of an AIDS-related illness.
‘The places that did not receive love’
My shame and disconnection did not allow me to make the link between hidden parts of myself – my butch teen image, secret compulsion to draw naked women and my sexuality.
‘The sorrows of the world’
Have you seen ‘Welcome to Chechnya’? It’s a terrifying reminder of places in the world where different attitudes to gender, sexuality and relationship diversity are not welcome.
‘What we expected but did not receive’
Where were the elders and role models to support, welcome and educate me around puberty and sexuality?
‘Ancestral grief’
I received confusing internal messages, following the shame and repression that kept my father in the closet until he was 60, in a generation for whom being homosexual was illegal.
‘The harm I have caused myself and others’ (Sophy Banks’ Gate)
Remembering times when I failed to really engage and empathise with my housemates while living in a lesbian community house.
You can read more about my personal story with Francis Weller’s ‘Gates of Grief’ here.
If ‘Embracing Grief – Queer and GSRD’ speaks to you, you can see more details here.
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