pagan enough, queer enough

From the Project Pagan Enough creator:

"It has become quite obvious over the past few years that the pagan community likes to talk the big game of being tolerant and inclusive of all peoples, but seems to lack that tolerance when the person in question dresses well or is attractive or is otherwise garbed in a cloak of 'mainstream.' This intolerance seems to be derived from a standpoint that we, as the pagan community, believe we are ridiculed or ostracized by the mainstream, thus people that look mainstream must be our enemy.

Project Pagan Enough seeks to say that - no matter your beliefs, practices, looks, or loves - you are pagan enough. We can argue theology back and forth all day long and disagree with one another's fluff-factor until the cows come home, but it is high time that we stop denigrating one another's level of being pagan. Paganism does not have a set definition, and there is definitely not a dress code or music-loving requirement."

 

Yes. What he said.

 

Only, I'd like to apply this to other communities, too. "Us-vs-Them" is a human thing, not just a pagan thing. Every group does it. Even - or especially - those groups which are most denigrated by hetero-normative, mainstream culture.

 

It's bad enough that these attitudes keep us separate from each other, when we know that unity would be empowering. It's made worse when those attitudes keep people from learning. Nobody wants to be the newbie who doesn't wear the right thing, or listen to the right music, in any scene.

 

I was the girl who didn't know how to be a girl, definitely didn't know how to act around anyone I was attracted to, especially women, didn't even know how to express my non-girliness or my girliness. I didn't know how to "act" queer. And guess what? I look like your average hetero-normative straight girl. Only, I'm not.

 

So here's what I say: Gender doesn't have a dress code. Sexuality doesn't have a playlist. Faith doesn't have a flag. Whatever you are, you are enough, because you're human.