Poisonous Resentment and Perpetual Victimhood
Poisonous Resentment and Perpetual Victimhood
Growing up gay vs. growing up
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t think I had it too bad growing up as a lesbian. In general, I feel blessed to live where I live and to be born at just the perfect time when acceptance of same-sex attracted people was on the rise but there wasn’t yet a fanatical push to transition all of us gender non-conforming proto gays when we were children.
I was able to grow up and live my gay life in a society and among friends and family that accepted me.
Then again, I don’t like to practice self-pity. If I wanted to, I could play up the aspects of growing up gay that weren’t so rosy. I could go on and on about the unique, sometimes isolating challenges, the issues with friends when I was a teenager (at a time when your friends are everything), and even a scary and violent experience that happened early on.
But these are things that would poison me if I carried them so close to the surface as I see some gay people do (the ones that are generally on the “queer+” side). Unfortunately, I think there is absolutely a desire to appear as a victim in a culture where victimhood is currency. It’s a sad thing, and I think it has caused many adults who know better to push gender ideology and overtly sexualized discussions into schools and onto kids.
Take, for example, Robert Quartermain, the Canadian mining magnate who founded the ARC Foundation in 2007. The ARC Foundation is the organization pushing the SOGI 1 2 3 program in Western Canadian schools, with sights set on the rest of Canada (recently, however, the Saskatchewan government has paused their eastern advance).
Quartermain is a gay man who has not been open about his sexuality until quite recently. As I wrote in my piece for Gender Dissent:
In September 2022, at the Mining Legends Speakers Series at the Fairmont Pacific Rim in Vancouver, Quartermain offered some insight into his choice of charitable work. He began by speaking about the difficulty of coming out in the mining industry, which he started in when it was still legal to fire employees for their sexuality.
Quartermain also delves into the very real issues facing same-sex attracted people worldwide, like the fact that homosexuality is still outlawed in several countries and that lesbians still face honor killings. He describes his own sexuality as a “function of biology” and “genes.”
There is a noticeable dearth of social justice buzzwords and ideas in Quartermain’s talk. In fact, the way he describes homosexuality is antithetical to ideas of sexuality based on gender, gender identity, and gender expression rather than biological sex.
In his Canadian Mining Hall of Fame tribute video, Quartermain even credits his success in life to the “Christian conservative values” that he grew up with.
I found it hard to square this image of Quartermain—of a man who does not seem very resentful—with the reality that he founded an organization and a program that targets kids in school with queer theory. SOGI 1 2 3 presents kids in school with confusing nonsense about sex, gender, and sexuality that would lead gender non-conforming boys who might grow up to be gay like Quartermain to believe that they are really girls.
I wondered if Quartermain was even fully aware of what his own organization is pushing or if he is merely tossing money at what he figures is a “good cause” and patting himself on the back while letting other, more zealous individuals take the reins—people like British Columbia School District No. 48 superintendent Chris Nicolson.
Nicolson, also an out gay man, was present at a SOGI Information session for parents that I attended this past June and also wrote about for Gender Dissent.
While he was not a part of the presentation, Nicolson jumped in at the end to berate parents who were critical of what their children are being taught in schools. When parents still weren’t having it, he decided to become emotionally manipulative, saying:
I sure know that I wouldn’t have lost friends to suicide had I had these folks in my schools. I wouldn’t have considered it myself growing up. My mother wouldn’t have had a nervous breakdown.
As it always is with these resentful queer activists, questions and criticism are met with the invocation of suicide.
I have no doubt Nicolson had a difficult time growing up. But this does not excuse him from using his experiences to allow programs into schools that confuse and brainwash children.
I don’t think it’s just a matter of gay people who didn’t have as bad of a time growing up gay simply taking a rosier view of the world and not seeing how dangerous it can be. I know plenty of gays and lesbians, my age and older, who had a terrible time because they were same-sex attracted or who faced many serious difficulties along the way. But they don’t see themselves as perpetual victims and they haven’t turned around and tried to use today’s children to right the wrongs they experienced.
I think a big difference is between those of us who carry resentment and those of us who don’t. We who don’t acknowledge that the world did indeed change, we see that we can and do lead happy and fulfilling lives, and we are happy that young people growing up gay have a shot at that as well. What’s more, I think we are aware of the ways that queer activists are pushing everything way too far and indeed starting to fuel a backlash against us.
Because we’re not wrapped up in victimhood, we see that people are getting tired of the victimhood narrative. We see that public sentiment is starting to turn against the trans and queer part of the alphabet but that it is also blowing back on regular gay people who are just trying to live their lives. It’s sad, but I don’t necessarily expect the general public to be aware of the distinctions in our mess of a force-teamed “community,” especially not when parents are called homophobic for not wanting kids exposed to sexually explicit content in schools.
Resentment makes these activists unable to stop pushing and unable to express gratitude for how far things have come in society. It is a poison that risks destroying all of the acceptance we have won. Plus, even if things were as bad as they like to pretend they are, pushing gender ideology into schools and queer theory onto all of society would not be the way to go.
I feel bad for people who want to stay trapped in a perpetual state of victimhood, but my sympathy can only extend so far when it causes them to put everything we have worked so hard for at risk.
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