LGBTQ Divers?

[divingbuddy]

I remember a news story about a couple who got booked onto a gay cruise, the only straight customers on the boat as I recall. Nothing particularly wrong, but awkward...! Ah, here it is: Heterosexual couple booked on a gay cruise sues cruise line | Gadling.com Excerpting...

Same scenario some GLBTQ people feel surrounded by 'straight people' - you don't see why they might prefer a dive club with other GLBTQ divers, but you can understand why the straight couple on the cruise felt 'awkward'....

As others have said, we've got all different kinds of divers, and there are groups for just about all of them. Why? Life has enough dealing with other peoples crap....diving shouldn't....so people seek out people similar to themselves (whether it be based on gender - ladies only clubs, sexual orientation, or dive philosophy (diving with others who share your diving philosophy/beliefs can avoid discussions or hassles maybe you just don't want to have). Do I dive with lots of other people? Sure. As a GUE trained diver though, sometimes I just want to dive with other similar divers - nothing wrong with that. Diving is supposed to be fun and enjoyable - if it isn't, then you're either not doing it right, or with the right people (no DIR pun intended).

Just my two cents while I kill some time as I nurse a sick wife....hopefully better before our trip to North Carolina. Cheers!

 

[jmasin]

Easy for you to say as a hetereosexual and without the experience of hanging around people who are uncomfortable of you. People do not have to, and should not have to be fighting for acceptance in every aspect of their life.

Sas,

I did openly admit in my post it was easy for me to say, I understand this aspect.

I think BVickery has an excellent point. The individual must also be willing to live their life in the open in order for it to be accepted. It must necessarily come from both directions.

And to your point of fighting for acceptance, while I agree with you that one should not have to fight for acceptance, who cares if some dude on a dive boat accepts you? Honestly? If the person is calling names and pointing and being a general j-ass fine, or preventing you from diving, or threatening you... but otherwise screw 'em.

And please don't quickly react with an "easy for you to say". While I love to be liked and accepted by all, not everyone in this world is going to like or accept me for various reasons. So be it.

Yes, I'm heterosexual, but I have plenty of other traits and beliefs that make me a minority in the various circles I find myself in through life, so while I cannot understand the exact situation a non-heterosexual person experiences, I don't think it is a totally foreign concept (but I can of course be wrong).

Anyway, I'm enjoying the good discussion, I hope all view it as such

 

[hypertech]

I've got a dive buddy whose gay. Dove with him many times. One day another dive buddy said "you know he's gay and the guy that comes along with him sometimes is his boyfriend, right?". To which I replied "no, I had no idea. Why didn't he say something? Oh well, you ready to go?". It's time to dive.

The whole idea of distinguishing a dive club on sexuality is ridiculous. You are sharing a dive not an orgy.

 

[BVickery]

Easy for you to say as a hetereosexual and without the experience of hanging around people who are uncomfortable of you.

Again, I point to the fact that the acceptance aspect has moved past the legislative and legal avenues of acceptance and into the personal. You can NEVER force a person to accept who you are. The LGBT community has to get realize this aspect, and its now to the point of shutting up and just live. Yes I put it bluntly, but sometimes its the only way to get through to people. It seems like I'm beating a dead horse, because I am, but if the gay community wants to accepted they can't be segregating themselves from the rest of society.

People do not have to, and should not have to be fighting for acceptance in every aspect of their life.

What you want is a perfect world, which is impossible. To acheive this gov't will need thought police and the works. Some people may be fine with this, but for me, its to much. Sorry, if this is what the LGBT community wants, I will have to stop supporting them and oppose them, at least here in the U.S where we do have individual freedoms that allow us to be bigoted a******* if we wanted.

You are the type of person these clubs help people avoid.

And forcing/telling people they MUST accept you for what you are is why large amounts of people tend to shun your groups. People are people and demanding aspects of their private/personal lives starts getting you adversaries instead of allies. And first hand I can tell you I am the type of person 'those groups' try to avoid just because I am labeled as a 'conservative'.

 

[fjpatrum]

Its very much a circle. It seems many who try and support the legitimacy of a LBGT dive club go to the whole awkwardness felt from other people. If you take a moment and look at it, that awkwardness is trying to adapt to something new and unusual to them.

You can't cry out for acceptance of how you live your life to others if your unwilling to live your life in the open so people can get used to this change. Race relations didn't just happen, courts struck down unconstitutional laws and it was up to the individual black man/women to finish it one person at a time through simple interaction. A major cultural change doesn't occur overnight or in short term, it will take generations to break down such concrete barriers some people built up, and unfortunately, some people will resist all attempts to break ti down.

Best of luck to it all, and hopefully my point of view as a straight person looking at this subject helps you as well. Just like the gay POV helps me understand some aspects of this that I can't get from my normal POV.

I'm guessing your children (if you have any) are either too young or too old for you to see that this is indeed exactly what is happening. My 15 year old daughter, of mixed heritage, doesn't recognize skin color differences. She also doesn't recognize gender differences or sexuality differences, but her generation is arguably the first generation (anywhere in the world) that has a majority of it's members that this can be said about.

We are from an older generation and the people we are around on dive boats are typically from an older generation and some simply don't accept that this change is happening. As another poster pointed out, our grandparents, for the most part, didn't likely agree with mixed-race pairings. Our generation has changed that to a certain extent, as you said, by being forward and upfront about it. Make no mistake, though, some of those people got beaten, jailed, and killed for it. That is what the LGBT community is still dealing with, and while we fight for "integration" we still need a "safe harbor," if you will, where we can turn when we just need to get away from the whole integration thing. "Queer-neutral" or "Queer friendly" groups provide that safe harbor.

I say this as a queer married (to a woman) white male who enjoys a certain amount of anonymity about my proclivities and doesn't need to worry about being in another minority group on top of my sexuality. Even I want to get away from the "gender game" and "hetero normal" life and I have a life many (if not most) people would find completely normal and not view askance

Consider this, when you need to get away from the stress of work, do you go hang out with coworkers? (It's probably a poor analogy but right now it's all I can come up with that makes any logical sense from both sides of this fence.)

 

[fjpatrum]

Sas, thanks for the prejudgement of me, i guess that makes you like you think i am.
My point is now that they are accepted in society dont seclude themselves. They want to be able to blend in and now that they can they seem to have their own hang ups about themselves and feel a need to start a separate club.

LGBT are not "accepted in society" in many many places. We are becoming more accepted but we are a long way from being openly accepted by the majority of the population. Just look at the Defense of Marriage Act, the fight against repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, the number of states trying to pass constitutional amendments against equal rights for gays as your example of how far there still is to go before we're "accepted". And that just considers the USA, which is about middle of the pack as far as acceptance standards go.

 

[BVickery]

I'm guessing your children (if you have any) are either too young or too old for you to see that this is indeed exactly what is happening. My 15 year old daughter, of mixed heritage, doesn't recognize skin color differences. She also doesn't recognize gender differences or sexuality differences, but her generation is arguably the first generation (anywhere in the world) that has a majority of it's members that this can be said about.

We are from an older generation and the people we are around on dive boats are typically from an older generation and some simply don't accept that this change is happening. As another poster pointed out, our grandparents, for the most part, didn't likely agree with mixed-race pairings. Our generation has changed that to a certain extent, as you said, by being forward and upfront about it. Make no mistake, though, some of those people got beaten, jailed, and killed for it. That is what the LGBT community is still dealing with, and while we fight for "integration" we still need a "safe harbor," if you will, where we can turn when we just need to get away from the whole integration thing. "Queer-neutral" or "Queer friendly" groups provide that safe harbor.

I say this as a queer married (to a woman) white male who enjoys a certain amount of anonymity about my proclivities and doesn't need to worry about being in another minority group on top of my sexuality. Even I want to get away from the "gender game" and "hetero normal" life and I have a life many (if not most) people would find completely normal and not view askance

Consider this, when you need to get away from the stress of work, do you go hang out with coworkers? (It's probably a poor analogy but right now it's all I can come up with that makes any logical sense from both sides of this fence.)

I'm in my mid 30's and fully agree. But at times, and this observation comes from my ex who was bi, that it seems some of the younger generation feels its 'cool/popular' to be gay or bi. Her words, not mine. So is it true acceptance or an attempt to be part of the in crowd or accepted. I've noticed some straight people go out of their way to show off their 'gay friends' to the point I saw it as very demeaning to the gay couple in question.

What can I say, I'm in my 30's and tired of all the BS trying to splinter society into more and more groups. I don't use the political correct terms for races anymore because frankly, when dealing with others who live around me, I just see them as American. Whether they are gay, straight, bi, black, white, asian, jewish, cahtolic, wiccan, atheist or whatever. I think that Political Correctness has done more harm than good because it sets up more 'us vs. them' fights than to bring people together and have them accepted for who/what they are.

 

[Jax]

<sigh>

How about we just go back to "what happens behind closed doors stays there"?

Who cares if you are black, white, yellow, green, pink, gay, straight, transexual, curious or whatever -- I don't want to watch any of you play tongue-gagging or feeling each other up in public!

As for "normal", "acceptable" levels of hugs, kisses, hand-holding, etc; apply that level of acceptable across everybody. Can't we just go back to learning civilized manners, and stop all this "in your face" stuff?

Birds of a feather flock together, and that's acceptable as long as they don't poop on my lifestyle.

 

[fjpatrum]

I'm in my mid 30's and fully agree. But my mother, die hard Italian-Roman Catholic in her 70's very much accepts my brother being gay. Hell, when my brother came out of the closet I was the last told and the one they feared most of telling (I actually knew my brother was gay before anyone in the family did).

And for what its worse, I was openly discriminated against by the government and I'm a straight white male. Again, ask yourself if I wanted to create a straight only or white only dive club what would happen? Seriously, think what would happen.

My biggest pet peeve is a double standard, and lately the 'laws' being passed are just that. I would not be surprised if a growing segment of the US population is seeing this and some reluctance to accept gays is this double standard (and I am talking about the 'hate' laws that permeate society now). If a group pushes to hard/much one way, the group they are pushing is going to push back in an equal manner.

I actually tend to agree with you about "hate crime" laws but I think I may be in the minority amongst the LGBT folks in that view. I don't want special treatment for anyone no matter what the reason. I just want equal treatment for everyone. Despite some of the over-the-top exercises like hate-crime laws, LGBT are a long way from equal treatment in too many ways. I do believe once we get closer to that equality you're likely to see some of the more extreme "minority support" laws like hate-crimes start to disappear if not off the books at least in practice.

 

[BVickery]

LGBT are not "accepted in society" in many many places. We are becoming more accepted but we are a long way from being openly accepted by the majority of the population. Just look at the Defense of Marriage Act, the fight against repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, the number of states trying to pass constitutional amendments against equal rights for gays as your example of how far there still is to go before we're "accepted". And that just considers the USA, which is about middle of the pack as far as acceptance standards go.

The question one really needs to ask is the pushback about such things due to the acceptance is mandated instead of organic in nature? From watching/listening to some gay advocates, they want EVERYTHING yesterday. The problem is, you NEED to let society grow accustomed to these changes. The changes happening are VERY rapid compared to others that have occurred. The human mind can only stand so much drastic change before it shuts down and pretty much resists it.