First I’d like to thank Sgyreju for allowing me to put up her posts on my blog and I’m sure all of you thank her too. She wrote them almost a year ago but the ideas and questions she asks are priceless and I’ll continue to cherish them forever. Second this is an edited conclusion of what has been a very fun week of posts that Sgyreju originally had on her blog. It contain mostly her thoughts interspersed with mine.
Questioning does not have to be about changing everything. It is about asking questions one does not usually think of asking, about not being content with assumptions, but trying to figure out the truth. About knowing yourself. The conclusion of the questioning process can very well be that one was right about oneself.
Questioning may also not always end in clear answers. Accepting that this is all right is not easy, but it is important to do so. Sometimes it is better to acknowledge that one is confused than to try to stick to an identity which does not fit any more. Sometimes it takes time, and finding more information, in order to figure things out.
Questioning does not have to be merely about sexual orientation or identity – it can, and should be, be about anything, like social norms for instance. There are many things we do not do even though doing them would not harm anyone, either directly or indirectly just because they are social norm. Maybe we would discover that other people do not actually care so much when we do not follow all the social expectations.(this is actually true I once walked into a super market with multi coloured platform shoes and no one seemed to give a fuck!!!) And if they do care, maybe that would be a good opportunity to tell them about questioning.
The key point of questioning is awareness. One cannot question something if one cannot imagine another possibility. One cannot question something that has always appeared unquestionable. It is therefore very important for all minority orientations, identities, and practices to be visible, so that people know they exist and are able to include them in their list of possibilities when they try to figure out who they are. Conversely, it is useless to know about those possibilities if one does not know that everyone, including them, can (and maybe should) engage in some questioning from time to time, that things are not always certain, and that what once was one way may now be another.