Human beings start putting each other into boxes the second that they see each other -- Is that person dangerous? Are they attractive? Are they a potential mate? Are they a potential networking opportunity? We do this little interrogation when we meet people to make a mental resume for them. What's your name? Where are you from? How old are you? What do you do? Then we get more personal with it. Have you ever had any diseases? Have you ever been divorced? Does your breath smell bad while you're answering my interrogation right now? What are you into? Who are you into? What gender do you like to sleep with?
Ljudska bića se svrstavaju u okvire one sekunde kad ugledaju jedno drugog. – Je li ta osoba opasna? Jesu li privlačne? Jesu li potencijalan par? Jesu li potencijalna prilika za druženje? Ovakvo malo ispitivanje radimo kada upoznajemo ljude kako bismo napravili umni sažetak što se njih tiče. Kako se zoveš? Odakle si? Koliko godina imaš? Što radiš? Nakon toga postajemo intimniji. Jesi li ikada imao kakve bolesti? Jesi li se ikada razveo? Da li ti dah zaudara dok mi odgovaraš na ova pitanja? Što te interesira? Tko te interesira? S kojim spolom voliš spavati?
I get it. We are neurologically hardwired to seek out people like ourselves. We start forming cliques as soon as we're old enough to know what acceptance feels like. We bond together based on anything that we can -- music preference, race, gender, the block that we grew up on. We seek out environments that reinforce our personal choices. Sometimes, though, just the question "what do you do?" can feel like somebody's opening a tiny little box and asking you to squeeze yourself inside of it. Because the categories, I've found, are too limiting. The boxes are too narrow. And this can get really dangerous.
Shvaćam. Neurološki smo predodređeni da tražimo ljude slične nama. Počinjemo stvarati grupe čim smo dovoljno odrasli da znamo kako prihvaćanje izgleda. Povezujemo se jedni s drugima na osnovu bilo čega – glazbeni odabir, rasa, spol, kvart u kojem smo odrasli. Tražimo okolinu koja učvršćuje naše osobne odabire. Ipak, ponekad samo pitanje „Što radiš?“ može zvučati kao da netko otvara malu kutijicu i traži od vas da se ugurate u nju. Otkrila sam da je to zato što su kategorije previše ograničene. Te kutije su pretijesne. I to može postati stvarno opasno.
So here's a disclaimer about me, though, before we get too deep into this. I grew up in a very sheltered environment. I was raised in downtown Manhattan in the early 1980s, two blocks from the epicenter of punk music. I was shielded from the pains of bigotry and the social restrictions of a religiously-based upbringing. Where I come from, if you weren't a drag queen or a radical thinker or a performance artist of some kind, you were the weirdo. (Laughter) It was an unorthodox upbringing, but as a kid on the streets of New York, you learn how to trust your own instincts, you learn how to go with your own ideas.
Dakle, evo nečeg vezanog uz mene, prije no što krenemo dalje. Odrasla sam u veoma zaštićenoj okolini. Odrasla sam u donjem dijelu Manhattana u ranim osamdesetima, dva bloka dalje od središta punk glazbe. Bila sam zaštićena od bolnih netrpeljivosti i društvenih restrikcija što se odgoja tiče nametnutih od onih koji su se bazirali na religiji. Tamo odakle ja dolazim ukoliko niste „tetkica“, radikalni mislioc ili neka vrsta performera, bili ste čudak. (Smijeh) Bio je to neortodoksan odgoj no kao dijete na ulicama New Yorka, , naučite kako vjerovati vlastitim instinktima, naučite kako se nositi s vlastitim idejama.
So when I was six, I decided that I wanted to be a boy. I went to school one day and the kids wouldn't let me play basketball with them. They said they wouldn't let girls play. So I went home, and I shaved my head, and I came back the next day and I said, "I'm a boy." I mean, who knows, right? When you're six, maybe you can do that. I didn't want anyone to know that I was a girl, and they didn't. I kept up the charade for eight years.
Kada mi je bilo šest godina, odlučila sam da želim biti dječak. Jednog sam dana otišla u školu, a djeca mi nisu dala da s njima igram košarku. Rekli su da ne dopuštaju curama da igraju. Otišla sam kući, obrijala glavu, vratila se sljedeći dan i rekla, „Dječak sam.“ Mislim, tko zna, zar ne? Kad imate šest godina , možda to možete učiniti. Nisam željela da itko zna da sam djevojčica i nitko nije znao. Držala sam se te šarade osam godina.
So this is me when I was 11. I was playing a kid named Walter in a movie called "Julian Po." I was a little street tough that followed Christian Slater around and badgered him. See, I was also a child actor, which doubled up the layers of the performance of my identity, because no one knew that I was actually a girl really playing a boy. In fact, no one in my life knew that I was a girl -- not my teachers at school, not my friends, not the directors that I worked with. Kids would often come up to me in class and grab me by the throat to check for an Adam's apple or grab my crotch to check what I was working with. When I would go to the bathroom, I would turn my shoes around in the stalls so that it looked like I was peeing standing up. At sleepovers I would have panic attacks trying to break it to girls that they didn't want to kiss me without outing myself.
Dakle, ovo sam ja s 11 godina. Glumila sam dječaka po imenu Walter u filmu pod nazivom „Julian Po“. Bila sam žestoka, slijedila Christiana Slatera okolo i gnjavila ga. Vidite, također sam bila dijete-glumac što je udvostručilo razinu nastupa mog identiteta jer nitko nije znao da sam zapravo djevojčica koja glumi dječaka. . Zapravo, nitko tko je bio dio mog života nije znao da sam djevojčica – ni moji učitelji u školi, ni moji prijatelji, , ni redatelji s kojima sam radila. Djeca bi često došla do mene za vrijeme nastave, zgrabila me za grlo i provjeravala da li imam Adamovu jabučicu ili bi zgrabili moje prepone kako bi provjerili s čime baratam. Kada bih išla na wc, okretala bih svoje cipele prema wc školjci kako bi izgledalo da piškim stojeći. Za vrijeme spavanja kod drugih imala bih napadaje panike kako bih omela djevojke u namjeri da me poljube bez da se odam.
It's worth mentioning though that I didn't hate my body or my genitalia. I didn't feel like I was in the wrong body. I felt like I was performing this elaborate act. I wouldn't have qualified as transgender. If my family, though, had been the kind of people to believe in therapy, they probably would have diagnosed me as something like gender dysmorphic and put me on hormones to stave off puberty. But in my particular case, I just woke up one day when I was 14, and I decided that I wanted to be a girl again. Puberty had hit, and I had no idea what being a girl meant, and I was ready to figure out who I actually was.
Vrijedno je spomena to da nisam mrzila svoje tijelo ni svoje genitalije. Nisam osjećala kao da sam u krivom tijelu. Osjećala sam se kao da izvodim razrađenu točku. Ne bih se okarakterizirala kao transrodna osoba. Iako, u mojoj je obitelji bilo ljudi koji su vjerovali u terapiju i vjerojatno bi mi dijagnosticirali nešto poput spolne dismofije dismofije i stavili me na hormone da odgode pubertet. No u mom slučaju, jednostavno sam se jednog dana probudila, s 14 godina i odlučila da ponovo želim biti djevojka. Pubertet me udario i nisam pojma imala što znači biti djevojka i bila sam spremna otkriti tko sam zapravo.
When a kid behaves like I did, they don't exactly have to come out, right? No one is exactly shocked. (Laughter) But I wasn't asked to define myself by my parents. When I was 15, and I called my father to tell him that I had fallen in love, it was the last thing on either of our minds to discuss what the consequences were of the fact that my first love was a girl. Three years later, when I fell in love with a man, neither of my parents batted an eyelash either. See, it's one of the great blessings of my very unorthodox childhood that I wasn't ever asked to define myself as any one thing at any point. I was just allowed to be me, growing and changing in every moment.
Kada se dijete ponaša ovako kako sam se ja ponašala, onda se zapravo ne mora otkriti, zar ne? Nitko nije pretjerano šokiran. (Smijeh) No moji me roditelji nisu tražili da se definiram. Kada sam imala 15 godina i nazvala oca kako bih mu rekla da sam se zaljubila, posljednje što nam je na umu bilo je razgovarati o tome koje su posljedice činjenice da je moja prva ljubav bila djevojka. Tri godine kasnije, kada sam se zaljubila u muškarca, moji roditelji također nisu okom trepnuli. Vidite, to je jedan velikih blagoslova mog veoma neortodoksnog djetinjstva što me nitko nije tražio da se definiram kao išta u ikojem trenu. Bilo mi je dozvoljeno da to budem ja, rastući i mijenjajući se vakog trenutka.
So four, almost five years ago, Proposition 8, the great marriage equality debate, was raising a lot of dust around this country. And at the time, getting married wasn't really something I spent a lot of time thinking about. But I was struck by the fact that America, a country with such a tarnished civil rights record, could be repeating its mistakes so blatantly. And I remember watching the discussion on television and thinking how interesting it was that the separation of church and state was essentially drawing geographical boundaries throughout this country, between places where people believed in it and places where people didn't. And then, that this discussion was drawing geographical boundaries around me.
Prije četiri, gotovo pet godina Prijedlog 8, velika debata u vezi ravnopravnosti brakova, je podigla mnogo prašine diljem ove zemlje. U to vrijeme udaja nije bilo nešto o čem sam puno razmišljala. . No mene je zatekla činjenica da je Amerika, zemlja s toliko oduzetim zapisima civilnih prava, mogla tako bučno ponavljati svoje greške. Sjećam se kako sam gledala raspravu na tv-u misleći kako je zanimljivo što je odvajanje crkve i države u suštini povuklo geografske granice kroz ovu zemlju, između mjesta gdje ljudi vjeruju i mjesta gdje ljudi ne vjeruju. I onda je ta rasprava povukla geografske granice oko mene.
If this was a war with two disparate sides, I, by default, fell on team gay, because I certainly wasn't 100 percent straight. At the time I was just beginning to emerge from this eight-year personal identity crisis zigzag that saw me go from being a boy to being this awkward girl that looked like a boy in girl's clothes to the opposite extreme of this super skimpy, over-compensating, boy-chasing girly-girl to finally just a hesitant exploration of what I actually was, a tomboyish girl who liked both boys and girls depending on the person.
Ako je ovo bio rat s dvije različite strane, ja sam se podrazumijevala kako pripadam u gay ekipu jer definitivno nisam bila 100% straight. U to vrijeme sam počinjala isplovljavati iz te osmogodišnje osobne krize koja me vodila od toga da sam bila dječak do toga da budem ta neobična djevojka koja je izgledala kao dječak u ženskoj odjeći do potpuno suprotnog ekstremnog super štedljivog, prekomjernog dječaka koji lovi djevojčice sve do finalnog neodlučnog istraživanja onog što ustvari jesam, muškobanjasta djevojka koja voli i dječake i djevojčice, ovisno o osobi.
I had spent a year photographing this new generation of girls, much like myself, who fell kind of between-the-lines -- girls who skateboarded but did it in lacy underwear, girls who had boys' haircuts but wore girly nail polish, girls who had eyeshadow to match their scraped knees, girls who liked girls and boys who all liked boys and girls who all hated being boxed in to anything. I loved these people, and I admired their freedom, but I watched as the world outside of our utopian bubble exploded into these raging debates where pundits started likening our love to bestiality on national television. And this powerful awareness rolled in over me that I was a minority, and in my own home country, based on one facet of my character. I was legally and indisputably a second-class citizen.
Godinu dana sam provela fotografirajući ovu novu generaciju djevojaka, poput mene, koje su se osjećale kao da su unutar linija – djevojke koje voze skejtboard, no rade to u čipkastom donjem rublju, , djevojke koje su imale muške frizure no nosile su djevojačke lakove za nokte, , djevojke koje su imale sjenila koja im odgovaraju uz razbijena koljena, djevojke koje su voljele i djevojke i dječake koji su svi voljeli djevojke i dječake koji su mrzili biti ukalupljeni u bilo što. Voljela sam te ljude, divila sam se njihovoj slobodi, no gledala sam kako svijet izvan našeg utopijskog balona eksplodira u te gnjevne rasprave gdje su sveznalice počinjale uspoređivati našu ljubav sa sodomijom na nacionalnoj televiziji. Ova moćna svjesnost mi je sinula jer sam bila manjina i to u vlastitoj zemlji, temeljeno na jednom aspektu mog karaktera. Legalno i neosporno sam bila građanin drugog reda.
I was not an activist. I wave no flags in my own life. But I was plagued by this question: How could anyone vote to strip the rights of the vast variety of people that I knew based on one element of their character? How could they say that we as a group were not deserving of equal rights as somebody else? Were we even a group? What group? And had these people ever even consciously met a victim of their discrimination? Did they know who they were voting against and what the impact was?
Nisam bila aktivist. Ne mašem nikakvim zastavama u svom životu, no bila sam šokirana ovim pitanjem: Kako bi itko mogao glasati za ukidanje prava ogromnom mnoštvu ljudi koje poznajem na temelju jednog dijela njihovog karaktera? Kako mogu govoriti da mi kao grupa ne zaslužujemo jednaka prava kao i netko drugi? Da li smo uopće bili grupa? Kakva grupa? I da li su ovi ljudi ikada svjesno upoznali žrtvu njihove diskriminacije? Jesu li znali protiv koga glasaju i kakav je bio utjecaj?
And then it occurred to me, perhaps if they could look into the eyes of the people that they were casting into second-class citizenship it might make it harder for them to do. It might give them pause. Obviously I couldn't get 20 million people to the same dinner party, so I figured out a way where I could introduce them to each other photographically without any artifice, without any lighting, or without any manipulation of any kind on my part. Because in a photograph you can examine a lion's whiskers without the fear of him ripping your face off.
Tada mi je sinulo da možda ako pogledaju u oči tih ljudi koje svrstavaju u građane drugog reda da će im možda biti teže to učiniti. Možda će ih to prekinuti. Očigledno nisam mogla dobiti 20 milijuna ljudi na jednu večeru pa sam smislila način kako ih mogu upoznati jedne s drugima preko fotografija bez ikakvog uljepšavanja, bez ikakvog osvijetljenja i bez ikakve manipulacije s moje strane. Jer na fotografiji možete pregledati lavlje brkove bez straha da će vam otkinuti glavu.
For me, photography is not just about exposing film, it's about exposing the viewer to something new, a place they haven't gone before, but most importantly, to people that they might be afraid of. Life magazine introduced generations of people to distant, far-off cultures they never knew existed through pictures. So I decided to make a series of very simple portraits, mugshots if you will. And I basically decided to photograph anyone in this country that was not 100 percent straight, which, if you don't know, is a limitless number of people.
Za mene fotografija nije samo puko prikazivanje filma, to je izlaganje gledaoca nečem novome, mjesto gdje nikada nisu bili, no najvažnije, ljudima kojih bi se mogli bojati. Časopis Life je upoznao pomoću slika mnogo generacija ljudi s dalekim, udaljenim kulturama za koje nikada ne bi znali da postoje. Stoga sam odlučila napraviti niz veoma jednostavnih portreta, poput onih zatvorskih. Zapravo sam odlučila fotografirati svakoga u ovoj zemlji tko nije 100 posto heteroseksualan, što je, ukoliko ne znate, neograničen broj ljudi.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
So this was a very large undertaking, and to do it we needed some help. So I ran out in the freezing cold, and I photographed every single person that I knew that I could get to in February of about two years ago. And I took those photographs, and I went to the HRC and I asked them for some help. And they funded two weeks of shooting in New York. And then we made this.
Dakle, ovo je bio veliki pothvat i kako bih to učinila trebala mi je pomoć. Trčala sam u veliku hladnoću, slikala svaku osobu za koju sam smatrala da bih mogla doprijeti do nje do veljače prije dvije godine. Slikala sam ove fotografije, otišla u HRC (Kampanja za ljudska prava) te ih upitala za pomoć. Financirali su mi dva tjedna snimanja u New Yorku te smo nakon toga napravili ovo.
(Music)
(Glazba)
Video: I'm iO Tillett Wright, and I'm an artist born and raised in New York City. (Music)
Video: Ja sam iO Tillett Wright, umjetnica sam koja je rođena i odrasla u New Yorku. (Glazba)
Self Evident Truths is a photographic record of LGBTQ America today. My aim is to take a simple portrait of anyone who's anything other than 100 percent straight or feels like they fall in the LGBTQ spectrum in any way. My goal is to show the humanity that exists in every one of us through the simplicity of a face. (Music)
Self Evident Truths je fotografska kuća LGBTQ današnje Amerike. Moj cilj je napraviti jednostavan portret svakoga tko je iole manje od 100 posto heteroseksualan ili se osjeća kao da pripada u LGBTQ spektar na bilo koji način. Moj cilj je pokazati humanost koja postoji u svakom od nas kroz jednostavnost naših lica. (Glazba)
"We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal." It's written in the Declaration of Independence. We are failing as a nation to uphold the morals upon which we were founded. There is no equality in the United States.
„Čuvamo ove istine kako bismo bili samosvjesni da su svi ljudi stvoreni jednaki.“ To je zapisano u Proglasu neovisnosti. Ne uspijevamo kao nacija držati do morala na kojima smo temeljeni. Ne postoji jednakost u SAD-u.
["What does equality mean to you?"] ["Marriage"] ["Freedom"] ["Civil rights"] ["Treat every person as you'd treat yourself"]
[Što za tebe znači jednakost?“] [„Brak“] [„Sloboda“] [„Građanska prava“] [„Odnosite se prema svakoj osobi kao da se odnosite prema sebi“]
It's when you don't have to think about it, simple as that. The fight for equal rights is not just about gay marriage. Today in 29 states, more than half of this country, you can legally be fired just for your sexuality.
To je kada ne morate razmišljati o tome, tako je jednostavno. Borba za jednaka prava nije samo vezana uz homoseksualni brak. Danas u 29 država, što je više od polovice ove zemlje, zakonski možete biti otpušteni na osnovu vašeg seksualne orijentacije.
["Who is responsible for equality?"]
[„Tko je odgovoran za jednakost?“
I've heard hundreds of people give the same answer: "We are all responsible for equality." So far we've shot 300 faces in New York City. And we wouldn't have been able to do any of it without the generous support of the Human Rights Campaign. I want to take the project across the country. I want to visit 25 American cities, and I want to shoot 4,000 or 5,000 people. This is my contribution to the civil rights fight of my generation. I challenge you to look into the faces of these people and tell them that they deserve less than any other human being. (Music)
Čula sam stotine ljudi koji su mi dali isti odgovor: „Svi smo odgovorni za jednakost.“ Do sada smo slikali 300 lica u New Yorku. I ne bismo bili u mogućnosti učiniti ništa od toga da nije bilo velikodušne potpore Kampanje za ljudska prava. Želim projekt proširiti širom zemlje. Želim posjetiti 25 američkih gradova i želim snimiri 4000 ili 5000 ljudi. To je moj doprinost ljuskim pravima u borbi moje generacije. Izazivam vas da pogledate u lica ovih ljudi i da im kažete da zaslužuju manje od bilo kojeg drugog ljudskog bića. (Glazba)
["Self evident truths"] ["4,000 faces across America"]
[„Self evident truths“] [„4000 lica diljem Amerike“]
(Music) (Applause)
(Glazba) (Pljesak)
iO Tillett Wright: Absolutely nothing could have prepared us for what happened after that. Almost 85,000 people watched that video, and then they started emailing us from all over the country, asking us to come to their towns and help them to show their faces. And a lot more people wanted to show their faces than I had anticipated. So I changed my immediate goal to 10,000 faces. That video was made in the spring of 2011, and as of today I have traveled to almost 20 cities and photographed almost 2,000 people.
iO Tillett Wright: Apsolutno nas ništa nije moglo pripremiti na ono što nam se dodgodilo nakon toga. Gotovo 85 000 ljudi je pogledalo taj video i počelo nam slati mailove iz cijele zemlje govoreći nam da dođemo u njihove gradove i pomognemo im pokazati njihova lica. Mnogo više ljudi je željelo pokazati lica no što sam očekivala. Stoga sam promijenila svoj cilj na 10 000 lica. Taj video je napravljen u proljeće 2011. i do sada sam putovala u gotovo 20 gradova i snimila gotovo 2000 ljudi.
I know that this is a talk, but I'd like to have a minute of just quiet and have you just look at these faces because there is nothing that I can say that will add to them. Because if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a picture of a face needs a whole new vocabulary.
Znam da je ovo govor, no voljela bih da odvojimo minutu šutnje šutnje i da pogledate ova lica jer ne postoji ništa što mogu reći da ih opiše. Jer ukoliko slika vrijedi tisuću riječi, onda slika lica treba potpuno nov rječnik.
So after traveling and talking to people in places like Oklahoma or small-town Texas, we found evidence that the initial premise was dead on. Visibility really is key. Familiarity really is the gateway drug to empathy. Once an issue pops up in your own backyard or amongst your own family, you're far more likely to explore sympathy for it or explore a new perspective on it. Of course, in my travels I met people who legally divorced their children for being other than straight, but I also met people who were Southern Baptists who switched churches because their child was a lesbian. Sparking empathy had become the backbone of Self Evident Truths.
Nakon putovanja i razgovaranja s ljudima na mjestima poput Oklahome ili malog grada u Teksasu, pronašli smo dokaze da je početna premisa totalno kriva. Vidljivost zaista je ključ. Prisnost zaista je prolazna droga do empatije. Jednom kada problem iskoči u vašem vrtu ili među vašom obitelji, izglednije je da ćete istraživati naklonost tome ili istraživati novu prespektivu u vezi toga. Naravno, na svojim putovanjima sam susretala ljude koji su se legalno rastavljali od svoje djece ukoliko su bila nešto drugo, a ne heteroseksualna, no susretala sam i ljude koji su bili južnjački baptisti no promijenili su crkvu zato što su im djeca bila lezbijke. Širenje empatije je postala osnovica Self Evident Truths-a.
But here's what I was starting to learn that was really interesting: Self Evident Truths doesn't erase the differences between us. In fact, on the contrary, it highlights them. It presents, not just the complexities found in a procession of different human beings, but the complexities found within each individual person. It wasn't that we had too many boxes, it was that we had too few.
No evo što sam naučila, a zaista je zanimljivo: Self Evident Truth ne briše razlike među nama. Zapravo, baš suprotno, naglašava ih. Predstavlja, ne samo kompleksnost koju nalazimo u povorci različitih ljudskih bića već kompleksnost koju nalazimo unutar svake individue. Nismo imali previše okvira, imali smo ih premalo.
At some point I realized that my mission to photograph "gays" was inherently flawed, because there were a million different shades of gay. Here I was trying to help, and I had perpetuated the very thing I had spent my life trying to avoid -- yet another box. At some point I added a question to the release form that asked people to quantify themselves on a scale of one to 100 percent gay. And I watched so many existential crises unfold in front of me. (Laughter) People didn't know what to do because they had never been presented with the option before. Can you quantify your openness?
U nekom trenutku sam shvatila da je moja mislija fotografiranja „gejeva“ bila svojstveno pogrešna jer postoji milijun različitih nijansi homoseksualnosti. Pokušavala sam pomoći i ovjekovječila sam upravo onu stvar koju sam cijeli život pokušavala izbjeći – još jedan okvir . U nekom trenutku sam postavila pitanje kako bih oslobodila formu koja je ljude tražila da se izjasne na skali od jedan do 100 posto homoseksualca. Bila sam svjedok tolikim egzistencijalnim krizama koje su se odvijale preda mnom. (Smijeh) Ljudi nisu znali što učiniti jer se nikada prije nisu susretali s opcijom. Možete li odrediti količinu vaše otvorenosti?
Once they got over the shock, though, by and large people opted for somewhere between 70 to 95 percent or the 3 to 20 percent marks. Of course, there were lots of people who opted for a 100 percent one or the other, but I found that a much larger proportion of people identified as something that was much more nuanced. I found that most people fall on a spectrum of what I have come to refer to as "Grey."
Kada ih je prošlo stanje šoka, iako, velik broj ljudi se odlučio biti negdje između 70 i 95 posto ili na mjestima od 3 do 20 posto. Naravno, bilo je mnogo ljudi koji su odabrali 100 posto jednog ili drugog, no otkrila sam mnogo veću količinu ljudi koji se identificiraju kao nešto što je mnogo nijansiranije. Otkrila sam da većina ljudi spada u spektar kojeg nazivamo „Sivim“.
Let me be clear though -- and this is very important -- in no way am I saying that preference doesn't exist. And I am not even going to address the issue of choice versus biological imperative, because if any of you happen to be of the belief that sexual orientation is a choice, I invite you to go out and try to be grey. I'll take your picture just for trying. (Laughter) What I am saying though is that human beings are not one-dimensional. The most important thing to take from the percentage system is this: If you have gay people over here and you have straight people over here, and while we recognize that most people identify as somewhere closer to one binary or another, there is this vast spectrum of people that exist in between.
Da budem jasnija – i ovo je veoma važno – ni na koji način ne kažem da prioritet ne postoji. I neću čak ni odaslati problem izbora protiv biološkog imperativa jer ukoliko bilo tko od vas smatra da je seksualna orijentacija stvar izbora, pozivam vas da izađete i pokušate biti sivi. Slikat ću vas samo ukoliko probate. (Smijeh) Ono što govorim je da ljudska bića nisu jednodimenzionalna. Najvažnija stvar koju treba uzeti iz ovog sustava postotaka je ova: Ukoliko imate homoseksualne osobe ovdje, a heteroseksualne ondje i dok prepoznajemo kako se većina ljudi izjašnjava kako je negdje bliže jednom ili drugom, postoji taj ogroman spektar ljudi koji postoji u sredini.
And the reality that this presents is a complicated one. Because, for example, if you pass a law that allows a boss to fire an employee for homosexual behavior, where exactly do you draw the line? Is it over here, by the people who have had one or two heterosexual experiences so far? Or is it over here by the people who have only had one or two homosexual experiences thus far? Where exactly does one become a second-class citizen?
I realnost koju to predstavlja je komplicirana. Jer, na primjer, ukoliko prrihvatite zakon koji dozvoljava šefu da otpusti zaposlenika zbog homoseksualnog ponašanja, gdje točno povlačite granicu? Da li je to ovdje kod ljudi koji su do sada imali jedno ili dva heteroseksualna iskustva? Ili je to kod ljudi koji su imali samo jedno ili dva homoseksualna iskustva do sada? U kojem trenutku pojedinac postaje građanin drugog reda?
Another interesting thing that I learned from my project and my travels is just what a poor binding agent sexual orientation is. After traveling so much and meeting so many people, let me tell you, there are just as many jerks and sweethearts and Democrats and Republicans and jocks and queens and every other polarization you can possibly think of within the LGBT community as there are within the human race. Aside from the fact that we play with one legal hand tied behind our backs, and once you get past the shared narrative of prejudice and struggle, just being other than straight doesn't necessarily mean that we have anything in common.
Još jedna zanimljiva stvar koju sam naučila iz svog projekta i svojih putovanja je to kakvo je jadno sredstvo za vezanje seksualna orijentacija. Nakon toliko putovanja i upoznavanja toliko ljudi, da vam kažem, postoji toliko mnogo kretena i dragih ljudi, demokrata i republikanaca, vojnika i kraljica i svake druge polarizacije koju možete zamisliti unutar LGBT zajednice kao i unutar ljudske rase. Na stranu činjenica da igramo s jednom legalnom rukom vezanom na leđima i jednom kad pređete preko priča o predrasudama i borbi, to što ste nešto drugo, a ne hetero ne znači nužno da ništa nemamo zajedničko.
So in the endless proliferation of faces that Self Evident Truths is always becoming, as it hopefully appears across more and more platforms, bus shelters, billboards, Facebook pages, screen savers, perhaps in watching this procession of humanity, something interesting and useful will begin to happen. Hopefully these categories, these binaries, these over-simplified boxes will begin to become useless and they'll begin to fall away. Because really, they describe nothing that we see and no one that we know and nothing that we are. What we see are human beings in all their multiplicity. And seeing them makes it harder to deny their humanity. At the very least I hope it makes it harder to deny their human rights.
Dakle, u beskrajnoj proliferaciji lica koja doliči Self Evident Truth-u, kao što se nadam da se i sve više pojavljuje na mnogim govornicama, autobusnim stajalištima, plakatima, Facebook stranicama, screen saverima, možda će se gledanjem tog procesa ljudskosti početi događati nešto zanimljivo i korisno. Nadam se da će ove kategorije, ove binarnosti, ove previše pojednostavljene granice početi postajati beskorisne i raspasti se. Jer one zapravo ne opisuju ništa od onog što vidimo i nikoga koga znamo i ništa što zapravo jesmo. Ono što vidimo su ljudska bića i sva njihova raznovrsnost. Kad vidimo toliko raznovrsnosti, teško je osporiti njihovu ljudskost. Ako ništa drugo, barem se nadam da je teže osporiti njihova ljudska prava.
So is it me particularly that you would choose to deny the right to housing, the right to adopt children, the right to marriage, the freedom to shop here, live here, buy here? Am I the one that you choose to disown as your child or your brother or your sister or your mother or your father, your neighbor, your cousin, your uncle, the president, your police woman or the fireman? It's too late. Because I already am all of those things. We already are all of those things, and we always have been. So please don't greet us as strangers, greet us as your fellow human beings, period.
Dakle, da li bi ste meni osporili pravo na stan, pravo na posvajanje djece, pravo na brak, slobodu da ovdje kupujem, živim? Jesam li ja ta koju odabirete ne priznavati kao vaše dijete, vašeg brata, vašu sestru, vašu majku, vašeg oca, vašeg susjeda, vašeg rođaka, vašeg ujaka, predsjednika, vaše policajke ili vatrogasca? Prekasno je jer ja već jesam sve od navedenog. Mi već jesmo sve od navedenog i oduvijek smo bili. Stoga nas nemojte pozdravljati kao strance, pozdravljajte nas kao vaše kolege, ljudska bića, točka.
Thank you.
Hvala.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)