Pansexual State Rep
Aug. 17th, 2012 01:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
potato_headMary Gonzalez, Texas State Representative, Identifies As Pansexual In New Interview
Mary Gonzalez broke barriers when she became her state's only openly lesbian lawmaker when she was elected to the Texas House of Representatives.
Now, however, Gonzalez is going even further, telling the Dallas Voice that she instead identifies herself as "pansexual." As ThinkProgress notes, Gonzalez's admission makes her perhaps the only openly pansexual elected U.S. official.
Though many might describe Gonzalez's orientation as bisexual, pansexuals don’t believe in a "gender binary," and hence can be attracted to all gender identities.
Gonzalez specified to the Voice that she doesn’t believe in a gender binary because “gender identity isn’t the defining part of my attraction," and that she never fully embraced the term "lesbian." Although she came out as bisexual at age 21, Gonzalez said she has also dated transgender and "gender-queer" people, in addition to women.
"During the campaign if I had identified as pansexual, I would have overwhelmed everyone," she said. "Now that I’m out of the campaign, I’m completely much more able to define it."
Gonzalez, who reportedly beat two opponents in the Democrat primary and has no opponent in the fall, continued: "As I started to recognize the gender spectrum and dated along the gender spectrum, I was searching for words that connected to that reality, for words that embraced the spectrum. At the time I didn’t feel as if the term bisexual was encompassing of a gender spectrum that I was dating and attracted to."
Gonzalez's election in May drew praise from a number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocates. "This is a big victory for Mary, for El Paso and for Texas," said Chuck Wolfe, president and CEO of the Victory Fund, is quoted by Gay Politics as saying. "The people of El Paso will be represented by a talented and committed fighter who knows how to get things done in Austin. And LGBT Texans will be represented by an authentic voice in the Capitol, standing up and speaking out for fairness and freedom for all."
Forever LOL at all the non-Texans who are so stunned that she's a Texas state rep. Including my therapist, who still can't understand why I'm not conflicted about my desire to move back to Texas, outside of the fact that I don't really want to be in the US at all.
Mary Gonzalez broke barriers when she became her state's only openly lesbian lawmaker when she was elected to the Texas House of Representatives.
Now, however, Gonzalez is going even further, telling the Dallas Voice that she instead identifies herself as "pansexual." As ThinkProgress notes, Gonzalez's admission makes her perhaps the only openly pansexual elected U.S. official.
Though many might describe Gonzalez's orientation as bisexual, pansexuals don’t believe in a "gender binary," and hence can be attracted to all gender identities.
Gonzalez specified to the Voice that she doesn’t believe in a gender binary because “gender identity isn’t the defining part of my attraction," and that she never fully embraced the term "lesbian." Although she came out as bisexual at age 21, Gonzalez said she has also dated transgender and "gender-queer" people, in addition to women.
"During the campaign if I had identified as pansexual, I would have overwhelmed everyone," she said. "Now that I’m out of the campaign, I’m completely much more able to define it."
Gonzalez, who reportedly beat two opponents in the Democrat primary and has no opponent in the fall, continued: "As I started to recognize the gender spectrum and dated along the gender spectrum, I was searching for words that connected to that reality, for words that embraced the spectrum. At the time I didn’t feel as if the term bisexual was encompassing of a gender spectrum that I was dating and attracted to."
Gonzalez's election in May drew praise from a number of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights advocates. "This is a big victory for Mary, for El Paso and for Texas," said Chuck Wolfe, president and CEO of the Victory Fund, is quoted by Gay Politics as saying. "The people of El Paso will be represented by a talented and committed fighter who knows how to get things done in Austin. And LGBT Texans will be represented by an authentic voice in the Capitol, standing up and speaking out for fairness and freedom for all."
Forever LOL at all the non-Texans who are so stunned that she's a Texas state rep. Including my therapist, who still can't understand why I'm not conflicted about my desire to move back to Texas, outside of the fact that I don't really want to be in the US at all.
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no subject
Date: 2012-08-17 05:28 pm (UTC)Good on that Texas rep!
I sure hope wherever I land is somewhere slightly less right leaning than what feels like the whole rest of the country ever. I hate it that I'll be coming back on an election year, shudder. If the Republicans get voted back in I don't think the panic attack will ever end.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-17 10:28 pm (UTC)I'm not sure I really believe in the potential of a country that claims to be about freedom but was built on slaughter and enslavement. Especially when anarchists are being granted legitimacy via the Tea Party...it seems like the US is going further right when the rest of the world is moving left, and the average is already pretty right of center.
I'm considering the UK, but I've heard how difficult it is to immigrate there, and TBH I think having to come back here again like what you're going through would wreck me pretty badly. We'll see, I guess.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-18 12:46 am (UTC)The potential that I see is those people that you love. I believe that love has the power to triumph. What I do not know is if I will ever see it in my lifetime, and I've wasted enough of my life in misery waiting for some one important thing to change so I can finally get out of being stuck and go be happy, I'm not sitting around for it. It's a bit selfish of me but there it is.
I totally agree with pretty much all of what you said though... and ugh it is so scary. What these people are fighting so hard for is stagnation. To stagnate in a rapidly changing world is to invite our own extinction. We're global now, more every day. There's no escaping this. With the current population and the current rate of informational exchange, we can literally learn to cooperate or die. That's what it's down to at the end of the day. We're all prisoners on the same rock hurling through space.
People! *gestures helplessly with hands*