Monday, 13 July 2009

Piece of cake

I do wish Oldham LGBT Pride wasn't always on my damn birthday. I might go otherwise.

Though this year it does have this cake motif going on: a cake with five slices that are supposed to represent...

Slice 1: lesbian and gay
Slice 2: bisexual and trans
Slice 3: older and younger
Slice 4: black, Asian and minority ethnic lgbt and disabled lgbt people
Slice 5: LGBT Families and Friends, Families and Supporters

Now, I'm not lifting a finger to make this event happen and so my criticism comes with precisely that much importance I know. But my first instinct was, shouldn't those latter three be layers of the cake - about five layers in fact - and the first two instead be the four slices?

Or do you get extra cake for being genderqueer and bi, or Asian and gay? Perhaps it's cake as a consolation for oppression. Which, um, sort of works :)

3 comments:

  1. Jen, when will you ever learn? It's a waste of time trying to divide up a cake into lots of pieces. It is far better to order another cake. Then you can, ahem, eat your cake and have it too.

    Regarding the symbolism of dividing a cake in a certain way... You are correct in saying that the divisions used are not very accurate. However, I'm not sure your suggested division is entirely accurate either (although I agree it is less inaccurate than the original division). I don't think all the complexities of sexuality and gender can be represented in a mere 3 dimensions. I think a few more dimensions.

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  2. Oh, but that creates a terrifying new cop-out line:

    "Bisexuals aren't invisible, they are just represented in this cake in a dimension your human eye cannot perceive!"

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  3. If bisexuals wear hawaiian shirts then the problem of invisibility will disappear, even if we are in a different dimension.

    Alternatively, we could t-shirts that read "This t-shirt is my cloak of bisexual invisibility"

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