Bob Olszewski

I find it interesting that many posts criticizing GJD argue against it because it is "ambiguous", it "forces people to make a decision", it "will make people assume I support a particular group even though the only pants I own are jeans", and it "will be ineffective because many people won't know about it." These points (paraphrased here) were all raised on various bboards at some point over the past few days. I have very little sympathy for their authors.

Each person must make decisions every day of his/her life about how to present himself/herself to the world: behavior, dress, manner of speaking, etc. People evaluate and make assumptions about others based on these decisions: sometimes those evaluations are wrong, sometimes they are ambiguous, and sometimes they just don't matter.

Often people react based upon their (possibly erroneous) perceptions which, in the case of gay and lesbians, can be harmful or even deadly. As a result, gays and lesbians have to be particularly careful about how they present themselves in society so as to (1) avoid potentially dangerous situations and (2) maintain a faithful self-identity. This can often be a difficult balancing act.

GJD is an event which asks each individual of the CMU community to stop and think about how he/she presents himself/herself to the world and to consider how he/she will be evaluated by their peers and co-workers. In other words, GJD asks you to put yourself in the shoes of a gay or lesbian person for just one single day.

And as for the aforementioned concerns... Tough. Sometimes you just have to make the best out of what life throws at you.