{"id":2859,"date":"2006-11-02T13:53:47","date_gmt":"2006-11-02T20:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2006\/11\/02\/toy-donor-accuses-ronald-mcdonald-house-of-discriminating-against-lesbians\/"},"modified":"2006-11-02T13:53:47","modified_gmt":"2006-11-02T20:53:47","slug":"toy-donor-accuses-ronald-mcdonald-house-of-discriminating-against-lesbians","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=2859","title":{"rendered":"Toy Donor Accuses Ronald McDonald House of Discriminating Against Lesbians"},"content":{"rendered":"

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In this video, “Peppermint Patty” (great name!) describes having her donations turned away by a Ronald McDonald House worker, who explained that she wouldn’t accept toys from a lesbian.<\/p>\n

The video is, frankly, harrowing to watch, because Peppermint Patty is so shattered. Some people might find her reaction disproportionate – after all, far worse discrimination happens to queers every day than having their handmade teddy bears turned away by a Ronald McDonald House volunteer. It’s not like she was kept out of her lover’s hospital room, or refused the chance to marry, or beaten up, right?<\/p>\n

But humans are funny creatures, not logic machines. Probably this same woman could experience being turned away from a church, or for a marriage license, and be pissed off and hurt but not in tears – because that sort of discrimination is expected. We mentally steel ourselves for the rejection. Our defenses are up.<\/p>\n

But to have a Ronald McDonald House volunteer suddenly and arbitrarily turn away your donated toys because you’re a lesbian<\/em> – that’s different. That’s being told – at a point when you’re totally unprepared and all your mental shields are down – that you really are <\/em>worthless, that every bad thing society has every told you about yourself is true, that you are <\/em>a pariah. This sort of blatant, out-of-the-blue othering is the sort of thing that could easily drive me to tears, to ripping my hair out, and to screaming fits in my bedroom – although I wouldn’t be brave enough to put it on a YouTube video, as Peppermint Patty did.<\/p>\n

This sort of thing happens all the time, and the wounds are deep and they sting like hell. How much energy do the pariah classes – lesbians in this case, but also people of color, queers and trans of all sorts, the disabled, fat people, femme men, and others – spend just fighting internalized self-doubt and self-loathing? How much does this sort of crap set us back on a daily basis? How much more could we accomplish if we didn’t have all those feelings brought to the surface by worthless assholes like the RMH worker?<\/p>\n

I can’t find an email for Ronald McDonald House (which, Peppermint Patty notes, is not actually owned by the McDonalds corporation), but there are phone and fax numbers here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this video, “Peppermint Patty” (great name!) describes having her donations turned away by a Ronald McDonald House worker, who explained that she wouldn’t accept toys from a lesbian. The video is, frankly, harrowing to watch, because Peppermint Patty is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[115],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homophobic-zaninessmore-lgbtq-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}