The ERC Bag Experiment

So, in part because an election was coming, I donated money to the Equal Rights Campaign. It’s a cause I strongly believe in, and well deserving of money. I also used to do posters for their fund-raisers at Kinko’s, so I wanted to continue that feeling of doing something good.

In return for my donation, they sent me a bag. The bag that I was using for work and school broke recently, and wasn’t terribly professional to begin with. (It was designed for DJs and has holes for headphones.) 

So I started using the bag at work and school. Was I comfortable enough to proudly display a pro-gay rights logo on my bag at all times?

It turns out… no. I often felt awkward, and questioned if I was being given weird looks in elevators. I started wearing the bag backwards, which looked silly, but hid the logo. Then I decided it wasn’t worth it, and switch back to my high school backpack. The ERC bag is starting to rip around the clasps anyway, and the backpack is probably better for my back.

So does the experiment prove anything? Did I experience just a taste of what it’s like to be gay and hiding it? Impossible to say, really. It definitely proved that I’ll take any excuse to explain my social awkwardness (like we needed an experiment for that.)