Sans Fig Leaf
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"Facing it"
28 June, 2007
I don't really believe in gaydar--by which I mean the ability to determine, through casual observation, whether another person is gay or bisexual. Or maybe I should say I don't believe in a reliable ability to make such determination. Intuition can be a powerful tool, and I assume that those times my gaydar has proven to be accurate actually represent instances of an intuitive observation of various non-verbal cues from the person.
No matter how the rational part of myself may scoff at the concept, I still sometimes look at a perfect stranger and have a strong feeling they're not straight. Such as the other day.
He was standing on the corner not far from the bus stop, looking up the street which the buses usually came down. The moment I saw him my gaydar starting pinging.
I walked past him and picked a shady spot to wait for the bus. When I glanced down the street, the guy was talking rather animatedly on a cell phone. He was talking loudly enough I could hear part of what he said, even though I was listening to my iPod. He ended the conversation, "I'll wait for you here. I love you."
I watched the cars going by, waiting for my bus, and didn't pay much attention to the guy.
Not many minutes later, another guy came walking by, and my gaydar starting going off like crazy. He suddenly threw his arms wide and grinned. The first guy ran to him. They hugged. They kissed.
And a little voice in the back of my head said, "I told you so."
As they walked off together, I couldn't help being impressed about how unself-consciously they were being affectionate in public. For most of my life I haven't felt safe being that matter-of-fact about who I am and who I love. I believe I should be able to feel safe, but many experiences over the years have left their mark.
For example, during the first year or so of my relationship with Michael, I had occasion once to drop him off downtown so he could catch a bus. As he was getting out of the car he gave me a quick peck and said "I love you." After I had driven away, a man who was already waiting for a bus proceeded to tell Michael how much he hated "your kind" and to make other harassing and threatening remarks. This in broad daylight in the center of a town which I once heard an ultra-conservative politician refer to as "Sodom of the Northwest" and "The People's Republic of Seattle" because everyone here is supposedly ultra-leftwing and embracing of diversity.
When he told me about it later, I felt guilty. It didn't matter that we both participated in the public display of affection. It didn't matter that I didn't realize a bigot was watching. I still felt as if I had left Michael in a potentially dangerous situation.
That's just one incident on top of hundreds of others over the years-- ranging from simple teasing all the way up to being beat with an old broom handle while being called extremely vulgar names. And don't even get me started on the various ways I've personally witnessed police react when I tried to report some of these incidents. It doesn't matter how many years ago some of the incidents happen. All the pain and fear lingers.
Especially when I read about things such as the murder a couple months ago in a small town in Indiana. Three young men spent more than 24 hours slowly beating a man to death. They even took breaks to call friends and tell them about just how badly they were beating this guy (taking turns jumping up and down on his body, dragging him up and down the stairs, et cetera). Eventually they wrapped his body in a tarp and dumped it somewhere. When someone eventually connected them to the body, what was their defense: It was a "sudden heat" of emotions because they thought he was gay.
Never mind that they had known him all their lives. Never mind that they invited him to their place to drink. Never mind that 24 hours worth of beatings with break for bragging phone calls. Their defense is a claim that in a "moment" of disgust and loathing they did something that they didn't really mean to do.
Unfortunately, a jury just might buy the explanation. Certainly the local prosecutor thinks they may. He's filed alternative charges of manslaughter -- just in case the jury decides that the luring and the 24 hours might not make the "moment of disgust" seem unlikely to the jury. The really sad part is there have been cases just as egregious in recent years where the assailant was able to convince a jury that even though they had killed the person, it wasn't really murder.
So when I heard a guy on the radio earlier this week claiming that not only does our society condone and accept homosexuality, it embraces it, promotes it, and enables gay people to live a life completely free of responsibility--and that's the reason "bad" things are happening in the world--I had to laugh. He must have a very strange definition of the word "condone" in mind, is all I can say.
There were many days I would have been willing to settle for merely being overlooked.
Except I'm not willing to settle at all. I want to feel as carefree and un-self-conscious about who I love as that couple seemed to feel the other day. I want to live in a world where anyone can walk down a street, hand-in-hand with the person they love, without fear of assault.
My grandpa once said to me (after a bullying incident at school), "If you want someone to treat you better, the first thing you have to do is start acting like they will. If you act like a scared pup, expecting to get kicked any moment, someone's gonna kick you. But if walk boldly, most folks will at least think twice."
His advice didn't always work, obviously, since many of my bad experiences happened after I first tried to implement it. But I think he was fundamentally right. We can't give in to fear. If something bad is going to happen, I'd rather face it squarely than to be cut down from behind as I'm trying to flee. So I try not to give in to those lingering memories. And despite what I thought when I saw those two guys, I think more often than not that outwardly I pull it off. For all I know, they were doing the same thing.
It's not flaunting--it's just walking boldly.
--Wilhelm von Humboldt
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