Big Gay Closet

Sexuality and love can be different things. I can be attracted to a woman sexually, but it doesn’t mean I want to be in love with a woman. If I’m going to be with a woman sexually, it doesn’t mean I’m a lesbian.
Cameron Diaz in Playboy

Let’s skip over the fact that she ignores the possibility of being bisexual in her reasoning and think about whether it’s desire or emotion that makes us queer.

A while back, OttoKitty talked about coming out as bisexual and noted that,

To be perfectly, brutally honest – I might have a lot of fun with a straight man for a few weeks.  But odds are he’s going to be too steeped in gender crap to put up with for longer than that.

In her case, bisexual men or enlightened straight men are still an option, and she mentions her less promising crushes on gay men too.

But does desire alone dictate our sexual identity? Is it enough that I have been attracted to both men and women to say that I am bisexual? Or must there be the possibility of love with the object of my desire for it to count?

Obviously we use the terms “homosexual”, “bisexual” and “sexual orientation”. Sexual desire does seem to get the emphasis in our terminology, but is it the sex that matters, or the feelings?

Normally I dispense with colours in the images used on Big Gay Closet. It’s a conscious decision, in order to keep the attention on the wonderful stories that you all have been so good to share with us.

Today, we have colour and lots of it.

A Facebook friend recently posted these images to her profile. I told her I had to share them and she graciously gave me permission. Thank you Jennifer.

I’m relatively lucky to live where I live. I may not be able to marry my partner, but we have our freedom to be who we are. We can safely march in a Pride parade. Hell, I once made out on the train during morning rush hour. Ireland may not be the most forward-thinking country in the world when it comes to all things queer, but it’s not a place where we have very many safety issues either.

So today it’s worth sparing a thought for those in countries where things aren’t quite so peaceful.

Take for instance Uganda. On other blogs, I’ve written a lot about Uganda and their proposed Anti-Homosexuality Bill.  Kaj Hasselriis took that a big step further and visited Uganda to report on the community and how they coped. It was a very powerful series of stories he published from that trip. The big thing to remember however, is even if the Anti-Homosexuality Bill falls away (as many are now predicting), Uganda’s queer community are still considered criminals and have zero expectation of personal safety. Spare a thought for Ugandan queers.

In Minsk, brave activists managed a rally before 8 people were violently arrested by the Belarusian police.

Think back to 2007, when Russian police stopped harassing Pride marchers long enough for about 200 neo Nazis to jump in and beat up the queers for them. Britain’s Peter Tatchell was in the parade that year, and has told the story:

‘The whole area was swamped with riot police and then suddenly, as if on some signal, they dispersed to allow around 200 Neo Nazis to storm in and attack the marchers at random,’ he recalls.

In the ensuing melee, Tatchell was dragged to the ground. ‘I was kicked and punched in the head and body by half-a-dozen thugs while the police stood and watched. My vision was blurred. I was worried I might lose the sight in one eye. Then when the police thought I’d had enough of a thrashing, they moved in to arrest me and allowed the heavies to walk away. It was as if the whole attack had been orchestrated.

‘One policeman demanded to know if I was gay. I hesitated before saying yes. Then he started thwacking his truncheon in the palm of his hand and said: “Just wait until I get you back to the station.”

‘For two-and-a-half hours I sat in the police van with a group of ugly looking Neo Nazis. Clearly, the intention was to scare me witless.’

However, thanks to the intervention of an English- speaking protester, who alerted the police to Tatchell’s identity – and the probability that his wrongful arrest would have repercussions internationally – he was taken to hospital, then freed.

‘When I came back home, the symptoms in my right eye worsened,’ he recalls. ‘My co-ordination, balance and concentration deteriorated. But I carried on campaigning. That was my coping mechanism.’

There is a much longer list of bad and scary things that happen around the world to people who simply defy gender norms or fall in love with a person of the same sex.

However, homophobia isn’t just beatings and neo Nazis. Homophobia can be in us homos too. When we believe that a member of our community is less able to perform the same job as a straight person, we are homophobes. When we believe that thinking someone is one of us can be called a “smear” or accusation, we’re homophobes too.

The battle against homophobia is two-fold. We must fight homophobia externally and internally. We must call out ourselves (and our community) when we start to limit our fellow queers because of who they are. We must also call out the wider, international community to treat gay rights issues the same as they treat religion discrimination and sex discrimination.

Happy International Day Against Homophobia. If it’s safe for you to make out on a train somewhere, take advantage of it.

This is part of Harvey Milk‘s famous Hope Speech — the one that starts with “My name is Harvey Milk and I’m here to recruit you.”

Today, these two paragraphs stuck out for me, and I thought I’d share. I hope you find them as grounding as I do.

Harvey says it’s all about “coming out”. Our anger, our frustration, our loneliness and ultimately the hope we can have in our leaders — those that come from our community — it’s all ours, and while having friends in high places is great, being in high places is better.

Like every other group, we must be judged by our leaders and by those who are themselves gay, those who are visible. For invisible, we remain in limbo–a myth, a person with no parents, no brothers, no sisters, no friends who are straight, no important positions in employment. A tenth of the nation supposedly composed of stereotypes and would-be seducers of children–and no offense meant to the stereotypes. But today, the black community is not judged by its friends, but by its black legislators and leaders. And we must give people the chance to judge us by our leaders and legislators. A gay person in office can set a tone, can command respect not only from the larger community, but from the young people in our own community who need both examples and hope.

The first gay people we elect must be strong. They must not be content to sit in the back of the bus. They must not be content to accept pablum. They must be above wheeling and dealing. They must be–for the good of all of us–independent, unbought. The anger and the frustrations that some of us feel is because we are misunderstood, and friends can’t feel the anger and frustration. They can sense it in us, but they can’t feel it. Because a friend has never gone through what is known as coming out. I will never forget what it was like coming out and having nobody to look up toward. I remember the lack of hope–and our friends can’t fulfill it.

via The Hope Speech : Harvey Milk | From Dana’s Guests | DanaRoc.com.

When you came out, did you lose or give up anything?

Before I realised I was gay, I was planning to study to be a Christian minister. I loved everything about it. I loved reading the Bible and gleaning understanding from its stories. I loved weaving them into a lesson that I could share at the pulpit. I loved talking to people, and helping them. I loved the music, the joy, the community. And while I enjoyed teaching Sunday School, I  more enjoyed leading worship.

I had faced some resistance because of being female, but because the denomination officially allowed women to enter the ministry, they had no choice but to allow me to try.

I remember approaching my unofficial mentor at the time and telling him, knowing very well where he stood on homosexuality, and that his stance was broadly representative of the denomination as a whole. I was so anxious about this meeting, I booked a counselling appointment for immediately afterwards.

I was surprised by his pragmatism.

He said, “Someone is going to have to fight that fight.”

And I, in a moment of uncharacteristic self-knowledge, replied, “It’s not going to be me.”

It wasn’t a fight for someone fresh out of the closet.

I had to go away and have my proverbial wilderness years.

While leaving that vocation was definitely right, it hurt like hell at the time. Perhaps if I’d been a more driven person I would have kept at it, or kept my sexual orientation a secret — or even sought help at the “sexual healing seminars” I’d sometimes heard about.

Did you face any choices like that?

I spoke to my mother on the phone two nights ago.

She asked, “So, haven’t heard from you in a while. What’s up?”

I answered, as I do to everyone these days, “Oh, just busy.”

“Busy?” She perked up. “Busy doing what?”

Busy blogging about gay stuff and moving my Big Gay Blog onto a server.

“Oh, you know. Stuff.” I’m 13 again.

The truth is, I can’t face more of the tears, or more religious literature turning up in the post. I can’t face the disappointed, “Oh…” and my name said in a way that implies I’ve just been caught shooting up heroin or robbing a bank.

So I’m still closeted. She knows I’m gay. She knows my wife, and even sends her presents at Christmas and her birthday.

We have a strange arrangement, I guess, where my wife is treated as a member of the family, but certainly not my spouse. It allows us all to get on with life despite my obvious transgression from the path I was brought up to follow.

But I’m still not really out, am I?

I told her once that I went to Pride. She just about lost her mind.

I guess being gay is tolerable as long as you’re not happy about it.

I mistakenly thought that even if it wouldn’t be easy, it at least wouldn’t be that big a deal to date a man again – but the invisibility is back. As my boyfriend and I walk up to see a movie, I give the butch-femme couple in front of us the smile of shared community. They glare at me with “we-don’t-need-your-patronizing-smile-of-acceptance-straight-girl” faces, and a part of me goes cold. I know that smile – I would give it to people as I walked next to my butch, waiting for a gawk at her presentation from the straights around us so that I could glare back. I loved the feeling of community when I smiled at other obviously queer couples.

I went home this weekend with my new boyfriend. My mother’s joy hurt. My ex had nursed my mother through multiple painful events, mowed the lawn when she couldn’t, gotten drunk with her, but all of this was wiped away by bringing a man home. And she should love him too – he is amazing and wonderful and smart. But she should love him for him, not for his gender.

via Holding My Boyfriend’s Hand: On Becoming Invisible Again – Feministing.

I saw this story and it reminded me of OttoKitty’s exceptionally popular post from earlier this week. And since you all enjoyed her post so much, I thought you’d enjoy this one too.

What would you take with you?

What things would you take if you thought you may never see your family again?

In the end, I took all my photographs. I left my coin collection because it was too heavy. I took old diaries.

The letter I wrote was in an envelope marked “Mom & Dad”.

I had cried rivers writing it, and every time I saw it, my eyes watered precariously.

Zipping up my bags, I took one last look around my childhood bedroom and wondered how long it would be before I saw it again. Would I ever see it again? I blinked back tears and breathed deeply.

I got into the car with my mother who would discover the letter hours later, on the bed I purposefully left unmade so it would attract her immediate attention. We drove four hours to the airport.

I boarded the plane only after I sent an apologetic email to my brother who didn’t know yet either.

Several whiskies later, I slept while the plane soared over the Atlantic. No more lies.

I was free and it hurt like hell.

In response to this post (a quote from Annalee Newitz‘s “Tranny Chasers”) I had a tweet asking me was I not sick of all the bitching and infighting over labels?

My answer? Yes. Bitching and infighting get old very quickly.

I am, however, not finished with discussion. Identity is important. Discussion of identity, I think, keeps us from becoming too complacent, and possibly forgetting the whole point. I don’t want to use labels to target or exclude, but to understand (and most importantly, tags are a really easy way to get around the blog).

Personally, my identity continues to evolve. I identify most comfortably as queer, but more commonly as lesbian, since the word queer can still be upsetting to people (and my identity shouldn’t upset those people, although I have no problem with it upsetting some). I use the word “gay” a lot too, as a catch-all, because it’s small and portable and you all know what I mean.

I don’t know where it comes from, but my old professor used to say the point of preaching was to “comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” While I no longer have any intentions to stand behind a pulpit, that mission statement sits really easily with me.

So labels… yea or nay?

(I contemplated a poll, but I’d rather a discussion)

I was still coming out. I never excelled at social situations anyway, but newly out of the closet I found myself learning a new vocabulary, new social cues, making new friends.

But I was busy, and had other things to occupy my time. My recent history of dates that qualified as significant natural disasters meant I wasn’t exactly pushing ahead.

In those days I wore make-up so often that when I vacated my apartment, I had to pay for professional carpet cleaners to deal with the huge accumulated make-up stain just below my mirror. I wore skirts and heels to work. I said things like,

I like women who look like women.

I ate exactly one meal a day, and my ritual at this time was a crayfish sandwich at the Old Cheese Shop, just around the corner from work.

One day I arrived and cursed under my breath as I joined the back of a long queue. While I tried to figure out what made my normally perfect timing betray me on that day, I noticed someone in a hardhat and toolbelt, looking my way.

It took me a few moments to realise that she — she! in her hardhat and toolbelt and dusty boots — was not simply looking my way but half smiling, she was looking right at me. It could have been — surely should have been — creepy, but it wasn’t, and I could feel her eyes on me.

Confused by a feeling I had rarely felt, certainly never in a sandwich shop before, I blushed and looked away, studying the prices on the bottled water until it was time to order.

All women look like women.

I still have a thing for toolbelts.