By Carlos Reiner
Winter 2012 Kaplan Award Winner
I can make people uncomfortable. And I like it that way.
If one doesn’t make others uncomfortable from time to time they needn’t exist. To keep others on their toes is to be a presence in the room, and not simple an afterthought. The gay movement follows this school of thought to a tee. Don’t be quiet. Be there.
The gays are hard to please. It’s understandable, though. That buzzing you hear is the sound of 10% of the population squabbling with each other because they all base their lives on negation. Social stratification exists in every society. In the gay community it’s a struggle to not get lumped with the undesirables. Everyone knows it. No one wants to be known as the gay one. He’s not me. I am more than my sex. A black woman is not her hair, and a gay American is not their sex life.
When it comes to the spectrum of preferred physical stereotypes in the gay community, I exist somewhere in the middle. I lucked out that I have a thin frame, and good hair. But I’ll never be blonde enough though. And my thighs will never been thin enough. Mestizo genetics don’t allow such a body to exist. Perhaps more so that any group in America, there is a set image in the minds of society as to what a homosexual should look like. No pressure is stronger than that of other LGBT people.
Contrary to popular belief, femininity is not a trait that is sought after amongst the gay male community. From the ashes of the initial AIDS shock of the 1980s was born the image of strapping young man, radiating masculinity and invincibly unattainable. No one wants to look sick, or weak in any way. That’s gay. Bad gay. Objectification has become so extreme that it’s now compartmentalized. Old is now a disease for some but a treasure for others. So that’s why the sound of my voice is my greatest handicap. I know this- I always have. I’ve grown to accept. But it still doesn’t keep me from forgetting it’s there. I worry about it constantly, because depending on the situation I find myself in it could pose a great problem. It’s not taken seriously, the shrill little thing. It’s always there and flashes like neon. GAYGAYGAY. Job interviews are the worst. I clench my throat like a vice to make sure my vocal chords don’t ruin me. No one’s going to take you seriously when you sound at best like a little boy. I’m in desperate need of elocution lessons so that I can sound like the serious business woman I am.
It sets me apart from other gay men as well because it’s an audible marker. There’s a currently dichotomy in the country right now about being gay. Up and down, left to right, the older generation of gay men and women are telling the younger set that they are now free to be who they are. Except that I’ve come know that it’s not entirely that simple.
It’s upsetting that people have fallen into the trap of comparing movements, which leads to the comparison of struggles and discriminatory histories. As a minority within a minority, I know that such an attitude is not only impossibly wrong, but dangerous to one’s emotional health. There have been times when I’ve felt pressure to be my ethnicity or my sexuality- which either way betrays who I am as a complete person. Like Zora Neale Hurston, I am not tragically colored. Nor am I tragically homosexual. I’m tragically human, but in the best possible way. No one should be forced to take a side when it comes to their identity.
As long as I’ve been in school I’ve been an anomaly. I’ve been the lone queer taking on the world of international political academia. It’s not something I’m supposed to do. In fact, I can tell that people get rather uncomfortable when I come into the fold. The fact that they don’t view me as an equal makes me want to purposefully exaggerate myself. To let them know that I know. Sometimes I’ll even appear to be less intelligent so I can surprise them later. Self-immolation. Getting myself before they can. There are many in similar situations, and it’s frightening when you realize it. I wish I didn’t. But I can’t help it. A lot of us can’t.
There is an inherent violence in keeping desire and self-loathing internalized. When one is a member of a minority group, there is a desperate need for them to feel like part of a block- a monolith protected itself from mainstream society. But lost and unsaid is the reality that monoliths do not- and needn’t- exist.
My friend Tim can’t get a break. As a boy he doesn’t fit the mold, and as a Drag Queen he doesn’t fit the mold either. He’s too tall, too big (which he isn’t), and too feminine- although, his love of comic books and videogames keeps him en vogue with the times. That’s a trend that somehow passed me by completely. Not that I mind of course. It’s a rather cunning ruse. Gay men are just like you- they play videogames! But there’s something deeper that’s rather sad. It’s once again association by negation. We’re not that gay. We don’t spend the day wearing dresses and interior decorating. We’re masculine too. It’s all seemed a bit forced to me, acceptance for the sake of acceptance. Maybe I’m just too gay for that.
My friend Johnny floats in the same boat. He is a “gaysian.” A word we throw around with love but in reality represents a racial compartmentalization of sex. People are quick to eroticize minorities, and Johnny knows this. He’s supposed to be supple and submissive, almost devoid of sexuality altogether.
As a member of the nation’s largest minority group, I am fully aware of the social hierarchy that exists and how I fit into it all. As a light-skinned Mexican without an accent I gain acceptance as a digestible dessert. Something cute and presentable that will in no way disrupt the blonde balance save for a quirky phrase here or there. I can be the fantasy without the realities of a cultural divide. Amigas Latinas, an LGBTQ support group in Chicago, conducted a telling study of the realities of being a Latina lesbian. 48 percent said they feel that there is a lot of racism in the Caucasian lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered community…so clearly race is still an issue. 25 percent agreed that they feel discriminated against because of their sexual orientation in places servicing the Hispanic community and 54 percent of women revealed that they feel that most Latinos are not accepting of LBTQ women..which illustrates the discrimination is definitely internalized. Which leads to the last statistic: 49 percent reported that a female partner had tried to keep them from contact with family and friends. Forty-three percent of Latina LBTQ women reported having been pushed or hit by a partner. And 31 percent stated that a female partner had threatened to kill them. It’s a triple layer problem. This is repression at work. And unfortunately no one wants to admit that it’s there. Shame.
Many people want us to think that we are living in a “post-gay” world. That is, a world in which Johnny or Tim’s sexual orientation is a moot point. No one cares that they favor the same sex, and they freely share their romantic conquests with their friends. But the world, not the mention the United States, is in no way “post” on the matter- from any angle. Civil rights being put to a referendum is a clear affront to democracy. Open hostility still exists.
Many make the case that the Gay movement is to the twenty-first century as the Civil Rights movement was to the twentieth. This comparison needn’t-and shouldn’t- be made. Especially since the majority of the people in power are white men. As Johnny would say, White gay men who compare the gay rights movement to the black civil rights movement, stop it. Seriously, though, check your privilege. Comparing it to another struggle succeeds only in denying it the power to define itself and tread its own path. I don’t tend to publicize my views on gay rights. I’m not one to take to a soapbox and throw my opinions out. In my mind, it’s obvious that I would support them. I’ve worked very hard to ensure my place at the table. Every day since high school I’ve done work to shape my own identity free of a movement or stereotype. I do this because I know that we’re not post anything. The idea of “post” is so arbitrary anyways.
The first thing people are going to see is my sexuality and I know this. So I have to deal with it. If someone is getting me down, I repeat the words of wisdom I once learned from my friend Kara: I’m a city girl.
She’s a lesbian. She knows everything.