GAY MEN - AMEN!

 

In this (still) very misogynist culture we live in, the female "pole" of the personality is still devalued, degraded... still treated with contempt. Homophobia may have its roots in our culture's fundamentally patriarchal structure which forces sexual or gender identity into a black-and-white straightjacket, disempowering us all. No one, Gay or Straight (or all the colors in between) can be summed up as belonging to any one pole--we are all "all over the place" in the way we express our gender and our sexuality. But we have to live in this (sometimes very hostile) "real world" that insists on digestible definitions, and so we "closet" ourselves or we face real hardship, bodily harm, discrimination. 

 

Gay men are assertive and passive, thoughtful and hard-to-reach, feminine and masculine... sort of like, well... people. Being Gay is NOT a "diagnosis." It is NOT something to be "cured." It is something very beautiful, something that comes from God, something to be celebrated. People are something to be celebrated. YOU are someone to celebrated.

 

I am a "straight" man who feels his feminine side deeply and struggles with that. I have felt frightened wearing a colorful shirt while waiting for my car to be fixed; I have wondered if the way I cross my legs will make people "wonder if I'm Gay..." And all this coming from a tall, heterosexual white man who can, by any measure, "pass" as the cultural norm of AMERICAN MAN, and who has never had to face prosecution or violence because he decided to hold his lover's hand in public. 

 

I will do my best to be in touch with my homophobia, which was pounded into me from childhood. The issue is not "whether or not" I am homophobic, I feel, but to what extent I am. I will never say, "You can trust me. I understand..." That is up to you to decide. The light of consciousness is the cure; truth is the cure. I want to live in a world where we are all protected, all embraced, all celebrated. Our work together can be a part of that.  TB