On Being Gay
by Christopher E. Renner

Recently in a discussion with a gay man from Kansas I was startled when in reply to my question, "What does it mean to be gay?" he replied: "Oh, I've given it plenty of thought-and I have concluded that when you remove all the social baggage, being gay is about as remarkable as being left-handed. Everything else about being gay has evolved as a result of social and legal oppression."

Maybe dumbfounded is a better adjective for my feeling. I also heard a scream in my head which hasn't given me rest since that day. A scream that comes from graveyards all over the state and from around the world which says: "Open your eyes! Open your ears! Open your heart! Hear us! Hear your soul!"

I have never in my 42 years of life, 37 of which I have known I was "different" from the rest, thought of my sexual identity as being "left handed." My being different has been a source of comfort, courage and vision. It has provided me with clear reason in the face of danger and laughter in times of depression; it has made my life a richly woven tapestry of many hues and textures. It has made me a better person. What is disturbing about such statements is that it shows how far we have come to go nowhere. While our leaders say things like: "Nature always extracts a price for sexual promiscuity" (Larry Kramer, The Advocate, May 27, 1997) or "Following legalization of same-sex marriage and a couple of other things, I think we should have a party and close down the gay rights movement for good" (Andrew Sullivan, in Out Takes, 1997), lesbigaytrans youth continue to kill themselves or are abused by their peers and parents; lesbigaytrans workers everywhere continue to fear the loss of job and housing; people are arrested for inquiring about the sexual interests of another. Being gay/queer/lesbian/a faggot/dike, whatever the term you use to refer to yourself, means a whole lot more than being "left-handed." What we fail to do as a minority is to recognize our history and our contributions to the betterment of society. The current assimilationist leadership obviously has their own personal agenda which does not include equal rights for everyone, but only for some. If we look at our gifts and talents, and accept them as uplifting qualities of being queers, then "passing" in a heterosexist world no longer is enough to give any life fulfillment.

Our history begins at the dawn of civilization when we were cast out from the tribe because we did not contribute to the procreation of the species. Cast out into the world of wild animals and nature spirits which would quickly devour us. But, over time, we were not devoured, but instead learned the skills needed to survive and communicate with spirit and beast, just as many of us still do today in caring for animals and other peoples' lawns. Have you ever wondered why so many gay folks are in certain occupations and not in orders? It must have something to do with who we are as a minority inside ourselves. As time progressed, we found ourselves more and more involved in the community, achieving the roles of priest and healer, mediator and sage. We lead revolutions to bring down tyranny and helped give birth to democracy. At the same time, a small band of wandering shepherds evolved and, claiming to be the "chosen" people of God, set up rules which would become the foundations on which Western Civilization would rise. This minority, desperate to survive in a hostile land and being required to conquer and drive out other tribes to establish themselves as overlords, once again began to "cast out" those who did not contribute to the procreation of the species. These laws were in turn passed on to the Christians and Muslims, being interwoven into their theology.

Our history continued even under the yoke of these oppressive patriarchal structures. We continued to provide cures, knowledge about the seasons and plants, husbandry and crafts among the "folk," those people living in the countryside, or as the Catholic Church would call them, "pagans." When the Church went to war against these last people free of its rule, we--witches and wizards--were the first to be burned and tortured because we provided the folk with the tools they needed to survive. They had to be subjugated and brought under feudal slavery. Even after this war, we continued our history.

Our talents as artists and musicians became our next chapter. Protected, sometimes loved, by the patriarchal rulers, we were able to devote ourselves to the development of architecture, sculpture, painting and fashions. We re-invented make-up and brought theater into a new realm. We began to provide scholarship and inventions which would better all of civilization. Amongst the folk, we were still their healers and sages. The "two-spirited" beings which understood both the male and the female and brought plentiful harvests. Then another war against us appeared: industrialization.

What the Judeo-Christian religion had been unable to do, the Industrial Revolution, with its control of science, succeeded to do. We were identified as homosexuals and branded as outlaws, perverts, dangers to the social order. Whereas before our lack of contributing to the labor pool had free us to be the mediators between worlds, now it was seen as an attack on society. As with the housewife, our contributions to society were no longer seen as productive. Morality laws were passed and, with the institution of Western Christianity, enforced. Still members of our minority continued to write and draw, philosophize and paint, heal and create. But we were excluded from textbooks. Knowledge of us was limited to the studies in psychiatry which portrayed us as self-hating, sick individuals. Our oral history was close to being lost when a group of men in California began to meet and rediscover who we were. These men became know as the Mattachine Society and, with the Daughters of Bilitis, began making contributions to our re-awakening. What has happened since Stonewall is that our minority has been divided between the assimilationists, who in large part deny all the above, and the liberationist who embrace our history and work to bring about a clear understanding that we have always been and always will be a "gay" people.

Growing up in a small town in northeast Kansas, my knowledge of being different, the sissy, came to me early. It was reinforced by my peers and "overlooked" by the adults. For many years I labored under Christian guilt about my desires, but found many young men willing to participate with me in acts of sexual exploration. I always knew that whatever this "difference" was, it was allowing me to see the world differently than my heterosexual peers. Music spoke early to my soul as did art and literature. My father would try time and again to "make a man out of me" by teaching me to hunt, work wood and throw hay bails. As a result I would choose non-violence, dedicate myself to an ecologically sound lifestyle and love the earth. These choices I now realize were all arrived at because of my gay nature. Had I been heterosexual, these critical choices would have had different outcomes. Today there is much talk about "marriage rights" and "full civil rights" by our self-appointed national leaders. However, the hard questions of economic equality, sustainable development and inclusion of the marginalized in the democratic process go unasked. Falling prey to the idea that "all there is to know, is known" individuals claiming to be leaders tell us we have no history but that which has happened in the past 25 years. Sexuality is turned into a political issue, just as the industrialists did a century ago. These same people are embarrassed that we enjoy our sexuality and its vastness. Rather than embrace our uniqueness, we are told to become "productive" units which support the economic domination of the weak.

My gayness has led me to eat at the tables of the socially marginalized, to walk death row, to care for the wounded in a bloody civil war, to clear up the vomit of a friend dying of AIDS. In all of this, I have always known, I was not standing alone. Just as thousands of gay people have done for thousands of years, I was making my contribution to the folk.

We live in a modern age of rapid communication, an age which is seeing the largest explosion of information and knowledge ever seen in the history of the world. It is easy for us to think that this knowledge is shared by all, but it isn't. We as a community have failed to communicate to ourselves WHO we are and to the heterosexual. We have not taken it upon ourselves to reflect and search out our "wise men/women" and to integrate our difference into our core being. The heterosexual still fears us because of this lack of communication and reacts driven by this fear. We foolishly believe that they know who we are and respect us because all this information is "out there." If this is so, why do 46 percent of the US population say they have never meet a gay person? And if we tell ourselves that being gay is like being "left-handed," how can we expect these people to support us in being given the same rights other minorities have earned? Obviously we do not know ourselves, and if we do not know ourselves, how can we communicate to the heterosexual WHO WE ARE?

References:

Cantarella, C. (1988). Second Natura: La Bisessualita Nel Mondo Antico. Roma: Editori Riuniti.

Carpenter, E. (1984). Selected Writings: Volume 1 Sex. London: Gay Men's Press.

Duberman, M. B. (1986). About Time:Exploring the Gay Past. New York: Gay Presses of New York.

Evans, A. (1978). Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture. Boston: Fag Rag Books.

Fernbach, D. (1981). The Spiral Path. Boston: Alyson Publications.

Foucault, M. (1978). The History of Sexuality: Volume 1. An introduction. New York: Ramdon House.

Grahn, J. (1984). Another Mother Tongue. Boston: Beacon Press.

Hay, H. (1996). Radically Gay. Boston: Beacon Press.

Jay, K. and A. Young (eds) (1972/1992). Out of the Closets: Voices of Gay Liberation. London: Gay Men's Press.

Katz, J. (1976). Gay American History. New York: Avon Books.

Preston, J. (ed) (1991). Hometowns: Gay Men Write About Where They Belong. New York: Dutton.

Roscoe, W. (1988). Living the Spirit: A Gay American Indian Anthology. New York: St. Martin's Press.

Scheebaum, T. (1969/1988). Keep the River on Your Right. London: Gay Men's Press.

Scheebaum, T. (1988). Where the Spirit Dwells. New York: Grove Press.

Thompson, M. (1987). Gay Spirit. New York: St. Martin's Press.

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