How the Other Half Lives

*Author’s note – Sorry, this needs to be reworked into a few posts that will touch upon a couple different issues.  For now, here is what I have so far.

“How the other half lives,” I thought to myself as I drove out of state to an away fraternity formal as someone’s date this past spring.  I’ve more or less shunned Greek life on campus throughout my time here, but when a mutual friend triangulated an invitation to an away fraternity formal, I decided I’d tag along.  After all, it’s not too often a non-Greek male gets to experience the inner workings of the brotherhood without having to pledge or be deemed worthy in any way whatsoever.

I actually ended up having an amazing time and my date was great about everything.  Outdoors and pool by day, dinner and dance by night.  And at the end of the day, people ended up being a lot more receptive to me being there than I had expected going into the adventure.  The positive treatment I received can be attributed to any number of reasons, but three stick out in my mind: 

1)   People really liked and respected my date and were willing to temporarily suspend their perceived stereotypes of gays and view us as an exception rather than as a norm.

2)   People were homophobic but unwilling to vocalize to the group how uncomfortable they were, at least in front of us.

3)   People were completely supportive and genuinely enjoyed having us there.

While I hope everyone at that formal was comfortable with two males carving up the dance floor to Jessie’s Girl, I know thoughts #1 and #2 were prevalent as well.   I’ve found this indicative of my Duke experience. 

Homophobia doesn’t build as much social capital as it used to.  Just watch 21 Jump Street.  I’m proud that I can live in a day and age where Dukies have to at least pretend to be allies and tolerant human beings in order to be respected, at least during daylight hours.  But when the sun goes down and the drinks come out, all of a sudden you hear offensive words, see crude gestures, and feel like you are in a completely different world.  It’s #1 and #2 coming out. 

I’m not sure if people realize to what degree #1 and #2 still exist on this campus.  It’s not a bad thing that kids don’t feel like they need the LGBT center for protection and refuge anymore.  It’s great that LGBT students assimilate into many groups around campus and that people are able to be out and place their sexual orientation relatively low on their identifier list. 

When I first came out, I was all about distancing myself from the LGBT community.  I’m not like that, I don’t go to pride, I’m not flamboyant, I like sports, I like appearing straight.  And you know what?  I could pass.  It’s easier and less stressful.  I was all about being that exception, the kid that was gay but not really gay.  And I hoped that if enough people would come along and like sports and act masculine and discard Lady Gaga and unicorns and rainbows and v-necks, stereotypes would vanish and LGBT would finally be accepted.

Then I grew up and realized how messed up that view was... To Be Continued

"You Can Play" @ DUKE

I first wrote about the NHL's "You Can Play" project back in March.  At the end of last school year, Risa and I approached our athletic department about producing a similar video.  Leslie Barnes and her team were instrumental over the summer in rounding up athletes, coaches, and members of the athletic department to participate in the project.  This week, we are thrilled to announce that Duke athletics is officially throwing its hat into the ring to combat homophobia in sports with its own "You Can Play" video.

You can see it here ==>>  You Can Play @ DUKE <<==


Feel free to check it out and share it with your friends and family.

Also, I'm running Athletes United this year.  Athletes United is a monthly discussion group for LGBTQ identified and questioning Duke varsity/club athletes and students that work closely with our teams.  The group creates a confidential, safe space for members to share personal experiences and discuss how to make the locker room and playing field an accepting environment for all athletes. Our first meeting is slated for Sunday, 9/16 at 6pm in the LGBT center.  If you are at all interested in finding out more information about the group, feel free to drop me (jmcginty321@gmail.com) or Dr. Janie Long (janie.long@duke.edu) a line.

Happy first week of classes everyone.

-John

You Can Play

As anonymous post #3 from yesterday pointed out, the NHL joined the fight this past weekend to end homophobia in sports. The “You Can Play” campaign launched its first public service announcement during NHL games this past weekend. The campaign was established by Brian Burke (Toronto’s GM) and Patrick Burke (his son and scout for Philly) in an effort to continue the work of their son and openly gay brother, Brendan, who was killed in a car accident two years ago. The first ad features eight current NHL players and apparently over thirty NHL players have signed on to work with the project. Def worth a minute of your time to check it out.



As I was checking up on other efforts to combat homophobia in hockey and sports (because that is how everyone spends their spring break), I encountered a pretty inspiring and cool story of a high school hockey player coming out to his family, teammates, and classmates.
the link has been taken down because the player was a minor, but all over the interwebs you can find stories of younger athletes coming out and being accepted by their peers.

Anytime you can place the weight of Henrik Lundqvist and Daniel Alfredsson behind a cause, you can deliver a powerful message. Everyone always complains how homophobia can only be wiped out if an all star comes out and can be more or less a poster child. However, maybe attitudes are changing enough that instead of waiting for current athletes to come out, a generation of already out athletes will come on to the scene. This perspective enables us to be active agents for change to make schools more accepting places, rather than sitting around and waiting for others to lead the way.

You Cannot Legislate Love

Change it up a bit with a vid.

Sports and Community

I was home for five days this Christmas. In addition to being out to many friends in person for the first time and celebrating the one-year anniversary of letting the parents in the loop, I was able to take in a hockey game, an NFL game, and a college hoops contest. I witnessed two quality wins by the Penguins and Steelers and unfortunately saw Wagner defeat its first ranked opponent in 33 years by way of the Pitt Panthers (really Jamie Dixon?). While taking in all of these sporting events, I grappled with the idea of community and what it means to be part of a group. Much of this has to do with my personality.

Steeler fans have recently started this annoying trend where they collectively scream “first down,” as if the PA announcer couldn’t handle the task himself. Every time one of my friends attempts to heckle an opponent or influence the call of a referee, I find myself cowering and attempting to disassociate myself. I went to the Consol Energy Center to watch the Penguins play the Blackhawks. Every time a “Let’s Go Pens” chant erupted, I found myself chomping on peanuts and quietly analyzing the game and discussing strategy with my family.

Granted, I had a fantastic time. I watched world class athletes compete and shared the experiences with the people I love. I sported my team gear, bought food, and invested in the team by buying a ticket. But the Pittsburgh Steelers, Penguins, and Panthers do not need thousands of John McGintys who sit on their hands and refrain from joining in chants. These teams need individuals who instantaneously start clapping their hands when Cha Cha Slide plays. These teams need individuals who freely catapult themselves into screaming or hollering whatever the jumbotron demands.

Am I less of a fan because I choose not to partake in these gimmicks? Sorry I’m not sorry that I think the decibel meter is rigged to make the crowd louder. Am I at fault for not being the loudest, foam finger waving, belligerently intoxicated fan out there? I still consider myself a valuable member of the Pittsburgh sports fan base and community, but at the same time I can’t deny that others in my stead would have a more tangible impact on the game. I can’t deny that I feel more fulfilled when I force myself to join in a chorus of defense chants at a game. I cannot coerce myself to participate all the time, let alone others. Is it enough for me to tacitly support my teams and be a part of a community, or should I be faulted for free riding off of more active and passionate members? . I’d like to think that I can be a quiet fan and still rank my passion for sports at the top of my identifier list. But is that fair, is that effective, and does that produce the world I want to live in?

This post never mentions LGBT or the Duke community, but it has everything to do with them.

The Evil We Deplore

On September 14, 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives took up House Joint Resolution 64, giving President Bush broad authority to pursue those responsible for the attacks of September 11th. The resolution would pass the Senate by a vote of 98-0 and the House by a vote of 420-1.

During debate on the floor, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA), the lone dissenting member of Congress, rose to speak. Overcome with emotion, she managed to eloquently state her fear of the US rushing to judgment and urged the use of restraint. She concluded her speech with the line, “As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore.”

I feel that rushing to judgment is a large problem within the LGBT community, especially at Duke. Don’t get me wrong, I love the LGBT community here. I was skeptical of pride, but ended up going and having a fantastic time. For me, events like pride and coming out day strip away social pressures and enable me to experience new and freer dimensions of my personality. Sure, I don’t share identical hobbies and interests with every student that identifies as LGBT. God knows how hard it is to convince someone to sign up for an IM soccer team let alone drag them to a Duke football game.

Yet too often I find myself using my own hobbies and interests to try to carve out my own sphere of privilege within the LGBT community, to drive a stake between others and myself. Even more so, I find myself typecasting other groups on campus in an effort to reaffirm my identity - to place on a pedestal the communities I choose to belong to. Stereotypes often carry some degree of truth, but by no means are they universal within groups of people. Believe it or not, not all athletes and Christians are homophobes and not all frat kids are womanizing monsters. Yet living at Duke, it becomes difficult to move past the shallowness of these labels. It becomes hard to differentiate between and relate to groups you aren't in daily contact with. Often, the stereotype is all that lingers as a result.

My capacity for empathizing has fallen victim to father time and my personal Duke experience. Hindsight bias really is a nasty little bugger. Today, it seems ridiculous that I didn’t like heights, sushi, alcohol, or the color orange. I have a tendency to take every game in Cameron Indoor Stadium for granted. This morning, I pulled up a political science paper I wrote freshman year and realized I’ve retained nearly zero of that information.

Quite frankly, the further I move into the future, the harder time I have placing myself in the shoes of my 18-year-old self, the more difficult it becomes to take off and clean the glasses Duke has placed upon me. I’ve been blessed with a rather laissez-faire, free spirited personality and perspective on life. Being out has enabled me to move past the taxing, introspective state of being closeted. But too often I use that as an excuse to turn the other way. The pressure to fit in with your peers, existing definitions of masculinity, the fear of being solely defined by your sexuality, and the simple fear of the unknown are issues that wreak havoc on Duke students every day. These are salient issues that are shared by all members of the LGBT community.

Students who are comfortably out are a privileged group at Duke. We should not forget that. For a community that preaches tolerance, acceptance, and unity, too often we preoccupy ourselves highlighting our differences rather than cherishing what we have in common. As I strive to become a better learner, friend, athlete, worker, and person, I need to stop diminishing the currency in which I trade. I need to prevent myself from becoming the very stereotyping and polarizing evil I deplore.

Duke is fantastic, but let us not forget those who remain silent, and let us not forget the younger versions of ourselves.

My Life is a Stump Speech

It kills me that I cannot express emotion. In so many ways I feel desensitized to the world around me. For so much of my life I’ve subconsciously been driven by society to conform to a gender role that stifles the expression of emotion and frowns upon anything that contradicts traditional notions of masculinity.

Over the past couple of years I’ve become much more extroverted in my interactions with others. But just because I’ve become comfortable speaking up and filling space with words doesn’t mean my contributions are meaningful. I lived in silence for so long that I feel like I now have to speak up anytime the room falls quiet. I’m more than willing to intellectualize, to offer up my opinions of why a football team should have run a particular play, why a certain economic policy is bad, or why the special effects in a movie were horrible. But I have trouble expressing my emotions and relating to people on a personal level. So much of my existence operates on a very impersonal level.

I’m more than willing to step up to a podium and deliver a speech or talk in a large group setting. In many ways a larger setting enables me to be impersonal, to remove myself from what I’m saying. Or at least I perceive the collective response by the audience as detached. I hate my life on a micro level. I struggle so hard to sit people down and explain to them on a one-to-one basis how I feel. I struggle to comfort people in times of need, often having no idea what to say and what body language to use. I feel so vulnerable when sharing my emotions on a more private, intimate level. The ultimate fear of rejection becomes so much more real to me.

When you talk in abstract terms and theories and someone disagrees with you, they reject the idea you put forth. If you open up emotionally on a personal level and someone disagrees with you, in many ways they reject who you are as a person. And to me that thought is terrifying.

It kills me that whenever my parents conclude a phone conversation with the phrase “I love you,” I never respond in kind but rather reply with a mere “have a good night.” It pains me that this weekend, at a retreat designed to foster a safe environment, I wrote a letter to one of my best friends in order to explain to him how much he means to me, because I couldn’t tell him to his face. It’s humiliating to come out to your parents by texting them from an airport security line before leaving home for six months. To me that’s the definition of being selfish, impersonal, and unable to recognize the impact your words and actions have on others.

I’m sick of running from discussing my real emotions with those who matter to me most in life. I’m tired of always running for political cover. I feel so much of what I say every day is merely a stump speech - the inspirational and eloquent, yet utterly meaningless trash we see politicians spew out all the time. So much of what I say is just bullshit. My humor and my love of metaphor are important parts of my personality. Parts that I love and refuse to give up. But I need to carve out a chunk of space for a little bit of candidness, a dash of frankness, and an iota of pure, raw, truth. Figuring out how to do so, well, I’m open for suggestions.

~John

Basketball's 4ft 10in Ally

Every summer I work basketball camps with roughly 2k teenage boys. One afternoon it began raining men, cats, and dogs. I was trapped in the IM gym for two hours with 250 rambunctious, hungry, and impatient youth.

I set up camp to guard the exit, but the twelve-year-old inmates were already running the asylum. Over time, kids bored of shooting hoops and circled their own wagons to mingle. The conversation was earth shattering. Topics covered the superiority of different 6^th grade AAU teams and the hotness of middle school English teachers. The convo volleyed back and forth, and eventually the inevitable that’s so gay, fairy, and fag comments were kicked around.

Usually I try to pull a Barry and come off as staying above the political fray, but the conversation was rapidly devolving and these closeted Elton fans needed my help. Just as I began to open my mouth, a shy kid in the corner spoke up.

“There’s nothing wrong with being gay.”

Of course Dweedle Fairy and Dweedle Fag retorted with, “Ew, are you gay?”

“No, but I know people who are. Love involves passions, feelings, and emotions that all people can share. Who really cares if it’s a guy or a girl? Just because you may not like something doesn’t mean it’s stupid or wrong.”

Silence followed.

And then conversation picked back up about a kid’s new Kobe basketball shoes.

This young lad’s stoic defense of LGBT rights won’t change the world overnight. Numerous kids around that conversation were probably sitting on their hands, uncomfortable with what was being said. But I’m encouraged by the fact that no one challenged his assertion. It t’was genuinely nice to see a status quo of tolerance and acceptance laid out on the table and generally accepted. And this was within a group of teenagers where sticking out your neck is harder than endorsing climate change in a GOP primary.

Talk about feel good story of the summer.

Except for one thing.

Our twelve year old ally is a white kid from affluent Chapel Hill, the kid who repeatedly tossed around fag is from rural Mississippi, and the that’s so gay kid is African American and from inner city Philly.

Tackling homophobia in sport and society is an uphill but winnable fight. Personally, to become better equipped to wage this battle, I need to better understand the intersection of sexuality with age, race, gender, and socioeconomic status.

Milk and Cookies

If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s going to ask for a glass of milk. When you give him the milk, he’ll probably ask you for a straw.

Laura Numeroff’s book paints a simplistic picture of common actions and consequences. The book presents a world of perfect information, where questions are straightforward and responses and answers are obvious. Many of us traverse about our daily lives performing actions and making decisions with little thought. This only makes sense, for if we weren’t conditioned to tie our shoes and count by twos, completing more complex tasks would be extraordinary tedious and time consuming. Yet often we take for granted our ability to perform these cost-benefit analyses. We lose sight of the fact that not every decision we make has tangible costs and benefits, that people assign vastly different values to outcomes, and that there is a whole lot of uncertainty in this world.

These daunting, murky, and uncertain waters have brought me to this blog. I’ve been a part of the silent majority of readers for a while now and feel like it’s time to throw my hat in the ring. I suppose I should introduce myself so you know a little bit about where I’m coming from.

I have a passion for sports, an obsession with American and Roman history, have been able to overcome the middle child/triplet syndrome, and love puzzles, games, and challenges. I like discussing anything from the NHL collective bargaining agreement to how you can identify someone’s personality based off of how they play Roller Coaster Tycoon. I love GUTS and Legends of the Hidden Temple and hate seafood or anything flavored orange. The first two CD’s I ever owned were the Backstreet Boys and DMX’s timeless single, “What’s My Name?” Rather than being 20 I view myself as half 10 and half 30. I am extremely risk averse, yet I love to play poker and gamble. In general I believe in the goodness of people and think that I have a pretty damn good life.

I decided to come out to various friends and family members over the past year. It came to a point were I had become sick and tired of constantly building up the walls of an imaginary and unnecessary citadel. I realized that the steps I was taking to keep my guard up were in no way commensurable with the ideals I preached and the life I was living. A very influential coach on this campus once stated that you should “erect no artifical walls that might limit potential, stifle creativity, or shackle innovation.” I’ve really embraced that sentiment and have run with it.

Like so many people uncomfortable with their sexuality, I had become extremely proficient at analyzing other people’s problems, deflecting questions, changing the subject, answering questions with questions, and speaking in mixed metaphors. My rhetoric and actions eventually became so twisted that my own life had became a mystery to me, and still is to a large degree today. I knew I was constantly shutting out those who were closest to me. I felt like I was playing a video game with a controller that I had broken half of the buttons off of. I was still able to get Frogger across the road and build the Pittsburgh Steelers into a hell of a dynasty, but I was making things so much more difficult on myself than they needed to be.

My single biggest regret is not coming out at the start of college or even sooner. Because heterosexuality is viewed as the norm, having to fill people in is an endless chore. I still have no idea of the best way to do it. I’ve had lunch with people, written letters and emails to others, even texted family members from airport security lines. Friends have blasted me for my frailty in informing people, but for me the opening of communication lines is the most important lesson to take from these experiences. So many people are internally at peace with their sexuality yet seem to endlessly wait for the perfect opportunity to tell people. Some are scared that once they come out people will only view them through the lens of their sexuality. My response is that every carton of milk has an expiration date.

Every moment you refrain from telling a family member about your sexual orientation, every time you refrain from correcting a derogatory statement, and every instance that you fail to stand up for what you believe in, you are not only hurting yourself but those around you. You are at the very least an innocent bystander in perpetuating a hypocritical status quo that champions diversity and individuality yet coerces conformity and inequality. Every carton of milk has an expiration date. As father time sits upon your shoulder and days, months, and years slip away, your carton of milk sours even more. And no one, not even a mouse, wants to dunk cookies in spoiled milk.*

The state of the union is strong,
John M

* apologies if you don’t like thinking about spoiled milk or milk in general