Bitter Gay

I’m coming out again. The title says it all. I’m a bitter gay.

In some ways, saying that is a lot harder than saying I’m gay ever was. As someone who has no reservations in disclosing my sexuality to almost everyone (I even came out to my Russian host mother this summer… whoa), I feel like it’s my responsibility to carry myself with an air of HAPPPINESS and EVERYTHING IS GREAT-NESS. Academically, socially, and extracurricular-ly, everything is.

Romantically, however, I’ve hit a speed bump.

The realization of my bitterness started during conversation with an ex and our mutual friend. Mutual friend was talking about her frustrations with a guy she had been seeing. It wasn’t the first time we had such a conversation. I made some kind of remark that led my ex to call me bitter. I think he’s right.

I’m bitter because I have so fewer options than my friend has. I’m bitter because the way I go about meeting potential dates has to be completely different from the way she goes about meeting potential dates. In order to make a connection with someone I might be interested in, I feel like I have to be in the right context. That is, I can’t just see a guy anywhere, find him attractive, and approach him. I have to know he’s interested in men, or else I risk hitting on a straight guy (which has happened a couple of times recently… yikes). It’s great to be comfortable enough with myself to put myself out there in those situations, but it’s disappointing and almost humiliating to be wrong. When I DO meet a guy who is open about his sexuality (i.e. at an LGBT Center event or at a club), I automatically pigeonhole him into some kind of “I’m interested” or “I’m not interested” category. Don’t get me wrong; I know that first impressions aren’t always accurate, and I’m certainly not against making friends. However, even though I know that the LGBT Center stands against the idea that students only go looking to meet someone for their next date or hookup, sometimes, I am, and I’m not afraid to admit that. Where else?

I’m not looking for love, necessarily. I only want attraction and a connection, and I wish attraction and connection could surprise me more often rather than coming from someone whom I already know is an option. I am bitter about those dynamics. There are just fewer fish in the sea for me.

This isn’t the biggest deal in my life right now. Even though I feel this way and may always feel this way, I know I’ll eventually find something. I still stand by my mantra that life is better as an out gay man than a closeted one. I am a happy guy; the content of this blog post is just something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I highly doubt I’m alone in thinking the way I do, but feel free to disagree.

Coming Out To Everyone

I feel overexposed.

This is a feeling that's been bugging me for quite some time now, and it's entirely my fault.

I never really "went public" in high school. Most of my friends knew I was gay, but I was still extremely private with it, and struggled intensely with saying "I'm gay," even to myself. So, I decided that in college that was all going to change. My method for changing this? Come out to everything.

In retrospect, this might not have been the best decision.

Upon arriving on campus, I quickly immersed myself in the LGBT center, Blue Devils United, and this blog. These, especially writing for the blog, garnered me an enormous amount of overexposure. The day my first post hit this blog, everyone, and I do mean everyone, seemed to know I was gay. Granted, I saw this coming, but I thought it was what I wanted.

I'm fine coming out to the LGBT community, it's only when my sexuality begins to spill over into areas of my "straight" life that I have an issue, and before I knew what was happening, people started finding my blog post from all areas of my "straight" life.

I managed to make it okay with myself by saying that this would make my life easier. Being gay in Christian communities is a tricky business, and by having my sexuality already out in the open, it wouldn't come out of nowhere to bite me later. And this made it easy for me to be known as the "gay Christian" role model that I wanted to be.

But I still felt exposed. My business was all over the place. Suddenly, my "straight" life and my "gay" life that I'd worked so hard to preserve were all blended up together. This was what I had hoped would happen, but now I found myself just hoping that I could resegregate my life.

I feel like this is what happens to lots of LGBT people after they start coming out. Coming out is necessary, because your sexuality is a core part of your identity that you shouldn't have to hide, and it can be an extremely liberating experience. But at the same time, when you consider coming out, you're feeling pressured to share intimate details of your sex life to people for no reason, and it's easy to start feeling as though your privacy is being infringed on, even though you're the one doing the infringing. And then there's the added pressure of the knowledge "once you come out, there's no going back," and on top of all that is the decision of who to come out to.

All of these pressures are intensely individualistic. Some people are comfortable enough with their sexuality that they have no problem coming out to everyone, others, like me (as I learned the hard way), are a little more private. After all, coming out to everyone isn't at all necessary, and your sexuality isn't any of most people's business. Of course if coming out to everyone isn't your cup of tea, it can be very tempting to try and segregate your life into "straight" and "gay" spheres, and that is something you absolutely cannot do.

No matter when you decide to come out, and who you decide to come out to, the most important thing is that you take yourself seriously. Don't hide an important part of who you are just because you happen to be in one of your "straight" spheres, and if that means having to come out in that sphere, then so be it. If you're forcing yourself to hide who you are, from anyone, then there was no point in you coming out at all.

Black and Not So Proud

I’m going to discuss my observations about queer black women in media (specifically in the USA). I will also abuse parentheses; you have been warned.

Regardless of what anyone thinks, you can’t deny that there is some sort of strange relationship between sexual identity and race—not in the “people of this race aren’t gay” sort of way, but in the “famous people of this race tend to not be out if they’re gay” as often as famous people of other races sort of way. And things like that can lead to all sorts of foolishness. Anyone remember when some guy wrote a book and sent it to Uganda and how that inspired the Anti-Gay bill they were trying to pass a few years ago? Rachel Maddow going to town on the author of a "cure gayness" book.

And it would be easier disprove idiotic statements such as “race effects whether or not you’re gay” if there were more people of influence that were the physical manifestation of a counterargument. However, that is not the case. I don’t know whether or not that’s the fault of the not-so-good background race has within US history (yes, I’m talking about the US, specifically), or if there’s some cultural incidence of shame and fear within communities of color/the black community. What is it about black “pride” that makes it so difficult?

So, besides debunking the myth of “blacks aren’t LGBT identified, ever”, why else would we need out, black people of influence?

Well, this may or may not sound ridiculous, but some of us (read: all of us, whether you believe it or not) look to the media as an example in many different aspects of our lives. And while stereotypes are awful, I kind of think they have their uses. One way the media helps is by giving us “not so obvious” LGBT individuals ways to drop visual cues on our somewhat unobtrusive sexualities. Being (what I can only simplify to) bi has its troubles. How can one find a middle ground between attracting heterosexual/bi men and homosexual/bi women? …If you find an answer to that, let me know, because apparently I’m not doing it right (read: I get asked to dinner by men and called straight when I go to gay clubs. Yes, that's happened on two separate occasions). In this situation, many people turn to the media for help.

Let’s go for the simple, common example: the (often times symbolic) cutting of hair. A lot of white/Asian/non-black queer women cut their hair to shorter, “more masculine” lengths. As MUCH as I’d love to cut my hair to reflect my inner queerness that won’t do (and please, don’t preach to me about stereotypes—you know when you see a woman who’s under 30 with short hair you probably add “queer” to your mental list of possible classifications… vegetarian too, am I right? :P) Unfortunately, black woman + short hair does NOT = queer.

So, after that realization, I decided to do some research. It was like a math problem. Black woman + x = queer black woman (with x defined as a visual/physical cue).

And by research, I really mean research. While I could name a BUNCH of non-black queer women in the media, I really couldn’t do so much for black queer women. My train of thought was something like this:

“Um… let’s see… Wanda Sykes? And… um… Queen Latifah. Wait, she doesn’t really count, because we’re still a bit unsure… well… I got nothing. OH WAIT, Nicki Minaj… but, isn’t she denying it now? …Why can’t Ellen just be black? Or better yet, why can’t Oprah just be a lesbian?”

And then a dead end. Eventually, after many unsuccessful google searches, I was given this video by a friend. Essentially, this list contains a lot of women you wouldn’t hear of unless you were into politics and reading; writers, activists, poets (though, in retrospect, I DID know a few more than Wanda, which made me happy).

Anyway, to wrap this up, the main point of this is essentially that American media is telling the world that black queer women are rare/don't exist (which can’t be the case). But then again, allowing the media to define and represent the world is a bad idea. “Dark skinned” black women, myself included, wouldn’t exist at all if left up to the media because I’ve observed it is usually only “safely ethnic” black women who get screen time/get to represent all black women on TV and in movies. (Support for this observation: here and here, with pictures). But that’s enough digression.

Side note: Dreads for me, yes or no? No? Yeah, whatever, I kind of want to do this anyway, but maybe shorter.

Side side note: I'm obviously not being serious about my first side note, in case you were wondering.

Throwback Thursdays: Where We've Come From

[Editor's Note: Hey Readers! Welcome to the second installation of "Throwback Thursdays." Every first Thursday of the month we'll feature a post from the BDU Blog, Version 1.0. As a student group that is more or less all about social change, it can be overwhelming to look forward at what there is still left to accomplish. Hopefully this blog post from 2.5 years ago will allow us to take a break from only seeing the flaws in the world and will shed some perspective to help us to realize how far we've come. It also asks us to consider just what we want from this blog and what battles still need to be fought, both of which are important questions as we approach our 2nd birthday (one week from today!). So, what do you think, Readers? What should this blog be? What's the next 'battle' on your agenda?]

February 23, 2009

I just got through most of the posts on the blog as its existence has somehow escaped my surfing habits. I can say that I'm rather proud of the idea but as I see it now it is lacking in that it caters almost exclusively to the LGBT crowd. While I understand that it serves as means of self-help in between us, it would be of much more help if the greater public and our allies would benefit from reading our insightful and somewhat revealing experiences and ideas. Maybe if we advertised the blog more? or somehow include more people in it I believe it could become a good vessel of peaceful discussion, without it becoming an LGBT version of the metoo blog.

I am certain we have many allies in our student body who are either unaware of the adversity we face everyday, even with what some might deem minor lingual kinks, or who see them happening everyday but do not know how to cope with them. What if we could somehow reach out to them and give them the background information they need?! Think if every day just a couple of people back-lashed when someone uses the word gay or fag?! I think the reason why this social phenomenon has been rampant is exactly the lack of response from everybody. This in turn has lead to what the previous poster described as, the terms becoming part of "habitual-daily speech", a mass-desensitizing phenomenon.

As part of my coming-out process I've tried doing my best to kindly correct any people I was talking too if they ever used any terms associated with LGBT or any other minority or group for that matter. While some viewed it as me beeing a "party-pooper" and taking things "too seriously" I remained adamant and I hope that if not all, some realized that it was something that really mattered to me and have stopped using it.

Trying to cut my late-night stream of conciousness blurb, I want to end by saying that I have great hopes for the LGBT community and Duke and that if we work at our full potential there is room for great change. We have the raw materials and the tools, we need just be the catalyst for change.

What's The "T"?

For about 20 minutes a day, I scroll through my tumblr feed to find post after post after post of transmen discussing and documenting their transitions. Tumblr, whether they intended this or not, has served as a central place of communication for the trans community. There are thousands of Tumblr blogs (including my own) documenting the process of transitioning and the issues that many trans* individuals face on a daily basis.

I can identify with the transition experience of many of the blogs that I follow. Beginning hormone therapy, dealing with dysphoria, making decisions about surgeries, and the stress of having legal documents changed are things that I struggle with as well. Witnessing other individuals in my predicament gives me strength to continue on during some of the most difficult parts of my transition.

What normally differs between my own experiences and that of others is my awkward relationship with the “T” in LGBTQ. My relationship with that “T”, has evolved multiple times throughout the process of transitioning. Initially, I didn’t question my identification with the “T” in LGBTQ. I was just excited about finally having a name that described a community of people just like me. Lately, however, I’ve found that my willingness to identify as transgender decreasing as time goes on.

Let me be clear that my issues with “T” have absolutely nothing to do with the transgender community. Meeting other people who share this pain over their gendered experience that is as deep as my own has been one of the most validating experiences that I have had. However, because so much of my understanding of my own transition experience has been based in my physical struggles with gender as a child, it’s hard for me to identify as the term.

For me, the decision to transition was about alleviating the dysphoria that I had been dealing with since I was young. Dysphoria (though defined differently by almost everyone) is the excruciating pain that comes from living in the reality that your brain and your body sees two completely different people in the mirror. For many of us in the community who do experience this, Dysphoria causes periods of debilitating hopelessness that can seem almost impossible to navigate out of. As I child, I went through many periods of dysphoria. I forgot (or so I thought) many of these instances as I became older and distracted by the demands of life. But as I venture deeper into transition, I find these memories making there way back into my thoughts.

When I went through puberty (the first time), I remember a specific incident that occurred in my room. I had taken off my shirt, when I caught a glimpse of my chest in the mirror. I started crying, and from what I remember, I sat there sobbing, staring and prodding at my chest for a significant amount of time. There are many other memories such as this; some I'm not sure I'm ready to acknowledge.

You see, transitioning has brought up a lot of the pain of being misgendered for the entirety of my life. I often get myself into hours and hours of thinking about the outcome of my life had I transitioned earlier. Two decades of my life has passed where I have been a sister and a daughter, when all I ever wanted in the first place was to be a brother and a son. Though there has been a significant amount of healing that has occurred because of my decision to transition, there is still bitterness about what could have been.

For that reason, I take issue with using the “T” word to identify myself. To be fair, I do use the term to describe this experience for the purposes of interacting with other individuals who are going through the same process. However, I don’t want to identify as Transgender. I don’t want spend the rest of my life with the word trans appended to my gender identity. I don’t want to be a “special” type of man because I just so happen to have a vagina (and he’s a fabulous one, thank you). I’m a boy, and I always have been. No additional letters required.

Community

[Editor's note: Please welcome our newest blogger, Jessye!]

Two interests have been constant in my life: environmental activism and issues surrounding the LGBTQ community. Though my studies (and most of my extracurricular work) is comprised of environmentally-related things, my interest in the LGBTQ community and equality issues never wavered. Though in middle school there was no GSA for me to join, when I entered high school the two clubs I signed up for were the Environmental Club and the GSA. When I was looking for colleges, two of my top priorities were that the school have a strong academic environmental program and an active LGBT community. The influences for why I am interested in environmental issues (the music I grew up to, my middle school's environmental club, etc) are abundantly clear, though my interest in LGBTQ issues are less so.

This summer my mom asked why I think I am so interested in being part of the LGBT community. I couldn't answer her. I was able to tell her why I care about LGBT equality issues--marriage equality, same-sex/domestic partner benefits, etc.--(because it is an issue of human rights), but not what makes me want to be involved with the larger community.

The question puzzled me and I meditated on it for a few weeks. The answer finally came to me when I was walking home from an LGBTQA religious service at the JCC near where I was living. The LGBTQA service was composed of about 20 couples, most of whom were in their 50s. The week I attended was a special one as the community was celebrating one couple's 20th anniversary. Outside of pride parades, it was the first time I'd really been in an environment where there were gay couples well over the drinking age. After the service, all the couples were mingling and eating and sharing stories and laughing (it was basically a Fab Friday with older couples). As I was walking home after this experience, the answer came to me.

In the largely heteronormative world in which we live, there is a separation between those who are straight and those who are not and between those who are male or female and those who are somewhere in between (or neither). As such, there is this invisible expectation that if you don't fall into a "normal" gender role, you have to "admit" to it. I once heard a woman say that being a lesbian in a heteronormative world requires that you constantly come out. And whether you are comfortable enough with your sexuality to share it when you first meet someone or not, this expectation is a tiring thing to live with. This expectation, however, is non-existant in the LGBT community because it fosters an environment it essentially rejects the ideology of a heteronormative culture.

Later in the summer my mom and I were sitting on a blanket at the beach and she posed the question again, "Why do you think you like being part of the LGBT community?" This time I had an answer: The LGBT community is unique in that its members share a commonality that is much deeper than one bound by similar interests (say, a typical student organization). It is a community that is bound by being and by an ideology of acceptance and that is founded on the principles of support and love. Why wouldn't I want to be a part of it?