June is upon us, and with that brings several things: the beginning of summer today, starting to harvest the spring-planted vegetables, and gay pride month.
I'm always really conflicted about what is considered gay pride. Pride, when taken at its standard definition, is "a feeling or deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements, the achievements of those with whom one is closely associated, or from qualities or possessions that are widely admired." Pride is one of the seven deadly sins in that it's a horrible thing to desire to be more important or attractive than someone else. It's also similarly bad to deny the good parts of others and worse yet to have no humility.
Being gay is something else. Being a lesbian for me isn't something that I've "become" or something that's an achievement. Being a lesbian was something that I knew I was from the moment I hit puberty. It was as natural for my feelings to develop for women that I assume feelings develop for the opposite gender in heterosexuals. The only different thing I experienced was the curse of being the one girl that likes other girls when every other girl I was friends with liked boys. It made me question why I liked girls instead of boys and caused years of confusion because I wanted to be like everyone else. Even so, I didn't ever "accomplish" being a lesbian. I always just was. It's like being a brunette--sure, I love being a brunette without the assumptions of being a blonde or the maintenance of being a redhead but I surely wouldn't have chosen being a brunette on my own.
So where can I get off saying I'm proud of being gay? My employer last year went the wrong way in saying that June was "Gay Heritage" month. Big oops. I'm sure that the rest of the gays I work with were happy to know that their gay forefathers were honored all throughout June since the 1970s. I certainly feel as if I'm connected to other gay people somehow because of the struggle we mutually go through, but it's no more connected to the gay "community" than I am the customer service community, or the overweight community, or the survivors of child abuse. It's one more facet that when put together makes up a whole person.
So then why in June every year do my fellow gays join in harmony to sing YMCA in a public park, women dressed in chaps, men dressed as Cher, to celebrate being something they can't help in the first place?
I understand that oppressed minorities need a community to feel acceptance until they become a part of the greater society. Lesbians are notorious for being alcoholics among medical professionals--I hypothesize that it's because bars become our second home as a safe place to be gay as youth. It's a gathering place to find others who might be into you or someone you know. It's also notorious for drama (see the book Dyke Drama). But as time goes on and we're accepted more for who are and we evolve from a psychiatric patient to just another guy, is there a need to disassociate from mainstream society and our straight counterparts? And will there be a need for these community gathering houses when the rest of the community will accept us non-gay bars, non-gay community centers, and non-gay houses of worship?
I think it's an age-old debate about assimilation, not necessarily about pride.
So then, where does the pride come in?
I, for one, can say I'm really not proud to be gay. I'm not proud to be in a gay community. I'm more proud that I've survived abuse, I'm on the Dean's List, and that I'm on track for my BSN after years of indecision. I'm proud to have a wonderful fiancee who loves me, even though I'm a crazy fat wobbly thing. Basically, I'm proud of accomplishments and the accomplishments of my close associates.
I certainly haven't accomplished being gay. Others may feel that way--being oppressed or coming out late in life. I, though, want to assimilate into my greater community and be a whole package. I don't want to be known as the gay girl. I want to be known for all of the things I am instead of just one of the things I happen to be. I would also hope as time goes on that other lesbians will realize that their whole personality doesn't revolve around being a lesbian.
After all, excess is a sin as much as pride.
But until we all have that safe place, while we're bullied and disowned, while we're disallowed rights, and while we struggle for our acceptance in the greater community, we might continue the fractionalization into our "communities" or special interest groups that envelop our entire lives, hobbies, and activities. That goes for any marginalized group. My hope is that when my children are being raised that we live truly like Martin Luther King, Jr. envisioned--together in peace. Truly together. And my wish is that everyone starts to see that we're only really a fraction of what we truly believe we are consumed with.
I guess, for now, gay pride month will have to be around, if nothing else but to appreciate maybe the people who have or who are paving the roads that myself as the younger, safer generation of gays get to walk. It's not causing much of a disservice to our community in most cases to have our places, our days, our month, or even our parades. Although, I can say too many half-naked Bears on Bikes could scar anyone hoping for a simple, family-friendly parade. Yep, I'll just go ahead and leave you with that image. Happy "Gay Heritage" Month.
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Jonathan Wolfman
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Comments
Yes, absolutely, we need our safe communities and we need times and places to celebrate our survival in the face of so much ignorance and hatred. I think half-naked bears on bikes - and twinks and butch dykes and drag queens and bois - are beautiful, because of how they have upended normative cultural expectations of masculinity and femininity, and because of how brave it is to stand up even when you know that standing up makes you a target.
I think most lesbians and gay men and bisexual and transgender people know that their whole personalities don't revolve around their sexual orientation. We wish we could be seen as whole people, equal citizens, unsinful, worthy of respect and love for all our facets. But when you're a young person (or not so young) coming to terms with the realities of living as a second- or third-class citizen in this dangerous, imperfect world, realizing that you are normal and feeling pride, when your family, school, church and political leaders have abandoned you because of that sexual orientation, is essential.
As long as gay people have to do that complicated, instantaneous and never-ending calculation of whether it's safe to walk down a street holding their partner's hand, and as long as it's okay for President Obama to claim that his religious beliefs prevent him from supporting full marriage equality (separation of church and state, my ass), and as long as lesbians in South Africa continue to be the victims of "corrective rape," we need gay pride parades.
@Capt.America: You bring up interesting semantical arguments that I can fly with. I just can't say anymore how exclusionary my society is and/or will be towards homosexuality. That's yet to be determined, but I hope we do the right thing.
@alsoknownas: I am glad I had people before me who taught me as much. Thank you!
@Pontifica: Of course, being fat and discriminated against doesn't equal the kind of discrimination that some other queer people face in other countries or even some states in the US. And of course, there are horrible atrocities that can still occur. The pride I worry most about is becoming swept up in a needless insistence on being gay as an identity-defining status. That can cause severe disturbances (and did, for me) later in life when you're trying to figure out just exactly what other limbs you have to stand on when your community isn't necessarily all there to assist you. Imagine if you will a straight male whose entire existence is to get laid and be a straight man. Aside from wondering if he were indeed a gay man for being so overcompensatory, we'd also wonder what else he could be... like a Buddhist, or an animal lover, or a mama's boy, or a fisherman, or an avid gardener. Would this "man's man" even know? Of course, it's wonderful to have pride in an accomplishment--so let's actually get out and DO something about the atrocities being committed instead of just letting them happen and hanging out over here and celebrating our freedoms!
My wife and I walked out of a store in Asheville, NC where we were shopping, and where there is a large gay/lesbian presence into a crowd of folks walking along the side walk. Thinking maybe everyone was headed to a concert or something we walked for about 3 blocks before discovering that we were part of a gay pride parade.
Of course, someone from "back home" saw us. In fact several someones. We got a lot of "we never knew" comments.
It was really fun, actually. But then I don't know how much fun it would have been if we were part of a minority that felt conflicted, angry, or oppressed.
Nicely written. R
Rated.
If you've overcoem that then you have something to be proud of.
The Heterosexual Dictatorship DEMANDS you like boys. It will settle for nothing less. It is an enormous act of personal conviction and bravery to take this sytem on.
@Brian Donahue: THANK YOU! Finally someone got it. I thought all was for naught until your comment. And it appears that I am catching flack for the "lack of courage" I have because I don't look or dress the part of a typical lesbian as well as the fact that I'm brave enough to just be myself, which is a whole person made up of many parts. If only I could have the eloquence with words you have...
@Scylla the rock: I'm still here! Thanks.
@David Ehrenstein: Overcoming something is something to be proud of, certainly, but nothing to continue to cling to for self-identity and peer-relation to the exclusion of other identities.
@Tommi: Getting out and doing something about the homophobia is something to be proud of. Being a bystander, enjoying the benefits, and identifying with nothing else is what I'm against. I am certainly proud to be affiliated with such a group that would stand up and take on the injustices and fight for what is right in the world instead of idly standing by and letting things occur that are just not right. I'm indebted to you for your service to equal rights.
When I found out that I was gay it was as if I'd won the lottery. All the people I most admired were gay. Frank O'Hara (most especially) Allen Ginsberg (who I later came to know personally) , Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal -- the list goes on and on. Being gay was being an outlaw. And to me that was very special and very wonderful.
People should only be proud( or aspire )to be decent and ethical human beings.
I never understood this desperate quest for identity, and how so many cling to rainbow flags and just immerse themselves in their gayness.
There are smart and cool gays and there are moronic and rotten gays. Who wants to belong to such a huge and varied mass of humanity?
Rated.
One of the key things the Black Power movement accomplished was Black Pride. This was crucial, even if militant, because Whites had minimized collective black feelings of self-worth and self-respect for over 500 years.
Sure, it may have nothing to do with an individual's accomplishments per se, but it has everything to do with the collective, the group's ability to sustain itself in the fact of constant harassment and denigration.
By that same token, white heterosexual males are very proud and protective of their status in society. Even Chris Rock notes that most white men would never trade places with him, regardless of their class, even though he, Chris Rock, is rich. This goes to the concept of self-pride, ego-augmentation and empowerment.
One of the things that aided white supremacy in this nation for so long was the constant masturbatory ego stroking that whites, and white males, gave to themselves and their role in the world. This made them reckless, carefree and imperialistic in many ways. Making them question that history brings that ego and sense of uber-pride down a notch, and hence, weakens the oppression felt by others, it is argued.
It goes without saying, that these ideas of racist "white pride" have nothing at all to do with the individual accomplishments of the white guy at issue. But everything to do with vicarious identification with a group, for means of self-empowerment. And this self-empowerment was used to oppress and tyranize others in American history.
What minority groups and identity groups want is to (a) accept the identity, and (b) be proud of the identity, so as to empower and fend off the attacks of the hegemonic cultural groups.
I only with the Working Classes in America were as brave as the Gay Rights Movement, in terms of accepting themselves, embracing themselves, and fighting on the behalf of their own self-interests. More often than not, working class people deny and hide the fact that they are working class. They are ashamed by their background and pretend they are something else. They live in the closet and try to act like they are middle class and go into debt trying to "keep up with the Joneses."
If they had more pride in themselves, more self-respect, many of the predatory financial and economic practices of our financial elite would not be so successful.
Indeed we do.
There's a truly superb documentary coming out this summer on the festival circuit We Were Here. It dealw tih San Francisco when AIDS hit, ad features four teriffic seemingly unremarakble gay people whose response to the disaster was nothing less than heroic. They don't act like heores, they act like gay men and women at our best. And because they were at the servie of a community that faced NOTHING BUT STEELY-EYED INDIFFERENCE FROM HETEROSEXUALS they had their work cut out of them. But they triumphed. I know others just like them in other ctiers struggling agains the tide of death an uncongealed hated.
And I am exceptionally proud of them.
You should be too, CC.
If that's your story you stick to it!
" I am merely making the point that I refuse to define myself as ONLY a lesbian, and not the sum of my parts as many of my gay counterparts do in my region and across the US."
It is screamingly naive of people to iagine that they get to define themseleves and that what the culture that surround them has to say is of no consequence. You may be "part" of a lesbian, but in this society oyu're just a dyke, dear. The same way I'm just a fag.
Get used to it.
There's a third meaning to "pride". From Dictionary.com:
(3) a becoming or dignified sense of what is due to oneself or one's position or character; self-respect; self-esteem.
Think of the phrase, "injured pride". I believe it is this sense that is meant (or should be, anyway). Too often, being gay has meant shame. I believe it is about restoring your sense of self.
As a straight male growing up, accusations of being gay were a favored tool of bullies, used to diminish anyone who was different or vulnerable. I am proud of all of you who can overcome the slings and arrows of bullies, and take pride in who you are.
Because that is an accomplishment.
@Just Kay: I'm glad it rang home for you as a "sapphic sister."
@Bob Kearns: Great point. Granted, one's self-esteem shouldn't be wholly reliant on being gay. A lot of people have caused themselves heartache that way. I take for example a friend who challenged that she was a lesbian after a five-year relationship and nearly lost her entire sense of self worrying whether or not she was straight! I do take the antonym quite seriously, though, that gay should never equate shame or diminish the spirit. We've come a long way, yet we have a long way to go.
@Rodney: Interesting point about the AIDS crisis. The views on gay men have been helped AND harmed by the visibility of HIV and AIDS, I think. It characterized most gay men as promiscuous, yet showed that gay men are people, too. Had it not been for a blessing in disguise, how far would we be to this date?
@aquabrarian: I loved how you captured the essence of the problem... we're living in a more privileged place now (heck, Ellen talks about her wife on daytime TV!) and finally we can be seen as a whole person, yet many of our generation and younger don't know how to be anything but a queer person. Thank you for the comment and kudos! :D
@Elijah Rising: Thank you for such a sweet comment. It really makes more sense in six words than most of the complex elaborations we could try to extrapolate from it. All the best.
WHY CAN'T THEY JUST KEEP IT TO THEMSELVES?
I don't feel different from the "heteronormative" mainstream--they are my family and oldest and dearest friends. They strive for decent lives, happy marriages, solid families...I want all that too. I feel the same as them and that is why I am disgusted and enraged when I am denied the same rights they enjoy.
Thankfully, full equality (employment, marriage, military service, bullying protection, etc.) is coming. It's no longer a question of "if" only "how fast?" I have a happy, healthy, full, open life...so full and open, I can just be a person, rather than "a gay person." I owe all that to those who fought and suffered and died and I am eternally grateful.
But no matter how many LGBT folks disagree or misunderstand, I will not be defined by my orientation, I will not be ashamed of my "heteronormative" aspirations and I will not be stifled by a single identity or culture.
Rock on Calliope--there are more of us out there who feel as you do. Andrew Sullivan and Jonathan Rauch express it particularly well.
fortunately, you can talk about your private concerns in public, and make them an issue in society. this will help assimilation, which you rightly point out should be the ultimate goal.
for the general public, we can join in, or skip over. but even if i have little to add, i can say "your cause is just, carry on."