“Are your parents coming to the show?”
Someone needs to write a book on how to come out when you’re not gay. The catalog of books for White folks interested in promoting racial justice grows each day, and there are a some titles geared toward men committed to gender equality. But where’s the how-to manual for heterosexual people who desire to be allies to LGBTQI community? Such a field guide would’ve come in handy when I served as the dramaturge for Pandora’s, the multimedia off-Broadway show produced by my company Sister Outsider Entertainment.
An ambitious production that intersperses ten monologues with seven documentary shorts, Pandora’s sought to bring a higher and more complex visibility to queer Latinas than you might see on, say, The L-Word. The show is the brainchild of its creative director Elisha Miranda who also happens to be my business partner. But E’s also my sister warrior, road dawg, ace coom boom. In other words, she always has my back, and I always have hers.
When Elisha told me years ago that she wanted to produce a multimedia show about the Latina queer experience and asked if I were dramaturge the monologues, I didn’t hesitate. If anything, I was honored. There were several more experienced and critically acclaimed playwrights she could have approached who would’ve jumped at the chance to work with her on Pandora’s (E be magnetic like that.) And that’s why when she asked me if my parents were coming to see Pandora’s when it premiered at Theater Row last month, the simple question reduced me to tears.
I hadn’t even told them about the show.
One reason I had not told them about Pandora’s is because, in explaining to them why Sister Outsider was “doing a gay show,” I would have to out Elisha. My parents have come to love Elisha and her husband Alex as if they were their own children. Although Elisha is openly bisexual and a relentless activist for queer issues, being married to a man often thwarts any consideration that she might not be heterosexual. As open as Elisha is about her sexuality, around certain folks like my parents, Don’t ask, don’t tell was in full effect, and I didn’t feel it was my place to announce her sexual orientation to anyone.
I explained this to her when she called and asked if my parents were coming to the Pandora’s premiere. “Well, girl, you know, I haven’t said anything,” I said while standing in the shoe aisle at the Bruckner Boulevard K-Mart. “’Cause, like, I’ve noticed in the past that you’ve kinda held back about talking about that when they’re around.” Like the time we both stayed with my parents at their home in Puerto Rico. While there Elisha was finishing her novella for Juicy Mangos, the erotica anthology we were both writing for at the time. Hers was about a lesbian who’s haunted by her first kiss. I noticed that when my parents were in earshot, Elisha censored the way she talked about her story, and I took that as a cue that she wasn’t ready for them to discover that aspect of her identity. Indeed, it would be like coming out to her own mother (who I affectionately call Mom2) all over again.
But when I explained this to her, Elisha surprised me by saying, “You know, girl, I know this must be hard on you because you’re single and after what your cousin did to you… I’ve seen how you get targeted in different ways so whatever you decide to do, I’m cool with it. I support you.”
When we ended our call, I sat there staring at it for a moment, thinking When did this become about me? I walked shell-shocked out of the K-Mart, leaving behind those cute sandals I had been eyeing. As I started on my way home, knowing that I would find my father nestled in the living room recliner and switching back and forth between the Yankee game and a Law & Order rerun, the truth hits.
It was about me.
When you’re a perpetually single, unapologetic feminist with a queer best friend (and therefore, run with more lesbians than the average heterosexual, single gal), queer and straight folks alike keep trying to yank you out of a closet you’ve never been in. Sometimes it can be flattering, a sign that you’re walking your anti-heterosexist talk. You’ve succeeded in communicating to queer folks not just with your words but through your actions You’re safe with me.
But more times than not, it stings of the homophobia that LGBTQI people have to endure every day. For example, it becomes an “explanation” why I go for long periods of time without a relationship (because, you know, it couldn’t possibly be that I have enough self-awareness and esteem to stay single than settle for any man just to be able to prove I can nab one.) For patriarchal men and women alike, it becomes an opportunity to dismiss my feminist ideals as well as a rationale for queer folks whose internalized homophobia is so deep, that despite their demands that straight people get over themselves, acknowledge their heterosexual privilege and become allies, they cannot fathom that someone is genuinely trying to step up and heed their call.
No way. She must be a closet case.
I’m proud to say that most days I take these incidents in stride. I understand the ignorance and fear in which they are rooted, and I know who I am as do the people who truly matter. That’s a’ight. Go ‘head and do me like that. You’re saying way more about yourself than you are about me. Having had considerable practice, I easily resist inclinations to assert my heterosexuality as doing so only perpetuates the homophobic thinking and behavior I have committed myself to challenging. But I’m only human, and there are days when I particularly feel vulnerable and cower behind my heterosexuality, especially when it strikes close to home, and you don’t get much closer to home than with family.
A few weeks before Pandora’s premiered, my own cousin targeted me this way. She was angry with me over something too petty to mention. Rather than contact me and discuss the matter, she wrote a blog where she stated that if I’m a lesbian why don’t I “quit with the bitch-assness” and “come out already, damn!!!” Mind you, this same cousin fancies herself a queer ally because she never misses an episode of her favorite show The L-Word.
I didn’t realize how much that blog impacted me until Elisha asked me if my parents were coming to see Pandora’s and I had to admit that I hadn’t even invited them. At first, I didn’t even think my cousin was referring to me when she wrote that blog, and my primary contention was not with the homophobic allegation disguised ironically as an anti-heterosexist demand to keep it real. It was that she chose such a juvenile way to express her anger with me. And I believed that was all there was to it, especially when I confronted my cousin and never mentioned the suggestion that I was a closeted lesbian.
But when I reflected on my conversation with Elisha as I walked home from K-Mart, I had to confront myself. For all my talk, I could no longer deny that another reason why I had not even mentioned Pandora’s to my parents was because I was afraid that they, too, might think (and worry and fear) that I was a lesbian. This is what brought me to tears: the realization that I wasn’t the ally I prided myself on being and had failed my best friend, my homegirl, my camarada who never thinks twice about standing up for me.
I walked for several blocks, sniffling to myself, Bitch, you ain’t shit.
What I needed to do was instantaneously obvious, too. I had to invite my parents to Pandora’s. The sudden buzzing in my stomach at the thought confirmed that “outing” myself as a queer ally and dealing with the repercussions whatever they may be was the right thing to do.
So when I got home, I settled in besides my father in the living room. “Look, Elisha and I are doing this off-Broadway show, and I’d like you and Ma to come,” I began after some baseball chit-chat. “The thing is you should know that it’s a gay show.” I give Pa all the reasons why producing a project like Pandora’s is important to me, all of them boiling down to the same fact: it reflects who I am and what I stand for as a person. Then I confess, “And the reason why I haven’t said anything until now was because I was afraid that you might think I was gay.”
Pa and I end up talking for about three hours, from the personal (all the gay people he admires like “Pompa” who works hard and is a great son) to the political (“It is kinda messed up that they can serve in the military but can’t get married so the wife or husband won’t get their benefits if they die at war.”) Now let’s not get it twisted. I went to Pa because he’s unusually open-minded for a person of his kind – a working-class Puerto Rican man who came to the United States in ’52. That’s why I often describe myself as my father’s daughter (with not a small hint of braggadocio), we are the best of friends, and all my friends want to adopt him.
But he’s still very much, well, a Puerto Rican man who came to the United States in ’52. Hence, there are some things he just can’t grasp, sometimes out of sheer unwillingness. Pa Dukes doesn’t “get” bisexuality, definitely belonging to the “pick a team” school of thought on that one but, in his defense, so do many gay people) so forget about breaking down what it means to be transgendered.
But I did try, and that in and of itself is no small victory. My parents didn’t go to Pandora’s, and to be totally honest, I didn’t approach Ma for reasons other than (but not excluding) residual homophobia. But she did know that Sister Outsider was putting on a show (even if she remained unaware of its content), and when I would come home, Pa would smile and ask, “How’s it going?” genuinely interested in the backstage lore (OK, gossip.)
Just when I thought it wasn’t possible, Pa and I are even tighter because no part of who I am or what I believe is hidden from him. It truly paid off to feel the fear and do it anyway. Hopefully, I’ll be an even better ally now that I have personally experienced an inkling of what it must be like to come out. In fact, maybe I’ll evolve into a better activist overall, recalling this feeling the next time I’m in a cynical funk and smirk at a man who claims to be a feminist or a White person who describes him/herself as anti-racist.
In addition to being evidence of one of the feminist movement’s most insightful contributions to social justice of all kinds – the notion that the personal is political – “coming out” as a queer ally to my father has proven to be a multifaceted blessing.
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Comments
But now my mom is used to it, and it doesn't throw her anymore. She's figured out it's just part of the package when your kid is a bleeding heart liberal hippie do-gooder who is passionate about social justice. My friends know that a good part of my practice involves working with "alternative" folks of all stripes: GLBT, BDSM, poly; and that I am just as passionate about working with any other client base that is traditionally considered at need for social justice (survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse/assault, single moms on welfare, minorities, religious minorities, etc). They know that it's a really integral part of Who I Am.
It sounds like your pops has accepted Who You Are and What You Stand For, and that's a fantastic thing to have found out through all this. Congratulations on having such a cool dad (particularly loved his take on gay marriage).
I think my alphabet soup above may show what I think of the accepted sexual polarities. The idea that you were going to take your parents to a "gay show" is ridiculous to me. What is a gay show? Is Mama Mia a "gay show?" Is 400 a "gay show?" Do the characters have to be gay? Or the intended audience? Should it only preach to the choir? Because that's the impression I get when something is supposed to be a gay show. Is it only a gay show if it say it's explicitly a gay show? Should there be a Surgeon General's sign outside that says "Gay Show?" It seems to me that there's too much self-consciousness going on. I don't think we need "gay plays" any more than we need "straight plays." Doesn't a "gay show" pretty much demand that it remain segregated in the ghetto of "identity" art? Really, are homophobic people going to be drawn in by the promise of a gay show?
And the idea that it should be difficult to come out as a straight person who isn't bigoted? Do your parents just assume that you're bigoted? Do your friends assume you're bigoted? Why would they think that you aren't supportive of LGBEtc people? If people don't like it, you can agree to disagree or just plain disagree or find some other arrangement.
To me, breaking sexuality down to the "binary opposition" of Straight vs. LGBTEtc (and then the further infighting of LvsGvsBvsTvsEtc) in the strict way (your parents straight/the gay play) that you do only furthers the problem. I'm not denying that there are differences, of course there are. I know people all over the spectrum. And none of us are apologetic about being straight/gay/Latina/Black/White/Korean/Bi/etc, but none of us shout about it. We let our politics be known by being who we are--some of us are politically active, some not; some stereotypical, some not; etc. We live who we are, we don't think who we are.
I imagine this post may offend some, but I hope it inspires some honest debate. I want to see what others have to say.
First, I am glad this has never been an issue for you and wish your experience was the norm. Having never walked in your shoes, I can’t insist that you’ve never experienced “backlash,” but is it possible that you were targeted and were oblivious to it for one reason or another? I don’t know you, but I honestly wonder if you have some other privilege(s) going for you that buffer you to some degree. But, hey, maybe your just incredibly fortunate. :)
The fact that you describe yourself, “about as ‘gay’ as you can get without being gay” and then assert some of the positions you is an inherent contradiction. Clearly, there’s something “there.” Of course, you didn’t create that something, but it certainly exists, and your opening statement acknowledges it as much as the rest of what you write intends to dismiss it. The contradiction itself points directly to the fact that these issues are much more complicated than your remarks suggests.
Now in posing some questions that sound much more rhetorical than inquisitive, you make a great deal of assumptions, some more personal than I think my post invites. I would be online for hours attempting to respond to all of your questions which I’m reluctant to do primarily because I just can’t tell which indeed are genuinely inquisitive and which are purely rhetorical. Especially such loaded questions as, “Do your parents assume you are bigoted?” Even if this is a question for which you would like a sincere answer, the response is way more complex than I have the time or desire to share, least of all over the internet. Maybe if we were discussing this in person, I’d have more clues (e.g. the tone with which you are posing the questions) that would encourage me to engage you at that level, but, alas, we are not.
Here is what I will say. For the record, Pandora’s is a show where all the characters are Latina and queer, and we at Sister Outsider are the first to say that it is not just a show for people who identify as queer and/or Latina. That said, until there is no heterosexism, we need media that puts such characters at the center, giving visibility to both their particular struggles as well as their commonalities with others in the human race who are not like them. That is the point of any “ism” – to assert that only those who fall within the privileged identity prescribed by the construct are right, normal, superiors, etc. – and the occasional campy gay best friend and bisexual femme fatale, insert-favorite-stereotype here in plays, films, and TV shows that are dominated with heterosexual characters will not suffice in countering the norm of heterosexism. Thanks to heteronormativity, we don’t need “straight plays” because we have a plethora of them already. If anything, the “straightness” of any media is presumed until identified as otherwise. As much as there are limits to that identification, as you argue and I agree, it is not without its power.
In my view, people with privilege of any kind, be it on the grounds of race, gender, sexual orientation, class, etc., can stand to be a little more self-conscious. We're going to have to agree to disagree on that one. But let me correct one of the erroneous assumptions you make: that does not automatically mean nor requires being apologetic for it. In my opinion, it means recognizing that in our purported meritocracy, you enjoy benefits that you did not earn and being willing to give up that privilege in the interest of genuine equality. The ability to say, “Hey, I’m just me. Why can’t I just be me? Damn it, just let me be me,” in world where not everyone can “just be me” is itself a privilege. You don’t see anything at all problematic with being a straight man – no matter how “gay” you may seem – and suggesting that the solution to heterosexism just isn’t all that complicated? That’s a sincere question, but I won’t badger you for an answer or draw conclusions about you if you don’t. All I can hope is that you at least reflect on it.
Indeed, some one cares about these things, Chris. Some people live their politics, and according to their politics, queer people should be wiped off the face of the earth. In accordance to their politics, they act on this thinking and those they perceive to be queer are murdered. I’m not content to “agree to disagree” or open to discussing “finding some other arrangement” with people such as these. I am, however, amenable to dialogue with those who are sincere about it, struggle with them, and be challenged by them, the way people were with me when I was less progressive in my views about such things. Am I always trying to preach to the converted and only interact with people who think just like me? Of course not. But there are some people whose value systems are so diametrically opposed to mine who can keep it moving I'm not trying to make nice with, and I have no elusions that they miss me anymore than I miss them. I'm not trying to play well with others who believe in exploitation and domination.
I could also be here all day arguing against the oversimplistic insinuations that homophobic thinking and actions are not the social norms installed in people from the day they are born and that a person is either a homophobe or is not homophobic at all. I don’t want to be. I’m going to just give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you didn’t mean to suggest either at all.
While I do stumble at times, I do live my politics. So, yes, Chris, as the author of this blog, if there is one thing I do take offense by your comment is the implication that because I chose to share an experience where I struggled to do that is somehow evidence to the contrary. You are entitled to act much differently, question my effectiveness, etc. But on the basis of one post that expresses a single, personal experience is hardly enough for you to conclude I "further the problem." You say you value honest debate, but then you seem dismissive of the one I had with my father and the approach I had to take to make it occur, a dismissal that struck me as judgmental and presumptive based upon what you "live" is if that is the we can and all should.
As for chiding me for “shouting about” my politics, in your comments you do precisely that! But I ain’t mad atcha. ;) If more people with our views did (because obviously you and I share ideals if not practices on this particular matter), the world would be a much more liberating place for people of all sexual orientations and identities.
Yes, Chris, sometimes we have to walk in the world as if it’s already the way we would like it to be. That’s what I do like about the spirit and some of the thinking behind your comments. Sometimes we actually can bring change about by just being the change we want to see. But more often than not, in order to survive to so we can actually do that, we have to navigate the world as it actually is. And it ain’t nowhere near as rosy as you just painted it (whether you meant to or not.) Not even close.
Now I’m off the computer for the rest of the day to enjoy the sunshine. :)
In my reply I was not really talking about your conversation with your father, I was taking that event as a jumping off point for an argument that I thought was implicit in your post. I wasn't trying to diminish the conversation or to judge you based on one post. How could I? Some of my questions were rhetorical, some not--but I think rhetorical questions can be the most provocative, as your reply seemed to confirm. Sometimes I act like a dick because it elicits interesting responses. Sometimes I just am a dick.
As for privilege and self-consciousness and a rosy view and over-simplification, I don't think any of it is simple. In fact, I was trying to say in my post that I think the idea of a "gay show" over-simplifies these issues. I don't see any solution to the problems of heterosexism and homophobia. I think the only way to change peoples minds, however, is through their own daily interactions. I think that's the only way people learn. To me, it's the old "show don't tell" thing that writing teachers always yammer on about. I think they're right.
Rosy? Not me. Really. I think the world is a pretty nasty place with a bunch of shitty and stupid people running around. But I choose to assume the best of people unless they give me a reason to think otherwise. And lots of people give me a reason to think otherwise. When I said no one cares that I seem gay, that's not true. I've certainly gotten shit for it. I guess what I meant was I don't give a fuck what people think. And when people treat me differently, I have to find ways to deal with it, even though it sucks. But it's hopeless arguing with bigotry and ignorance, from my experience--that was really the "other arrangement" I was referring to, just a polite way of saying "fuck off."
As for your post not inviting personal questions, it seems to me just the opposite is true--the post centered around personal issues, so personal questions seemed natural. (But as I said before, my reply wasn't really about the personal.) When I asked if your parents had a reason to think you were bigoted, I was being half-rhetorical. More to the point seems to be that you assumed that your father was bigoted. I don't know if you gave him enough credit going into the conversation. Fortunately, he surprised you.
Of course I need to be conscious of my privilege as a straight, white, middle class male--what I was referring to was what seems to me an over-intellectualizing of privilege. I don't think "Let ME be me." I think, "Just act like yourself and let the chips fall where they may." That doesn't always turn out so great, and maybe acting like myself gives me better chips (because of my privileges), but it don't guarantee nothin'. Sometimes all those privileges don't mean shit. Especially when I have my own issues (I'm bipolar and that is such a fucking problem--and it's invisible, which only makes it worse, honestly).
And I'm not saying that that attitude is THE solution. I don't think we live in utopia. There will always be bigoted people. But I do think that some people are changed by being around different people. If being yourself (gay or whatever) makes (hopefully more than) one person less bigoted toward, for example, Latinas, or, for example, people with mental illness, then the world is a little better. And honestly, that's all I hope for in my life. Perhaps my goals are too modest, but I try to shoot for what seems realistic to me.
Really, I think in many ways we agree. I think we disagree as to how to reduce heterosexism and homophobia. Anyway, this is probably half-assed and self-contradictory and partially stupid, but I'm that and so much more. : ) (To Sofia: I posted this here just to make the conversation clear to others.)