I’ve been meditating on my relationship with homophobia, and this phenomena “micro aggression” I first learned about in a book I’m reading “Gothic Queer Culture”. Also, the subject has been coming up in my social media feeds this week, so I’ve been sort of examining my layers of identity. I suspect that I may have more issues with being a creative than gay.
I’m sensitive….I’m not referring to the good kind of empathetic sensitive, but the way my feelings get hurt so easily and deeply by what people say.
“you’re still at it” or the blinks when you tell loved ones you’re writing a song, or the silence of extended family who after countless years of spending holidays together never once ask you about your creative endeavors. How I LOVED the movie The Dressmaker with Kate Winslet. My wife said it best, it’s always the creative people who are demonized. But why? It’s just the way it is. People outcast what they don’t understand.
When I return to my home town, I still feel so awkward, that old weirdo in the led zepellen shirt, bopping her head unconsciously to the barely audible music in the supermarket. I swear, a few neighbors stare when I pull up to my mom’s driveway but don’t so much as nod hello. I’m painfully out of place there. And yet…I attribute it to being a weird writer. If it were because I’m a big dyke, I find it so easy to turn the tables, at least in my head. It’s just ridiculous to outcast people based on gender preference and identity, and when i say ridiculous I mean ridiculous hilarious funny ridiculous. People with homophobias, intentional or not, seem almost clown like to me, if not themselves latent queers. Homophobes are just WAITING to be made fun of.
Enough philosophical! Here’s some examples of me coping.
1.The worst phobia I ever experienced was when my wife and I were performing live in a small bar in Mineola. We were guest performers at my friend’s show. Before we hit the stage, three middle aged & older drunks figured out we were a couple, and started talking louder and louder about “the gays” in the village, and how they should stay in their neighborhoods. Then as we were singing I heard the word dyke and homosexual a few times. It was pretty rattling. You can view the video on facebook & how poorly I performed. I only sang one song, after which I stayed at the far side of the bar and watched my friend finish his set. The woman eventually left, and the men got drunker and drunker. By the time the guys left, they were so annihilated they were leaning on each other. I don’t think either could stand up without the other. Somehow the bar at that moment was dead silent. No glasses clanking, no murmers or converstations. Just the two old guys slurring into each other’s ears “u ok bud? watch your step here”. I know it was the alcohol, but there was also something very gay about the way they were caring for each other, and their physical proximity. Just as they stepped out and the door closed, I yelled after them “don’t forget to wear a rubber” Of course, they didn’t hear, but it got quite a laugh out of the handful of people who remained in the bar.
2. Sometimes a woman’s demeanor suddenly changes when I mention I have a wife. In a nano second, she will go from smiling and kind to stone faced, avoiding eye contact. Maybe she’s religious. Or maybe she assumes I will desire her. Which is the farthest from the truth because as soon as I know a woman is straight, it’s like an immediate psychological castration. Anyway, when this inexplicable rudeness happens, I think of all the d**k she’s gotten in her life and say to myself “her vagina’s so big she gets cameltoe in a skirt” and I feel better.
3.Straight guys who make comments that I’m a little too dude like. Or they’re “cool” with it, but seem to always bring up the word “lesbian”, and make it a point that I’m “other”, that we’re from different tribes. I look at them and wonder “didn’t i fuck your wife?”
4.Ok, classic. I once actually got a chance to SAY this. He said to my wife, in front of me “maybe you never met the right guy”. I asked, “are you straight?” He defensively said yes. So I suggested “maybe YOU never met the right guy.”
How do you cope with queer prejudiced that’s more like slights and rudeness? How do you deal when it’s blatantly aggressive, as was my experience in that Mineola bar?