Getting 'Assimilated' into Society

After Social and Legal Acceptance, What's Next?

Every year it seems the gay community is up in arms about one issue or the other -- the right to serve in the military, the right to visit our partners in hospital, the right to get married. These fights appear discrete, but their common thread is a much more basic yearning that exists outside the ambit of legislative change -- the need for society to acknowledge that we are not perverse.

Rodriguez sees the Supreme Court less as making history than acknowledging a reality on the ground. When the vice president's daughter does not deny she is a lesbian, it means "the issue of whether or not we can join the American family is following the fact that we already are part of that family." Being gay is no longer the shadowy preserve of the night. The love that once dared not speak its name is part of daytime talk shows, Republican conventions and softball leagues...

Rodriguez thinks our outlaw tradition might survive our newfound legal status. "We are using the words privacy, sodomy, even marriage in this debate. But no one wants to use the word that gets to the central issue -- love." According to him, it's not sex or even marriage with its poached salmon that we are really after. "Society might give us the right to sex in private. But when the Pope gives me the word 'love,' then I'll break out the bottle of champagne."

It's true... everywhere I look I see the undeniable fact that gays are being assimilated into straight society. If you've ever watched Star Trek, The Next Generation series, you will know about a race of beings who's soul purpose is to evolve towards perfection. They do this by assimilating other species into their hive. They are viewed as being very evil. The subjects that are assimilated loose the identity they once had to become one with the hive. They are of one mind, all tied together by the queen, who controls their actions (ok... no off-color jokes about who is going to be the "queen" please). There are no individuals - they are ONE. They call themselves the Borg.

I have recently started to feel that I am gradually being assimilated into straight society. Of course, I've always been part of society, but if you are gay, you know very well that there is a part of your life you don't share with people who are straight. You know... the "gay stuff". The people you don't share with are your co-workers, your family, your friends. They have traditionally felt uncomfortable about such talk. A lot of it is conditioning. They are taught that what gays do is gross. In fact, it's no different from what they do.

I remember when I went to a bar after work with a couple of straight male friends. After a round of drinks, they wanted to know all about what it was like being gay. I said, "pretty much like being straight except that you can't show affection in public at all or show that you might be partners in any way, and if family shows up you have to watch everything you say so that you won't make them feel uncomfortable. In other words, I have to look and act just like.... you". They looked at me and said, "that sucks".

Well, yes it does. Over time, I have distanced myself from people that I would have to explain things to because well, frankly, it takes too much energy to cover up my life, along with the fact that it shoots my ego all to hell. I have only a few straight friends who have been very carefully chosen because they do get it.

Now, I feel like more and more people are "getting it", and that being gay is finally not "gross" to them any longer. There is a gay culture that many do not know about. Are we going to loose that? Will we become just like our straight counterparts with their set of problems? Being gay had it's set of problems for sure, but they were problems I could identify with.

Being an outcast was not always a bad thing. It has made it easy for me to just walk away from my family with all their problems. I haven't spoken to them in 19 years. I last talked to my family at my mothers funeral and no, I never told her I was gay. I wonder if she would have been ashamed of me? Would it have "killed her" if I'd told her, as my aunt said it would? I grew tired of the gay jokes being told in my family right in front of me and having to make it look like I was laughing at them also. Or, the time I took Kent to my aunts house for Thanksgiving dinner when I was in college and was asked by her not to let anyone know that Kent and I were together because my uncles "just wouldn't understand". I finally said, "enough is enough".

Today, the taboo of being gay is gone with 60% of society. It will never be 100%; there will always be the Pope, the Jerry Falwell's, and the Fred Phelp's of the world. But things are getting better as a direct result of more people coming out of the closet and making themselves known. Most everyone knows a gay person. Now, when they hear a gay joke, many don't react well to it because they can see that it's built on harmful stereotypes that drive us apart and ultimately hurts people they care about. I think most people are generally fed up with those types of stereotypes and can see that they only serve to further fragment our society.

A few months ago, Kent and I went to a small pizza place in Coventry, appropriately called "Coventry Pizza" (I never said we were original). We sat down, and ordered our dinner. Off to our left were a couple of families, sitting at a series of tables pulled together to make one large table. At the end of the table, closest to us, were the two men of the families. They were in their early-mid 30's. One of them leaned over to the other and said, "We have a couple of fags sitting at the table next to us." He then nodded towards our direction with a big smile on his face. I heard it word for word and thought to myself, "Here we go again." The other man looked our way and looked back at his friend. He said to him in disgust, "I don't believe you would even say that. Just drop it!". The other man had this look on his face like, "What the hell did I do?".

I don't know why the man scolded his friend for saying that. Perhaps his brother is gay, perhaps he has friends who are gay and knows what those attitudes can do to gay people, or perhaps he knows a gay person who was the victim of violence towards gays. I do know that not so long ago, that man probably would not have reacted that way. He would have agreed with his friend and they would have shared a nice laugh at our expense.

I see things like that, and I realize that we are on a new frontier of acceptance. It warms my heart, but it is also uncomfortable for me. I'm not used to talking openly to others about my relationship with Kent. A few straight friends have mentioned to me that we never show affection towards one another. I said to them, "We won't. We are very well trained not to - not in public." I don't think it's safe for gay people to do that, even today. Perhaps, that is only in my mind. I have a fear of being assaulted, having had several of my friends in life savagely assaulted. We really don't live in a free country.

I have always hated society for making us feel that way. Now that acceptance is growing, I can't just put down my arms and disarm. I have a spent a lifetime putting up these walls and arming myself with the tools I would need to survive in this hostile country. That won't change overnight. I figure that about the time I'm at the end of my life, I will finally feel comfortable fully sharing myself and what I am inside with society, if they want to hear it. I suppose that's not a bad way to leave this life and this world. Until then, I will resist being totally assimilated into society and keep to myself the part that I feel most at home with, the gay part.