Essays: June 2005 Archives

I had a revelation today.

Revelation - n. Something revealed, especially a dramatic disclosure of something not previously known or realized. (American Heritage® Dictionary)

The revelation for me was that equality is a state of mind, at least, at this point in my life. Does it matter at this point in my life that I can’t marry my partner? Some might say that I’m rationalizing about the current state of affairs in regard to our inability to marry. I can agonize over the very basic fact that I’m not viewed as being equal to my heterosexual peers, but on a very basic practical level right now in my life, why bother with it? Marriage isn’t everything in life. I’ve lived 50 years without it.

It’s true that we pay more taxes than we would if we were able to marry, but it’s not like we can’t afford it. And, we are in relatively good health, so for now, it’s not like we are going to be confronted by some hospital that will tell Kent that he can’t come in to see me, or visa versa, or have to make life or death decisions for me, or me him.

Life has so much more to offer than just marriage. I think it’s important to strive for equality, but it’s wrong to lose out on the rest of life because there is so much more to life than equality. There just is.

So, I’m going to write less on what I don’t have; marriage. In my mind, I am fully equal. The biggest question of all is this: What am I trying to be equal too?

I’m striving to have equality to the institution of marriage - an institution that fails 55% of the time; hardly something to strive for as the ultimate goal. Someday, I think we will be in a situation where the protections of marriage are very important to Kent and myself. Hopefully, by then, we will be equal citizens.

Until then, I’m going to enjoy life and have one hell of a time! Right now, that is my goal.

I spotted this online and it reminded me what it was like when we lived in The Castro in San Francisco. We could be ourselves there. We didn’t have to worry about how others saw us. We didn’t have to worry about judgment. It was easier. I miss the Castro in many ways.

So the question was put, “Is San Francisco still a gay mecca? Yeah, pretty much ... but if someday it wasn’t, would that be so terrible?”

I remember shortly before leaving The Castro and moving to The East, there were rumors that The Castro was becoming less gay - that straights were moving in. I didn’t believe it. Then, one day while I was walking down The Castro, my worse fear was realized. A woman and a man were walking down the street holding a stroller, with a baby in it no less!

I felt like this one little place on this planet where I could be exactly what I am was melting away right before my eyes. So, I left San Francisco and The Castro behind a long time ago, thinking that The Castro would soon disappear.

To answer the question, “Is San Francisco still a gay mecca? Yeah, pretty much ... but if someday it wasn’t, would that be so terrible?” Well, I guess that depends on your point of view. In a perfect world, hell not even perfect... I’d settle for one where it’s “live and let live”, there would not be the need for places like The Castro.

People say that things are getting better. But for who? Nothing has changed for me and people like me. Perhaps we are beaten and killed a bit less, but if I go anywhere with Kent and I hold his hand, I will guarantee you that within two minutes, someone will call us faggots (if we are lucky), or throw something at us or do physical damage (if we are unlucky). I’m sorry, but that isn’t live and let live.

We live in a nation where we are accepted, as long as we are willing to play by the rules. That means, we have to look as straight as humanly possible and under no circumstances are we to ever show affection in public. We can’t be ourselves. It’s a matter of survival actually. It’s honestly something that most straight people can not comprehend. That is what it’s like to be gay in America today.

This is the best the “greatest free nation in the world” has to offer?

What happens to the brave queers who are defiant and publicly open about themselves? Here’s a sample for you, and this was just in the last week or so.

Gay Murder Victim - London
Arrest made in Brooklyn gay murder case
Murder in Chicago
Gay man found stabbed
Jury considers gay panic defense in Pa. murder case

So when people say it’s getting better, it’s not. People are more open as time goes on because the older you get (like me), you start to realize just what you’ve been robbed of. You start to wonder what you could have been if you had really been allowed to bloom.

We read all the time that young gay people are addicted more and more to Crystal Meth, taking their lives, or not caring if they get AIDS, all because they honestly don’t want to go through all they crap of what society dishes out to them. I know. I’ve been there. And then, society has the gall to look at the problem and say, “See, it’s the ‘gay lifestyle’ that causes that.”

I have been free in my life for about two years. When we lived in The Castro and Kent and I would walk down Castro and I proudly had my arm around him showing everyone, “This is the man I am so in love with.”, that was freedom. I was at the top of the world. I thought it would last. That moment was worth it, even though, on our way home, we were taunted by a gay basher who first asked us, “Are you homosexuals?” We said nothing and kept walking. He then said, “Are you two queers?”

There were other times, such as the time we stopped at a yard sale on Noe Street. There were a few other straight couples there. We weren’t far from The Castro. I was holding Kent’s hand, and as we passed a young straight couple, the male turn around and said out loud, “Faggots!”. We ignored him and continued to look. But, it takes it’s toll on you. It also does a job on your ego. You know you aren’t like everyone else and you know that everyone else hates what you are. So, even that wasn’t freedom, but it was the closest I’ve ever come to it.

Today, there are only very small pockets of freedom that can only be found in small gay ghettos here and there or on a gay cruise. And everyday on the Internet, I read of more gay people killed or maimed because they were a little too open.

Life is a compromise, and we’ve compromised way too much.

From an entry I made on October 9, 2003...

So, if you are gay and look at external sources to give you validation, I’m afraid it’s just not going to be there. You have to find it in yourself. I have concentrated on my family. My family consists of Kent, my two cats, and a couple of close friends. That’s all. I haven’t been too successful in gaining acceptance from my family or Kent’s family. It’s the same way with most gay people I believe. You have to really work at making an island of acceptance. Why is it then that we are surprised when we find that so many young gay men find their life valueless? The answer is right before our eyes. Because we, as a society have told them that they have no value.

Nothing has changed.

I talked with one of my friends on line last night. This was the same friend who I tried to support after he broke up with his boyfriend a couple of months ago. It’s been tough on him, I think. I say, “I think”, because I’m not sure if he is what he says he is anymore. I no longer trust anything he says.

According to him, his boyfriend told him that he wanted to break up with him. He was devastated. I supported him the best I could. He moved to a new place with a lesbian couple. He needed money for clothes and such, and, like the friend I always try to be for everyone, I sent him money. I try to be there for my friends.

Then, there was a period of time, when we were on vacation, that I didn’t talk to him. Last night, I talked with him for the first time in several weeks. Now, he has moved to a new place, and has a new boyfriend. But, they are about to be evicted because he says, “we’re being kicked out because we’re gay” because the landlords “ex-wife doesn’t want their kids to be around gay people so we have until the 1st (9 days) to find a place or we’re homeless”.

I mentioned to him that in California (where he lives), it is illegal to evict people because of sexual orientation. He said he realized this, but it was “easier” to just move.

I was dumbfounded. Here, you have a law in place (that was put in place by the very hard work of a lot of people), to protect gay people from this sort of thing. Then, you have a gay couple who isn’t even willing to fight an eviction based on the fact that they are being evicted for being gay. It blows my mind. If we don’t care enough about our rights to fight for them, why the hell should anyone else? I’m going to have to think about that one for awhile.

And, to top it off, he has a Paypal donation button on his site for people to “help out”. I think that was what did it for me. I saw the Paypal button, and remembered the money we sent to him to help him out. Was he ever real? Did I, or at least the friendship I offered him, ever mean anything to him? Is he even capable of understanding friendship?

I feel at this point that I’ve been taken advantage of, and I’m truly very disappointed. He’s a young man who is struggling (at least I think - how the hell does anyone really know who they are talking to on the Internet?), and I only tried to help him.

I don’t honestly care that much about the money I gave him. Money to me is cheap. But I feel betrayed because I don’t offer friendship easily - it is not a cheap or casual thing to me. It is sacred. It is because of my views on friendship that I have taken people into our home to help them out. I have reached out to people. And most of them, once they are done with my generosity, discard the friendship like it was yesterday’s news.

So, I guess I’ve learned a lesson. I’m going to stop trusting anyone on line. As of this moment, I’m going to stop helping people. DON’T EVEN THINK OF ASKING ME FOR MONEY. And if I don’t know you, don’t instant message me offering to “talk” because you will be put on ignore. I honestly don’t need your drama or your bullshit. I’m done with helping people, online at least. Before I will ever trust another person with my friendship, I will have to know you in real life. And then, the friendship and trust must be earned. It’s no longer given away freely.

To the few of you who I feel are good honest people that I’ve come to know, I thank you for your friendship and I value that. And, to those people, I’m sorry for this rant.

Life goes on...

The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not surmise or provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god, that it may deify both.

That may have been true in 1841 when Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his Essay on Friendship, but in 2005, friendship seems to be something that is merely experienced by an idiot, full of sound and fury...

signifying nothing.

Signed,

Bill, someone who no longer puts trust in people or weight on friendship.

I can imagine someone saying this in Germany in the 1930’s. This is how it starts. We in America just go about our everyday lives, if you are part of mainstream America. If you aren’t, you are left wondering from day to day how and when things are going to get worse. But then, you tell yourself that there’s only so far they can go with eroding the rights and liberties of a minority. Then you read something like this...

After a gay-themed exhibit at a Tampa-area public library prompted complaints in early June, Hillsborough County, Florida, commissioners adopted a policy June 15 to “abstain from acknowledging, promoting, or participating” in any gay pride recognition or events. The board passed the proposal 5-1 after minimal discussion, despite many pleas from gay-rights advocates during an earlier public comment period, the June 16 St. Petersburg Times reported. [...]

County attorneys questioned Commissioner Ronda Storms on whether the new policy banned exhibits of books on gay issues or books by gay authors at libraries, but Storms replied only that the language was clear. To a question about gay student groups using library meeting rooms, Storms answered, “We’re not saying that because of your sexual orientation you can’t come into the library.” (source)

No one thinks anything of it because, after all, we are only talking about some gays who want to actually take pride in themselves. America goes on without noticing, or caring.

I’m left wondering if this is what happened in Germany. Here in America we have some truly very scary people. All you have to do to realize this is to read this blog, which has turned into something much darker than I would like. I apologize for that. I too sometimes hate coming here because I know it is dark. My writing is a direct reflection of my feelings. I don’t hide what I’m feeling and I don’t bullshit around the issues. If I feel like crap, I’m going to say that.

But all of that aside, aside from what I think is so important - my feelings, what really is worrying me is the apathy in America towards gay and lesbian citizens. America, this has happened before. Gay and lesbian citizens in America today are the Jews in Germany, seventy years ago. Don’t believe me? Read that last sentence again: “We’re not saying that because of your sexual orientation you can’t come into the library.” That will come, in time. And by the time it comes, our government will have become a theocracy, and your chance to speak up against the movement will have come and past.

Think about it. I’m not a Jew and I wasn’t in Nazi Germany seventy years ago, but this guy was...

One of our neighbors is moving. I’ve been in this neighborhood for about six years now, but didn’t really know them very well at all - just waves and nods, mostly.

So I heard the moving van pull up this morning. When I got home this evening I happened to spy my neighbor (he’s like 85 years old - I don’t know exactly, but he’s old, talks and moves very slowly) standing on the sidewalk next to the van. I walked over and shook his hand, and we started talking. I asked him where he was moving, and he said, “Back to Germany.”

I had been stationed in Germany for two years while in the military, so I lit up, and commented about how beautiful the country was, and inquired if he was going back because he missed it.

“No,” he answered me. “I’m going back because I’ve seen this before.” He then commenced to explain that when he was a kid, he watched with his family in fear as Hitler’s government committed atrocity after atrocity, and no one was willing to say anything. He said the news refused to question the government, and the ones who did were not in the newspaper business much longer. He said good neighbors, people he had known all his life, turned against his family and other Jews, grabbing on to the hate and superiority “as if they were starved for it” (his words). (source)

And here I have been wondering if I’m still a good American, contemplating on leaving my country. There have been others just like me, in the past.

Here’s a scenario for you... I’m working at my desk with my two co-workers (we are all male), and someone (another male co-worker) enters our room and say, “Joe, I’m going to screw you.” I look at the co-worker who said that and reply, “You can’t say that, can you?” He replied, “Probably not,” and shrugged it off.

“Joe” isn’t the real name of the person who this was said to. I changed the name for the purpose of this story. But, the event did happen.

It’s amazing that, in 2005, after most companies have some sort of sexual harassment rules in place, that this still happens. In fact, in many states, it is the law. But such remarks are said in jest and people do not really mean it. Right?

But what about those cases where someone did take offense to a remark that was meant in a light-hearted way? The rule of thumb is, if you think there is any possible way for the remark to be taken the wrong way, don’t say it.

Telling someone, “I’m going to screw you” leaves little to the imagination. Everyone laughed, except for me, who questioned the appropriateness of the remark, in or out of the workplace. It would seem that people still have a lot to learn about sexual harassment and what constitutes sexual harassment. And, this has nothing to do with the fact that the remark was made from one male to another male. Sexual harassment has nothing to do with gender, what so ever.

As a nation, we have a long way to go. I know that sexual harassment has gone on for a long time in the workplace, before it was ever called sexual harassment. And, as more and more gay people have felt comfortable enough to come out of the closet at work, more claims of sexual harassment have been filed. So, when I heard Human Resources talk about sexual harassment, they were very clear in stating that sexual harassment did not depend on gender.

It’s great that we can all talk about this. And it’s great that we can go to a place that when someone says something inappropriate, there are people you can talk to who will make a formal complaint and deal with the problem.

But one area that is still not fully understood and is still the target of a lot of abuse are transgendered people. To me, it’s like the gay issue all over again. People, in general, think that being transgendered is pretty weird. They think it is “wrong”, and “unnatural”, and that, if you are transgendered, “you should change”. I put those words and phrases in quotes, because those words and phrases were said to someone who I used to work with.

The bigger issue for me is this; if sexual harassment is genderless, why is this an issue at all? I don’t know. I do know one moral absolute - everyone deserves to be treated equally, with dignity and respect. You may feel uncomfortable working with a gay person, or a transgendered person, but I assure you, your discomfort is nothing compared to the crap that person has to endure day in and day out.

And does it occur to any of us just how much courage it would take to confront the issue of changing your gender? Anyone who would be able to do that and hold on to a job, as they are being transformed into a new person, would have to be one brave individual. And, if you are in the situation of starting that process, you know (as I do) that this is not a choice (just as being gay is not a choice) - you have to be what you are.

Kent sent me a link today about David Schroer. David is in the process of becoming Diane Schroer. David applied to be a “terrorism research analyst” at the Library of Congress. He was accepted for the position. Then, after he told them that once work began, the name would be Diane, not David, the job offer was rescinded the next day.

The job candidate interviewing to be a terrorism research analyst at the Library of Congress seemed to have exceptional qualifications: a 25-year Army veteran and former Special Forces commander who spent a career hunting terrorists and often personally briefed the vice president, defense secretary or Joint Chiefs of Staff on sensitive operations.

The interviews and salary talks went well for David Schroer. A job offer followed, and he accepted. Then the new employee brought up one last item: Once work began, the name would be Diane, not David.

The job offer, Schroer said, was rescinded the next day.

Schroer, 48, recently began the medical transition to become a woman. The former Army Ranger believed that the library would be a welcoming place to make a gender transition: “It’s the United States government. It’s the Congress. It’s an eclectic, academic environment with a group of diverse people that all work together to get the job done.” (source)

Diane Schroer will file a lawsuit accusing the Library of Congress of sex discrimination. She will also ask that the job offer be reinstated.

I hope she wins. I hope she wins big time. But it should be no surprise that the Library of Congress is doing this. After all, Congress is still mulling over the idea of trying to change the U.S. Constitution to have two separate tiers of citizenship. Our government, just like many corporations out there, still have a lot to learn about dignity and respect for all of our citizens.