Our Family: December 2005 Archives

Psychiatrist Charles W. Socarides, one of the most dedicated enemies of gay rights in recent decades, has died at Metropolitan Hospital Center in Manhattan, the New York Times reported.

Socarides helped found the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, an organization dedicated to the premise that homosexuality can, and should, be cured through therapy. The 83-year-old psychiatrist and professor died Sunday; the cause was heart failure, his wife, Clare, said.

Socarides was also the father of Richard Socarides, a gay rights activist who served as President Clinton’s liaison to the LGBT community from 1995 to 1999. Richard Socarides told the Times that his relationship with his father was “complex,” and that it survived because both men steered clear of the subject of homosexuality. (source)

There are many people like Charles Socarides in this world. We all know that. There are people who, no matter how hard we try, just will never understand us. Gay people know that. Many of us spend years living deep in the closet from our families, just to try to have some form of acceptance. That comes at a heavy price. Many will, in later years, regret the wasted years they spent living in the image of someone else. They usually look back with regret that the people who supposedly loved them most, never really knew them. But, there was peace in the family. But was there love? I mean real love? The kind of love that will survive anything? I chose long ago that if people liked or disliked me, they would at least know what they felt about the real me.

I’m talking in generalities here. I use the example of being gay in a family that most likely would not accept it. I spent years listening to “fag jokes” told by members of my family. Would they have told the jokes had they known I was gay? I would like to think they wouldn’t have. Later, when they found out I was gay, many stopped communications altogether. There is really nothing I can do about that. I live in the real world and let me tell you, that too comes with a heavy price tag. But at least, it’s a cost that I think I can afford. We all have things like this in our lives and in our families. Every family has these issues to deal with.

Kent and I are “out” to our family. In fact, there is no one left in our lives that we aren’t “out” to. Yet, every once in awhile, even though everyone knows and supposedly accepts us, something will be said that is insulting and demeaning. I don’t wish to go into the details because it is not my intention of hurting someone that I have come to care about. And, the remark was not made to cause hurtful feelings. But sometimes, it simply is easier to avoid talking about certain subjects.

Still, one cannot help but wonder, if they really want to know you and who you are, should the topic(s) of what you are and what is going on in your life be filtered and sanitized? How healthy is that and, is that acceptance? There’s a saying that says, “Anything less than the truth is a lie.” Can anything less than full acceptance be labeled as intolerance? We all have these issues in our lives I suppose. We all want to live up to some ideal for the people who matter in our lives. But shouldn’t the reverse also be true?

We leave Yuma tomorrow to return home. And every year I say the same thing, “I don’t think I will ever return.” Then, I calm down, and try to find a middle ground. I suppose I do it because at the end of the day, the truth remains that many of us have few years left. What ever differences we have now and what ever hurtful feelings we hold today, the negative reactions we take today as a result of those feelings could be looked back upon with regret in years to come. There’s no way to take that back.

So, it would seem that I’ve become somewhat of a pragmatist. If someone has lived to be in their 70’s or 80’s, as Charles Socarides did, there’s probably little you are going to be able to do to change their fundamental opinions on most issues in life. But we can hope.