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bcholmesI think that his name was Jeff. He and I were never friends. I knew who his crowd were: there was a Dave, and Alan, and a coupl'a others whose names I've forgotten.
I feel strongly that this particular memory took place in grade 13 -- this could have been any time from fall of 1984 to spring of 1985. I do remember that we were sitting in our chemistry classroom; Jeff sat in front of me, and he turned to ask, "Are you gay?"
"Why?" I replied. "Are you looking for a date?" He couldn't think of any response to that, so he turned away from me. Left me alone. It was exactly the response I wanted. That was the first time I tried a somewhat adversarial response. I don't think that it was a great response, but it was the first time that I felt that I "won" one of those moments. It took me five years to get to that moment.
Jeff's question wasn't overtly hostile. It wasn't tinged with any threat or obvious disdain. But it was asked in a way that suggested that he was entitled to know whether or not I was gay. And this was merely the start of the conversation. I wasn't sure where the conversation was going to go from there; past experience didn't lead me to believe that it would be anywhere good.
A few weeks later, the scene played out again. "I think you're gay," Jeff said. He'd found new wording that didn't open him up to my previous response.
"Isn't it clear that I don't care what you think?" I said. I was very aware that I wasn't denying it, and that terrified me. But it also felt, to me, that it took away some of Jeff's power over me. I couldn't articulate this idea to myself at the time, but somehow I knew, instinctively, that if I wasn't trying to refute the charge, I was rejecting the idea that the label could hurt me.
Jeff's question didn't come out of the blue. I knew that, for years, people assumed that I was gay. People snarled it at me. Avoided me. Hazed me and teased me. When I try to look back, especially now, as I'm watching all these videos about bullying in high school, I think that it wasn't really that bad. And I wonder if I'm kidding myself. Have I blocked out the worst of it? I know that I was a deeply unhappy teen, but there were a lot of contributing factors there. I also know that I deeply internalized a strong sense of not having much self-worth. I think that my parents had a lot to do with that, but I think I'm letting my high school peers off too easily.
In The Paradox of Choice, Schwartz asserts that our perception of past events is mostly influenced by two things. First, our average feelings of happiness over the time the events were taking place, and second, what we feel at the end of those events. And when I look back, I mostly focus on and remember that time at the end of high school when I wasn't going to let Jeff make me feel ashamed of my queerness. And I think that there was some strength there, even if it wasn't large amounts.
My relationship to the label, itself, was complicated. I didn't think of myself as gay. I'd had a relationship with a guy five years earlier -- it lasted several weeks, but ultimately fizzled out. He was trying to figure out his gay identity, and I was trying to figure out my trans identity. At least I figured out that we were in different places.
I knew that people like me existed. Trans people were starting to show up in painfully earnest "special episodes" of prime time shows -- Night Court, and Too Close for Comfort. And there were equally painful treatments of trans people (trans women, mostly) in tabloids. Nonetheless, I wouldn't really have a good idea about trans lives until I went to Kitcher-Waterloo in the fall of '85. For the first time in my life, I had access to a university library. I spent several weeks holed up in the Dana Porter Library reading every book that came anywhere near the topic of trans issues. Understanding was one of the first ways in which it got better.
Even though a lot of my high school friends attended the same university, I relished the new anonymity of university life. Sarnia was small, and provincial. And I often say that, in Sarnia, "diversity" means you have Germans on your block. I know now that there are other trans people in Sarnia, but at the time, I wouldn't have been able to locate them. In my final years of high school, I started becoming aware that there was an actual gay population in Sarnia. When I was busing tables at the Americanized Chinese food restaurant, I learned that there was a long-term gay couple that occasionally frequented the place. I got to hear the waitresses talk about them. It's odd: because the waitresses weren't actually saying, "we should chase them out of the restaurant with torches," I felt that they were being surprisingly accepting. I'd also heard rumours that the bar in a downtown hotel was the town's sole gay bar. And other stories. Queer people existed! Even in a place like Sarnia.
And 25 years has passed since my high school graduation. I'm sure Sarnia has changed. I hear they've even had Pride parades. And yet, when I look at the web site for my old high school, there's no mention of sexual orientation anywhere. Not even on their "bullying" survey.
Anyway. It wasn't until University that I was really exposed to a visible gay and lesbian population. University of Waterloo is home to the longest-running queer organization in Canada: GLOW. (In my day, they were GLLOW -- the Gay and Lesbian Liberation Organization of Waterloo -- but they seem to have lost their interest in liberation. Also, I didn't know until minutes ago that they were the longest-running queer organization in Canada.)
And I guess part of the reason I'm trying to think about all of this relates to reading this journal entry. My reaction to the post, as I was reading it, was "No one should have to go through all of this. I'm glad I went to university after attitudes changed a bit for the better." Imagine my surprise when I figured out that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
rm was talking about at time five years after my first year of university. And I'm trying to scratch at the surface of that. Did GLLOW have a moderating influence on campus? I can't really remember. I was far too deeply closeted to get an up-close look. I had no relationship with GLLOW -- I had no reason to believe that they would have anything to do with trans issues.
And after a year or two, the comfortable anonymity disappeared. I belonged to several communities. My residence. The pure math crowd. The theatre crowd. People went back to reading me as queer. Scratch that. Reading me as gay. My real identity was outside their guesses.
And I don't know what would have been better: would I have preferred to have had a small community in which I could feel safe, even if there was a larger group who was vicious? Or was what I had better? Isolation. Loneliness. A hyper sense of privacy. A wariness about opening up to people that lingers to this day. I think I'm content with the evil that I know.
University was so much better than high school in so many ways. I came out to two people between my first year in 1985 and my graduation in 1990. Both of those people are friends to this day, albeit not friends I see often. I came out to all of my friends in the mid-nineties, although I didn't come out to my family until 2002 -- I'd essentially divorced my parents by '96 and they weren't a part of my life. Nonetheless, life is better. It got better. I just can't shake the feeling that I've forgotten the worst of it.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-04 05:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-06 01:13 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-10-09 05:33 pm (UTC)