After I moved to Malibu, it still took me two months to
inquire where the boys are. It wasn’t
something you could Google back then and I had to resort to a gay helpline
listed in the old L.A. phone book. Yes, I officially came out the same year
Harry met Sally.
Early on a Saturday night after I was sure my roommates had
left, I dialed the number and a friendly male voice answered. I got right to
the point, worried that someone in a real crisis might be hearing a busy
signal. “I’ve been here for two months and I haven’t met any gay people.”
Friendly Guy’s response: “How is that even possible?”
I mentioned I was attending law school in Malibu.
“Haven’t you gone to the beach?”
Many times. I told him about this stunning beach north of
Malibu where nobody went. Even then, I made bad decisions, expecting to meet
people where there were none.
“You need to go to a bar,” he explained. “What do you like?”
I was utterly naive. Texans did not talk about anything gay
aside from news stories about AIDS deaths and a Texas Monthly article I’d read about vigilantes killing local
faggots. What did I like? There was only
one clear answer. “I don’t know.”
He chuckled, not to be mean. I sensed my call amused him. “Do
you like leather?” he continued.
“No,” I said. “I’m a vegetarian.”
He laughed harder. I didn’t realize I was being funny. And
that’s when I also realized that coming out would only leave me more confused. I
had thought the entire inner fight to accept my sexuality would be the final
hurdle. Now I could celebrate my individuality. Yes, mom, I am special. Like
you always said. (But probably not like you meant.)
That night I learned that just being gay is not clear
enough. You have to find your niche. During my years in L.A. and Vancouver, I
heard many labels such as leather guys, twinks, daddy chasers, bears, femmes, fatties,
sex dwarves, circuit boys, gym rats, rice queens and drag queens. Vancouver further
segregated itself based on gay sports leagues—the softball guys rarely mixed
with the volleyball guys. I always seemed on the fringes. Not buff enough to be
a gym rat, not quite swishy enough to be a femme, past my prime as a twink and
too square for the circuit. While I played in a gay tennis league, my skills
weren’t competitive enough to be welcomed into their social clique.
The labeling has always reminded me of high school, a time
of conflict, angst and bullying for many a gay teen. Why did adult gays need to
recreate this system of separation? It has never made sense.
That is why watching “Happy Endings” on ABC last night
amused me. Max, one of the six central characters in this sitcom, is the gay
one. But he is the antithesis of the gay TV character stereotype. No repressed/fastidious
Will, no effeminate, shallow Jack, Max is a somewhat
overweight lout, straighter than
the two straight male characters on the show. Max’s problem of the night: he
didn’t have a gay bar where his type could hang. So Jane and a Jack-type
sidekick joined Max on a tour of Chicago’s gay club scene on a quest to find
Max’s place. The gay categories came on screen in rapid succession, all spoofs
of real categories. Ginger snaps, chameleons, Broadway queens. My favorite? Sitcom gays.
In the end, Max created his own niche: optimistic red-velvet
walruses. Inspired. If I decide to conform, here’s hoping the walruses will
have me.
No comments:
Post a Comment