EAVESDROPPING ON HOPE

I went swimming at a public pool beside a local high school on Friday. My normal swim day is Wednesdays so I was taken aback when, in the middle of my workout, my lane was closed down. This left only one lane for swimming laps—the slow, medium and fast swimmers merging into one. Let’s just say I was not happy. When I asked the lifeguard if this was going to be a regular thing, the poor guy shrugged and said, “I don’t know.” He’s the guy that just shows up to do his shift.

As it turned out, the slower swimmers got out of the pool, leaving the lane to just me and one other swimmer. Our speeds were comparable. I focussed on just swimming laps, getting my workout in. But around me, there was a lot of cheering and shouting. Each time I would turn to the side to get a breath while swimming freestyle, I could see a large group of people who looked student-aged standing fully clothed along the side of the pool. They seemed to be the ones causing the commotion.

It was only after I finished my last lap that I came up for air and saw what the ruckus was all about. This looked like a group of grade eight students, roughly 13 or 14 years old. They were cheering on their classmates who had constructed small, one-person boats out of cardboard. The objective was for the boat makers to paddle their craft from one end of the pool to the other while trying to keep their cardboard structures afloat. The scene was comical and chaotic at the same time.

 

Let’s just say there’s a reason freighters aren’t made from cardboard.

I got out of the pool and showered, then proceeded to get dressed in the changing room. While this was going on, two of the students who had taken unfortunate plunges in the pool, entered the locker room to change out of their wet clothes.

One of the boys said to the other that he’d forgotten to pack a towel. “What were you thinking?” said the other boy.

“I asked my dad to pack a bag for me,” came the reply.

The other boy lightly mocked his classmate. “What… You get mommy to pack for you?”

The boy without a towel took the question literally. His answer: “My mom is in India. “

“What?! How is that?”

At this point, I was tempted to butt in, even though I knew it was not my place. I wanted to give the towel-less kid (Boy 1) some support. I wanted to explain that, based on my years as a school principal working in diverse neighbourhoods, there had been a lot of families from India. It was common for one or more members to go back to India for one to two months at a time. This was practical. Why travel so far only to turn around again after a short visit?

Boy 1 handled things on his own. “My family’s complicated. “

“How so?”

“It’s a long story,” said the boy, perhaps wanting to dodge the explanation.

“I’ve got the time,” said his curious classmate. (This amused me.)

“It’s about surrogacy.”

“What’s that?” Boy 2 asked.

“It’s when you take an egg—”

“Oh! You mean a surrogate.”

 

“Yeah,” Boy 1 said. “My dads are gay.” This time there was no hesitation. 

As my back was to the two boys, I assume the boy without the towel simply nodded his head. Boy 1’s explanation was taken matter-of-factly. There was no ridicule or teasing about the fact his dads were gay. No need to ask questions. It just was what it was.

 

Instead, the conversation passed without a segue to a more involved negotiation about how to scrounge up enough money for the two of them to buy pizza for lunch.

I am heartened by this conversation. Despite regressive actions from conservative adults who happen to be in positions for making and changing laws, this younger, non-voting age group seems to take in stride differences related to LGBTQ identities. They are growing up with freer forms of expressing themselves and seeing their peers do the same. While some lawmakers are desperately trying to keep a lid on All Things Gay, messages, conversations and supports are out there, both online and in person. 

 

Fourteen years ago, I was pleased but skeptical when the book, It Gets Better, was published, with words of encouragement from notable people. I thought it was a noble project, but I wondered how it would be received by some 13-year-old who was actively being bullied or living in a household where anti-gay remarks were regularly made by parents. How does Hold on until you’re 20 help a young teen cope? When you’re 13, 20 feels like a lifetime away.

 

But now I can view the book over a longer trajectory. Since 2011, despite setbacks, things truly have gotten better. It’s not a time for complacency—there is more to be done and supposedly enshrined rights may still be volatile—but there is evidence that things are getting better for younger people, for both those who identify as LGBTQIA+ and those who don’t. One of my favourite sayings, You Be You, appears to have more traction with this age group. There will always be ways to put peers down but perhaps queerness is less likely to be the cause for ridicule. 

 

Seems I got more than just a workout from my trip to the pool.

CAREER VERSUS FREEDOM

Time flies. I think that more and more as I get older. Fifty years ago today, In the Night Kitchen, a children’s picture book written and illustrated by Maurice Sendak, was first published by Harper & Row. It’s probably Sendak’s second best known book. Nothing could possibly match the notoriety he gained from his wickedly imaginative Where the Wild Things Are.

Why am I bringing up Sendak here? Occasionally, I’ve blogged about a gay picture book. (Here, for instance, or here.) In the Night Kitchen is not such a book, although it created controversy and has been a mainstay of banned book lists due to the fact that main character Mickey is naked in much of the story, his genitals even shown on a page or two. It shouldn’t be scandalous. The images remind me of cherubs in Raphael’s The Triumph of Galatea or Michelangelo’s Doni Tondo or The Creation of Adam. But people do like to make a fuss over both art and books...or art in books. Especially for kids. (I’ve seen images online where Mickey’s genitals are covered by various colors of underwear. As Neil Gaiman noted of In the Night Kitchen, “It scared adults.” Never mind that young children frequently run about naked at home, in the yard and at the beach. I’m not a nudist advocate but we have a way of making natural unnatural.)

Maurice Sendak, born in Brooklyn in 1928 to Jewish-Polish parents, lived until a month shy of his eighty-fourth birthday. In addition to publishing many of his own picture books, Sendak was also prolific in illustrating children’s books written by others. Speaking with pride about his work in children’s books, Sendak said, “I was more honest than anybody.” With one glaring exception, the man didn’t seem to censor himself out of fear of losing work or being rebuked. One week after Sendak’s death, Gaiman wrote, “I devoured interviews with Sendak: he was a grumpy, Jewish, brilliant, wise contrarian and he didn’t mellow as he aged.”

Before writing this, I perused Sendak interviews and profiles on YouTube and, not knowing anything about his personality, was startled at the outset as the children’s author says in with first minute of the first clip I watched, “People say, ‘Why don’t you do Wild Things 2?’ Go to hell. Go to hell. [I’m] not a whore.” Nope,...didn’t mellow at all.

What was that one exception, that topic Sendak consciously avoided? It pops up in a 2008 New York Times article (which, incidentally, described him as a “curmudgeon”): “Was there anything he had never been asked? He paused for a few moments and answered, ‘Well, that I’m gay.’”

Eighty years old and he finally came out. True enough, people are rarely asked if they’re gay. (It only happened to me once while I was in law school. I laughed with delight and answered yes. How wonderful to not be the one to make a potentially dramatic disclosure!) But it wasn’t just that Sendak was waiting around to be asked.

“I just didn’t think it was anybody’s business,” Sendak adds in the same article. His prerogative. Then, he says, “All I wanted was to be straight so my parents could be happy. They never, never, never knew.” Three nevers.

It’s a reminder of how much progress has been made regarding LGBTQ acceptance in North America and how any gains made are harder for many older gays and lesbians to trust and embrace, having grown up when discretion and repression were the norm. In a 2011 interview with NPR’s Terry Gross, Sendak says:

Finding out that I was gay when I was older was a shock and a disappointment. I did not want to be gay. It meant a whole different thing to me — which is really hard to recover now because that's many years ago. I always objected to it because there is a part of me that is solid Brooklyn and solid conventional and I know that. I can't escape that. It's my genetic makeup. It's who I am.

For fifty years, Sendak lived with his partner, psychoanalyst Eugene Glynn until Glynn’s death in 2007, the year before Sendak publicly came out. While I believe that a public figure has a right to (try to) keep whatever he wants private, I wish we knew more about the shared life of Maurice and Eugene. I wish Sendak had felt a sense of freedom to talk about Eugene the way some other oft-interviewed writer/illustrator might speak of a spouse of the opposite sex. Curious—nosy—me would love to know more.

From what I’ve seen in video clips, Sendak remained tight-lipped about his relationship with his partner even in his three plus years as a publicly out gay man. In my favorite clip, called “Maurice Sendak on Death (And Life),” he talks more effusively about his housekeeper and caretaker of thirty years, Lynn Caponera, and his long-deceased canine companion, Jennie, than he does of his partner. Eugene gets a mention; that’s all. Old habits, I suppose.

That 2008 Times article offers context, of which I’m well aware. “A gay artist in New York is not exactly uncommon, but Mr. Sendak said that the idea of a gay man writing children books would have hurt his career when he was in his 20s and 30s.” And yet this outspoken man continued to keep mum about this part of his identity into his 40s, his 50s, his 60s and 70s. My heart aches. Popular children’s author/illustrator Tomie dePaola (Strega Nona), who also came out as gay late in life (1935-2020), said something similar: “If it became known you were gay, you’d have a big red ‘G’ on your chest...and schools wouldn’t buy your books.” True, perhaps. Neither Sendak nor dePaola had the will to test things, to potentially break down a barrier. My gut says Sendak could have done it. My brain understands why he didn’t.

Man, how far we’ve come.

 

Just as I was about to post this, I stumbled upon the song “Eugene and Maurice,” by Canadian indie band The Burning Hell, known, according to Wikipedia, “for their literate—often literary...lyrics.” It’s a whimsical tribute, worth a listen.

 

DEAD TO YOU

You’ve heard the joke. It shows up on many Twitter bios: “In gay years, I’m dead.”

So I’ve got company. Rainbow zombies.

I suppose the age at which we qualify for a gay death certificate isn’t firmly established. Fifty? Forty? Again on Twitter, I’ve seen gay men bemoan the fact they’re turning thirty-two. I half-expect them to include a selfie, holding up a hand-printed poster board sign: The End Is Near. Or maybe it already happened.

Whatever the age, it’s clear that I’ve passed it. Fifty-five. Off life support. Flatlined. Dead.

And yet I still have a pulse. (Just checked again.) I still bear the signs of youth—and, by that, I mean a zit showed up on my back last week. I almost smiled. Almost. (There was a time in the ‘80s when I think I must have covered all-expense paid vacations to Tahiti for everyone on the Clearasil management team.) My bank account appears active—more withdrawals than deposits, nothing new there. My fridge has a several items with expiration dates still pending. (Never mind that bottle of “Calorie Wise” Kraft ranch dressing on the bottom shelf. There was never anything smart about that purchase.)

Ageism has long existed in the gay community. For a supposedly inclusive group, we’ve thrived on compartmentalizing ourselves, on creating clear divides rather than doing what we expect of others—embracing diversity.

When I first came on the scene, it was at the ripe “old” age of twenty-four. There was a whole back-pocket handkerchief culture still lingering but on the way out. Thank god. I didn’t understand it. For some reason, instilled fear in me. What was the difference between a green hanky in the left pocket and one in the right pocket? Did a yellow hanky really have something to do with urine or did people just find it entertaining to elicit looks of horror from me? If only there’d been Google or any sort of Internet. Dating myself, yes. Or some of you might think of it as carbon-dating.

I don’t recall if young gays were called twinks way, way back then. The common term I remember is chicken, more derisively used to label older gay men as chickenhawks. Being gay felt more underground back then. It was past the time when police would do raids on gay bars and the American Psychiatric Association had removed homosexuality from its listing of mental illnesses (although that news didn’t seem to have reached Texas). That’s about as far as gay rights had progressed. “Fag bashing” still floated about on the bored heterosexual men’s list of Things to Do This Weekend. The cheap thrill alternative was just driving by a reputed gay area, rolling down the window and yelling, “Faggot”, “Cocksucker” or something equally hateful/hysterical. Aside from a few straight women lovingly or not so lovingly referred as fag hags, it was safe to assume that everyone in a gay bar was gay. (The community hadn’t fully embraced bisexuals who were viewed as suspect, guys with one foot in and one foot out of the closet.) Coming out stories, commonly shared, were typically dramatic, often punctuated with references to being kicked out, disowned, damned to hell or simply the cause of a lot of tears and ensuing awkwardness.

I say all this because there was a sense that we were an oppressed group and, for some reason, it bred a sense of survival whereby caustic and campy attitudes were very much in vogue. It wasn’t just drag queens that read one another. Put-downs were part of gay play.

Without a doubt, older gays were often mocked by the younger set. “Look at that old queen...” A drunk older gay man or one who dared take off his shirt or went solo on a mostly empty dance floor made for easy dissing. I attributed all this to a great deal of insecurity—that comes with feeling oppressed—and a sense that in our main playing field, the gay bar, everyone was being sized up. Everyone was ripe for derision. Everyone except the rarefied hotties who knew all eyes were upon them and only paired up their kind, waiting for the dance floor to get crowded before taking off their shirts, and joining in, more grinding than actually busting a move.

I’ll admit that I played along as best I could. (No, definitely not as one of the gods!) The campiness often bothered me. It felt mean. But it went down better with a couple of Tom Collins. (I never took to beer unless I could stuff a half dozen lime wedges down the neck of the bottle.) Being camp was the sanctioned humor du jour and, while I was secretly appalled by many of the comments, I was also awed. How was it that these guys were so quick? I couldn’t keep up.

This is around the time that I honed my self-deprecating nature. If I could freely make fun of myself, it took away the sting of being a target by other gays. In theory, at least, that’s how it was supposed to go.

I will admit that I participated in disparaging older gays. They were easier fodder for people like me who struggled to nail a campy persona. There were certain bars that were almost no-go zones, places where the older among us congregated. We’d go every so often for a laugh, in the same way we’d occasionally do a couple of laps in The Spike, a leather bar. Niche groups. As if the gay community never really broke free from the crushing categorization mindset of high school. Gawking within our own supposed “community”. Lots of “Would you look at her...” Easiest line, often no elaboration required. Whether it was someone in leather or someone whose hair had gone salt-and-pepper, I’d always squirm and make a face of horror when one of my small pack would nod in that direction and say, “There’s your boyfriend.”

It’s all an example of how the “pride” part of gay pride was very much a work-in-progress. More of a fake it till you make it concept. I suppose flaunting pride worked better in parades than donning banners that read, “Gay Shame”.

The point to all of this is that I’d like to think gay culture has evolved. Enlightenment comes with acceptance. Indeed, the old campy humor seems very much passe, preserved by the drag queens but, even among them, it feels more forced than ever.

Here in North America, it seems a stretch to claim to be oppressed, at least for the LGB and Qs in our LGBTQ community. Announcing you’re gay draws fewer looks than saying you got a new tattoo. We can marry—something none of us packed into gay bars in 1990 would have ever believed possible. Sexual orientation is included in hate crime legislation in many jurisdictions. Same goes for housing and job discrimination laws. More to do, yes, but things seem to hinge more on a matter of time rather than on possibility.

Maybe it’s time we change our ways. Some of them, at least. Reflect. Keep whatever is or was good about gay culture but grow as well. All this time we’ve been focused on others changing to accept us. Oh, the strides we’ve made! How about acknowledging that we’ve got some changing to do, too? How about greater acceptance within our “community”?

At fifty-five, I don’t expect to be resuscitated anytime soon. I can accept that this is karma, biting me in the ass for past misconduct. I don’t plan on making buttons that say, “60 is the new 40” and passing them out at Pride. I can learn to knit. Maybe I’ll adopt half a dozen cats. (I’ll knit them little sweaters!) Still, I hope that gay men fretting over thirty candles on a cake can avoid getting their own death certificates until many decades from now. Let them continue to live, to be seen, to be heard and, most of all, to be valued.