THE BATTLE OF THE BANKS: WHO’S PROUDEST?

 

Can the world have too many rainbows? 

 

There was a time when, if a business stuck a rainbow sticker in the corner of its storefront window, it said something. I remember in the ’90s, walking by or strolling in and stopping to make eye contact with a friend or boyfriend, either of us nodding at the statement. 

 

Back then, the rainbow sticker was as rare as a rainbow in the sky. There was a sense that the owner was taking a business risk. Homophobia was more open then. Gay rights didn’t exist in many areas. A lot of people still lumped gays in with pedophiles and generally reviled deviants. AIDS added elements of fear and disgust. Outside of the gay ghettos, a business owner risked turning away customers who opposed any positive gesture toward the LGBT community. Some couched it in terms of “When I buy antacid, I don’t want your political or cultural views jammed down my throat.” Go on, then. Live with your damn indigestion. 

 

When I’d make one of my occasional appearances at a Pride parade and the follow-up “festival,” my friends and I would be surprised, even elated, to see a Bank of America contingent holding colorful balloons and a large sign saying, “PROUD OF OUR LGBT EMPLOYEES & CUSTOMERS” as they marched behind the corporate banner. Having a large corporate entity show support felt like progress and gave legitimacy to the fact that queer people deserved respect and were worthy of calculated business solicitation. It almost made me think of switching banks. Almost. Such a hassle though.

 

The days of a business entity seeming like a standout in the midst of drag queens, PFLAG, Dykes on Bikes, the Speedo-sporting gay swim team and go-go boys in thongs dancing atop floats are long behind us. Nowadays, it feels like a competition for which business can have the largest parade presence and/or decorate its store space the gayest. As an established practice, it made me cynical. No longer a business risk, it turned into a business decision. Showing Pride means good business. Do they really care?

 

I’ve decided it doesn’t really matter. 

 

Sure, I want to feel welcomed wherever I shop or choose to do business. And, to be clear, I choose NOT to spend money at places that don’t support gay rights or are all-out anti-gay. As a vegetarian, I’ve never opened my wallet at a Chick fil-A, but I’ve informed a lot of my straight friends who have at least had to think twice if they really want a chicken sandwich. It’s also created a permanent rift between my brother and me after I saw my sister-in-law’s Facebook post about joining a long line to support the franchise at the height of the boycott. I objected and he did not respond at all. Moreover, after several years of joining college friends at annual bowl games when my alma mater, TCU, was doing well in football, I refused to attend the Peach Bowl in Atlanta because, due to corporate sponsorship, it became known as The Chick fil-A Peach Bowl. My friends opted out as well in support of me.

In a Red State, corporate participation in Pride events is still a statement but not in a place like California and certainly not in Vancouver, British Columbia. A few yahoos may choose to do business elsewhere, but it’s basically another opportunity for advertising the business name. Let us be your cable supplier, drink our beer, choose me as you real estate agent. Sure, sure, whatever. I’m no more persuaded than I am listening to a TV commercial or one of those pesky YouTube ads. (FYI, I will never ever subscribe to Grammarly.com!) 

 

I know there are queer people who aren’t just cynical about corporate infiltration into Pride event; they are adamantly against it. Why are we allowing bottled water companies to join the parade? It dilutes the focus on true pride, on bringing greater diversity into the event, on highlighting what still needs to be done in terms of trans rights and LGBTQ rights elsewhere in the world. 

 

This is black-and-white thinking. It has to be either-or instead of and. I see this all the time when someone online objects to a government or some other entity spending $ X million on the arts or paving a still-decent road when it could be used to establish housing for the homeless. Yes, more money needs to be spent on all sort of supports to address complex issues related to homelessness. And, true, there are limited pots of money…that whole robbing Peter to pay Paul dilemma. Still, not all money will go toward a single issue. Other things will get funded, some that you or I may agree upon, others to which we don’t. I got my hand slapped once when, as a teacher, I attended a public hearing about proposed educational budget cuts and suggested slashing one expenditure to reduce the number of teaching positions slated to be eliminated. While I still think my suggestion was valid, it upset people whose jobs would then be affected and I had a certain union really pissed at me. What I should have done was focus on the essential value of the positions that needed to be protected and leave it to the school board to make the tougher Peter-Paul decisions.

 

Let businesses jump on the Pride bandwagon. Regardless of how deep or shallow their belief in LGBTQ rights may be, their flags, banners and decorations expand the awareness and acceptance of Pride. Yes, it’s advertising for themselves, but they’re also advertising Pride.

 

Official Pride celebrations have gone from a day to a week to a whole month. (Plus, some places like Vancouver and Ottawa wait and have their many Pride events in August. When travel opens up again, you can have a Pride summer!) 

 

Pride has also extended in terms of people who participate, particularly in attending the parade. I’ve heard some complaining, but Pride has become a summer event. A couple of summers ago, I was immersed with a bunch of straight twenty-somethings and they were all excited to track down what they were going to wear for the parade. They spent a great deal of time planning for it. When I attended my first parade in L.A. in 1990, none of my law school classmates (almost all in their twenties) knew it was happening. A few may have learned about it after the fact by seeing drag queens—then considered way too Out There—in a polarizing lead story on the 11:00 news.

 

As I’ve been walking around the traditionally queer center of Vancouver this month, lots of businesses have rainbow flags hanging. The banks, in particular, seem to be in competition with one another. 

 

We’re the most pro-gay! 

 

No, we are!  

 

Early one morning, I walked by one financial institution that had not yet opened for the day. It had covered its entire façade with rainbow stripes. Alas, it was done with some sort of stick-on material and the sticking hadn’t stuck. The entire building looked like a giant child had hastily unwrapped it, with torn strips all over the ground. A week later, the rainbow décor was comparatively understated, only framing the windows. We’re pro-gay, but we don’t have their decorating know-how.  

 

At Halloween or Christmas, I don’t question businesses over how much they truly believe in, say, The Great Pumpkin or baby Jesus in a manger or a once-bullied reindeer flying Santa around the world in a sled in a single evening. I may curse them for creating an entire Valentine’s aisle on January 2^nd every year, but there are people who love all that love. Not a year goes by when I could possibly forget Easter—do these businesses have deep religious beliefs or do they just like bunnies…and chocolate? I’m a smidge Irish and I have no objection to other people without any trace of Irish blood wearing green and drinking beer while businesses hang shamrocks in their windows.

 

Businesses will always be first and foremost about the bottom line. It’s their raison d’être. If they want to decorate during the holidays, let them. All those years ago, back in the ‘90s, I’d have never guessed that Pride would be penned in on their holiday calendar.

  

THE TRANS GOAL: "BEING" INSTEAD OF "BEING BRAVE"

I’ve been striving to learn more about the lives of people who identify as transgender. I’m greatly concerned about conservatives in the U.S. (Republicans and many church-going folk) going back to the LGBTQ well to instill fear, indignation and repulsion in a large section of the population, especially in Red states, to rally people against a minority. 

 

Suppress them. 

Vilify them. 

Make them the enemy. 

Reject them. 

 

Many politicians thrive on uniting people through hate and ignorance. Turning trans non-issues issues into issues makes a rabid constituency froth at the mouth. Republican politicians can solidify support, manifesting in increased campaign coffers and more votes, by bringing a galvanizing issue to the forefront. To them, picking on transgender people is a no-brainer. People in general—not just Americans—have a hard time understanding and accepting differences. The more different, the more difficult. 

 

Creating fear and hating on trans people has been going on in the U.S. for a while now. Public bathrooms served as ground zero for making the public squirmy. 

 

Sample of suggestive thinking: A guy with a penis can put on a wig and walk into the women’s restroom?! Where’s my privacy? Doesn’t this pave the way for sexual offenders to walk in and rape me?

 

Politician’s thinking: Are you scared? Good! Donate to us. Vote for us. It’s the only way you can stay safe.

 

In recent years, transgender rights have gained more media attention. Much of the coverage has tried to introduce the public to actual trans people to counter fictionalized, demonized versions. Trans lives have been portrayed more on television and in movies. Celebrities, politicians and regular Joes and Jills are in public view. This is a good thing, of course, but it also ups the fear factor.

 

When people see a minority gaining ground, many feel more threatened. The urge to suppress increases. Otherwise, Life as We Know It will surely crumble. And here we are in 2021 with Trumped-up efforts to hold transgendered people down. 

 

This is a time to increase understanding of trans lives. They have the attention of some of the media at least. It is a burden. For someone who is trans, the journey to understand one’s identity is a deeply personal process that takes years, if not decades to come to terms with. There are also interpersonal issues in dealing with acceptance and rejection from friends and family. Housing and employment issues come into play as well. A trans person has plenty on their plate as it is. Going before the press to be a spokesperson, to answer questions they are tired of answering about parts of their life that other people don’t have to explain takes great fortitude. There is no obligation to do so, but some must come forward in the name of the greater cause.

 

I am writing this after getting stirred up while watching CNN’s consistently excellent “United Shades of America” with W. Kamau Bell on Sunday, June 13. This particular hour-long episode focused on Black trans women living in Dallas, Texas. It’s funny, heartbreaking, tragic, empowering, inspiring, poignant and maddening. Yes…all that. If it isn’t obvious, let me say I HIGHLY RECOMMEND watching it. (Click on the hyperlink at the beginning of this paragraph.) The people who are featured are strong, intelligent and they aren’t afraid to push back to make Kamau go beyond platitudes of acceptance. As I tweeted during the show, I love, love, love these women.

 

I want to highlight what, for me, was the most compelling moment of the “Shades of America” episode. Trans women, and even more so, trans women of color, are subject to a greater risk of violence and trauma. There is cause for a Black trans woman to be alert and guarded about where they are and who is around them. I’ve read many times that the average life expectancy in the United States for a trans woman of color is thirty-five years old. Shocking…and not true. I’m only repeating it to cite an article refuting this statistic. (The article doesn’t come from the most highly regarded source, but it is well laid out.) More accurate stats are not available, at least to my knowledge. Black trans women do live, on average, longer than that oft-stated age of thirty-five, but that doesn’t negate the fact they face significant risks in terms of violence and even murder. The statistic of a life expectancy of thirty-five is so frequently given—it reminds me of the Kinsey-based 1 in 10 figure I heard regarding gays and lesbians that always mystified me—that there comes a point when a trans woman of color believes it. In becoming my true self, I can live my life but expect it to end when I’m thirty-five.

 

Sobering.

And, for me, heartbreaking.

 

When one of the women, Pocahontas, says, “I made it to thirty-six years old,” it’s as though this is a personal victory, defying the odds. Imagine having to always be vigilant and having the shadow of an ominous, if untrue, statistic hanging over you. The media, including GLAAD, The Advocate and The Guardian have repeated this state without tracking down a primary source, perhaps in part because it’s a shocking “fact” to rally LGBT allies, but also perhaps because, given all the reports of violence, it may seem like such a plausible figure that it isn’t being fact-checked.  

 

What I took away from watching this show and listening to these women—was a greater sense that we must jump aboard the fight for trans rights. We need LGBTQ allies to act, but it needs to be expressly said that the rest of the LGBTQ community needs to get on board. They’ve been with us all along the way in seeking equal rights. In recent years, there’s been more awareness of the role of drag queens and transgendered people in fighting back against the police at Stonewall, names like Marsha Johnson, Syvia Rivera and Maria Ritter figuring into the narrative. As noted at the beginning of this post, people who identify as transgender are only the latest focus in a long history of hate and discrimination against queer people. The fight on the right has been lost with respect to marriage equality, adoption, (to some extent) HIV stigma and many areas regarding housing and employment.

 

At pro-trans rallies, there are often signs and banners that rightly declare, Trans rights are human rights. For those of us in the gay community, it’s important to personalize this more: Trans rights are LGBTQ rights. By achieving rights and protections for trans people, we strengthen acceptance and legal safeguards for ALL of us under the LGBTQ umbrella. Still, in the gay rights movement, it feels like, along the way, the transgendered community got left behind to some degree. Back in the ’90s, I remember some politically minded gay men wanting to dissociate from trans people, saying the public would get sidetracked if we were all lumped together. Trans people come off as even more different than us. To put it more bluntly, the thinking was that including transgendered people in the fight for equal rights would hold gays back. Yep, our “community” has always been more than a bit of a mess. Now is yet another time we need to come together. 

 

Let me repeat, Trans rights are LGBTQ rights.

 

Once again, I encourage you to watch the “Shades of America” episode. I hope it will inspire you and provide more insight into the struggles and successes of Black trans women. 

 

The “T” in LGBTQ is the new frontier for attack. During this month of Pride, let us learn about what it’s like to live as a transgendered person and figure out what we can do to add our voices, our money and our solidarity.

 

DATING INDIFFERENCE

At the very beginning of 2020, before the Great Lockdown, I snoozed my profiles on traditional online dating sites. I was moving. I most certainly did not want to start a relationship with someone in Vancouver. In a post from that time, I’d explained that I wanted to do some sowing of my wild oats which I never did in my teens or twenties. When I came out in my mid-twenties, AIDS seemed to be wiping out the gay population and I didn’t think sex with a stranger was worth it. I had enough fear about being gay in the first place—possible bashing, losing my job (I worked with nuns), losing friends, being disowned by family (which, in retrospect, might not have been so bad). Back in the ’80s, “out and proud” was perhaps an aspiration for others, but I was just looking to survive. I never was one for setting lofty goals.

 

Okay, so back to 2020. MY mission: makeup sex, in the sense of experiencing a little of what I missed. I opened a profile on a hookup site and wound up meeting one guy who wasn’t a hook up at all. We dated for five months. It was nice as a casual yet close connection. When lockdown forced me to postpone or abandon travel and moving plans, I suppose the stakes became higher. I had to assess whether this guy, who was comfortable to be around, was long-term partner material. He wasn’t. Nice guy, but we had some fundamental differences in terms of values. 

 

I’ve been single for a full year and off all online sites for seventeen months—I closed down my profile on the hookup site when I the supposedly casual five-month relationship began. (I’m even worse at juggling than I am at setting lofty goals.) To say it’s been good to be single and off the dating scene is an understatement. 

 

So many of us who are single spend too much time thinking about relationship possibilities. We pine. We whine. We flirt. We get hurt. (Okay, my flirting is infinitely worse than my juggling or my goal setting. Call it nonexistent. But others, I’m told, flirt.) Our friends, particularly those who are coupled, say well-intended, but unhelpful things like: It’ll happen when you stop looking. Don’t try so hard; Maybe you’re being too picky. (Um, so are you saying I should lower my standards? Hello, rock. Wanna go out?); and You need to put yourself out there more. (Sure, let me simply turn off my lifelong INTROVERT button and suddenly become a different personality.) 

 

I can be quick to put myself down, but I know I did a lot of things right when I was on the dating scene. I had many odd or bad coffee dates that made for good blog posts, but I also had many occasions where the conversation flowed and things extended to a walk or dinner before I got told I was a really nice guy, but I didn’t set off any fireworks. (My fireworks skills? You guessed it. Not even worth buying bottle rockets or Roman candles. I’ve been afraid of fire ever since a sparkler boo-boo when I was five. Can’t even light a match. I will not be putting on a fireworks show for anyone.) I suspect some of this fireworks nonsense may have been on account I didn’t give off any pressing Let’s Have Sex vibes. I’m the quintessential guy next door. 

 

When you have a lot of WTF go-nowhere dates, you can either torture yourself with What’s Wrong with Me thinking, adopt a Screw You All, Shallow Gay Men stance or just wave a white flag and choose to knit an afghan or set off in search of a rare Light-footed Clapper Rail. (That’s a bird. Frankly, if I were a bird and I knew humans called me a Light-footed Clapper Rail, I’d go into hiding, too. Because clearly humans are weird.) I’ve swum in the What’s Wrong and the Screw You sewers more than a time or two, but I’ve yet to take up knitting or birdwatching. (I can only imagine the dangers that would come with me holding knitting needles and binoculars just bug my eyes. Hmm…I’m beginning to see why guys might quickly decide I’m not such a catch.)

 

For a year now, the self-criticism has been next to nil. Whining and pining? Wasted time. (Ryan Reynolds doesn’t count. I’m abundantly aware that he is still solidly straight…and married.) 

 

Lockdown and a global pandemic have made it a no-brainer to forgo dating. (Yes, this generously assumes I have much of a say in the prospect of dating.) I’d read how one of Canada’s top doctors encouraged sex with masks, but I was having enough challenges just putting on a mask so it didn’t cover up my eyes. (I know, I know. Such a catch!) I couldn’t get my head around the thought that the sweatiness under my mask would complement the sweatiness of sex. Different things. I’d also read a New York Times article about casual sex during coronavirus, but it just made me think people had their priorities out of whack. Perhaps I defaulted to some version of AIDS-era sense of caution. I wasn’t terribly fearful of getting COVID, but I didn’t want to be the one to pass on the virus or have it passed on to me and then to have it get passed on to someone far more vulnerable. For me at least, any personal agenda needed to be put on hold to give that “We’re All in This Together” mantra some weight instead of merely being a sign people post in windows.

 

I’ve come to realize I am happy being single. I’ve always known I enjoy time on my own but, just like 98% of us, I was raised to believe that becoming a couple was one of the milestones that made your life well-lived. As a man, bachelor has never sounded as judgemental as how women are labeled: spinster or cat lady. Still, this bachelor wasn’t ever going to be called a playboy and I’d had my wedding song picked when I was six. (“We’ve Only Just Begun” by The Carpenters, natch.) 

 

Being on my own does not make me a Have Not. I don’t need to be defensive about it just because others may project a void in my life. We have different life paths. One is not necessarily better than another. It’s what you make of the path you’re on. That’s as Oprah as I’ve ever sounded, but all this quiet time has allowed me to get more comfortable with where I’m at. The quiet has also reduced any tendency to compare myself with others I see going about their daily business since there was less of that going on in public. I stopped inferring some sense of happiness in couples I passed on the sidewalk (instead begrudging the fact they rarely walked single file for two seconds to allow more space as we came upon one another). I didn’t have opportunities to view a person having dinner alone in a restaurant as someone warranting pity. I have done this. I have felt this. I know I’m not the only one.

 

Things are opening back up again. For now. Who knows what may or may not happen when winter approaches. I’ve had both my vaccination shots. I know I can reactivate my dating profiles. It’s crossed my mind a few times over the past couple of weeks. It goes on my to-do list, but I don’t do it. It stays there along with Fix Closet Door and Clean Car Interior (so much coffee spillage).     

 

Yes, I can date again. Chat over coffee. Walk away with a funny or a maddening anecdote. Maybe even experience a firework-free spark. Maybe more. All I have to do is press one button on a dating site to make my profile public again. I can easily update things with some recent, acceptable photos of me looking smiley and sporty. It’s painless. The problem is, I haven’t figured out why. What do I want now, if anything? Is diving back into dating—or the possibility of it, at least—just a fallback habit? Gosh, it’s what I’ve always done. It’s what I’m supposed to do to “fix” this “problem” of being a single guy. 

 

I’ve had a good thing going for the past year. As an example, I just had a great weekend that had me smiling as I retired to bed Sunday night. When. I thought back on it, I realized I’d spent it entirely alone. I’d exchanged texts with some friends, three in Vancouver, one in Boston. I’d gone on a ten-hour solo hike, ascending two mountain peaks, I’d started my Sunday walking three hours in the rain and seeing how much an old neighborhood where I’d lived had changed. I read, I wrote, I watched a movie. I felt content the entire time. Not once did I think something was missing.

 

I don’t think this dating ambivalence arises from a sense of safety and I know it’s not fear that’s holding me back. Without the slightest bit of bitterness or drama, I wonder if I might just be done. I’ll give it some more thought, but I know that, for now at least, I’m happy being single. That’s a pretty wonderful takeaway from one odd year.