DONNING MY GAY APPAREL

I’m writing this from a Gastown café in Vancouver as rain falls and thousands of people in the city are, no doubt, hoping it stops within the next three hours. The Pride parade begins at one o’clock. I’m not going. I’m not fond of crowds unless it’s part of the kinetic madness of walking through New York City or hopping on The Tube in London. Part of my parade apathy, I suppose, is I don’t like standing in place and peering between people’s shoulders just to see a lot of gay men walking around shirtless. I don’t know how this became What Gays Do at Pride. 

 

Think I’m exaggerating the propensity of gay men to turn a celebration into an opportunity to go shirtless? (Yes, my entire post last week was on the topic.) The Vancouver Pride Society Events page includes a single photo of the parade. Yes, it’s a shot of a buff man in a Speedo, with other Speedo-only dudes walking behind him. I’m beginning to think there needs to be a clothing drive for gays. We have a shirt shortage, folks! 

 

I’d be more inclined to attend if the focus were more political and not yet another event in which the gay men seek the most attention among those in the LGBTQ+ community. Yes, I said it. I’ve been out to various degrees for four decades now and gay men always take centre stage. I’m sure that’s why VPS also had a trans march two days ago and the Vancouver Dyke March & Festival was yesterday. Had I taken more initiative to be informed, I might have gone to the trans march—but then it’s been a challenging week for me as depression and anxiety have persistently needled me since Monday. 

 

My first Pride parade was in 1990 in Los Angeles—West Hollywood, technically. Still being the peak of the AIDS crisis, I was drawn to groups calling for more funding, more action, less stigma. Attending alone, a group of lesbian nurses welcomed me into the fold and together we cheered these marchers, along with the contingent from AIDS Project Los Angeles and various PFLAG participants holding up handmade signs that said, “I love my gay son” and “I support my lesbian daughter.” It was also kitschy cool that Elvira, Mistress of the Dark (Cassandra Peterson) was the grand marshal.

 

But back to shirts. I know exactly what I wore during that day in June 1990. It was a white tee with an inverted pink triangle emblazoned on the chest and the phrase “1 in 10,” a figure that goes back to research by Alfred Kinsey in 1948 that stated 10% of American males were homosexual. (As time went on the 10% figure was applied to the broader LGBTQ+ umbrella even though Kinsey’s research only focused on gay men.) During my coming out years, I always felt the number was inflated. I remember sitting in classes of thirty and wondering who the other two gays might be. I needed to feel I wasn’t alone while in high school and university in Texas. (Oh, did I feel alone!) The statistic offered comfort—somewhere out there are gays—but, even when I moved to Los Angeles, my gaydar signal only activated 2 or 3% of the time. I bought the shirt because it offered some form of hope and suggested solidarity if ever 10% of men stepped out of the closet.[1]

 

My shirt also listed famous people in history reputed to be gay, their names running across the pink triangle in pale green block letters…people like Tchaikovsky, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Harvey Milk, James Baldwin, Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman. It affirmed I wasn’t a freak or a pervert as had been the derogatory labels in society while I was growing up. Respectable, talented, intelligent people were gay. 

 

I loved my shirt. There was no chance I would take it off at any gay event. It said far more than my pecs or my six-pack-free midriff. (So many sit-ups, all for naught.) It was a no-brainer that that’s what I would wear to Pride. 

 

I bought the shirt at A Different Light, a gay bookstore in West Hollywood, the same place I would buy copies of Advocate magazine and books like Paul Monette’s Becoming a Man. I only wore it when I was venturing into West Hollywood. It felt daring, even risky, when I’d stop somewhere in Westwood or Woodland Hills on the way there or heading home. Did I really need more gas? The shirt only offered comfort and confidence when I was among my people…and I mean in numbers larger than 1 in 10. While I rued much about West Hollywood—the superficiality, the dismissiveness of all the models/actors/waiters, the plain ugliness of that stretch of Santa Monica Boulevard—it felt like the only world where I could wear something that announced, “Hey, I’m gay.” 

 

I’d like to think the t-shirt is still in my possession, in a storage box under the bed with extra sheets and lesser worn sweaters. In the back of a cubby in my bedroom closet. Perhaps in the storage space under the stairs. But, alas, I suspect the memento from my earliest years as a sometimes-out gay man likely got tossed during one of my moves, probably in 2020 when I was supposed to move to Toronto and I ruthlessly got rid of so much. I’d decided nostalgia wouldn’t be coming with me. Goodbye all Christmas decorations and CDs; so long, boxes of teaching memories; and, gasp, adieu to boxes and boxes of clothing. Five days before the movers were scheduled to come, COVID shut down the everything and the move never happened. 

 

I just Googled my prized shirt and it doesn’t come up. It was the pre-internet era. I can order a plain white tee with an inverted pink triangle but it’s not the same. Maybe I didn’t chuck the shirt in haste but out of a sense of pride and practicality. I didn’t need it anymore. I am now gay to anyone and everyone. I don’t care who knows or doesn’t know. I don’t need to glance down at a shirt I’m wearing to feel empowered in some places and in danger in others. I’ll wear what I want whenever, wherever.

 

In the café right now, I’m wearing a short-sleeved purple shirt with buttons, white shorts and some razzle-dazzle on my feet: rainbow-striped socks with rainbow peace signs and rainbow Converse high tops. As established at the outset, I’m not going to a Pride event. I’ll finish my oat latte, then grab blueberries and ketchup at the grocery store and walk home along Water Street past cruise ship tourists and several unhoused people. They can look at my footwear or not. Society has come so far, especially in Canada, and so have I. Turns out I’m feeling some pride today, after all. It comes with a lowercase “p,” nothing organized, nothing chest baring, but that’s all I need.

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[1] An article from 2014 on a queer Canadian website noted that the actual percentage of gays and lesbians is far lower, but a poll from last year found that, when all LGBTQ+ identities are included, the figure comes close to 1 in 10, coming in a 9.3%.

THE SPORTS CLOSET

In my mind, I see a large closet—let’s make it a walk-in—filled with tennis rackets, footballs, basketballs, soccer balls and hockey sticks. It’s also crammed with male pro athletes who use this equipment. Where are all the gay role models in professional sports?

 

In the wake of the immensely popular Crave/HBO series Heated Rivalry in which actors played three hockey players dealing with gayness and/or bisexuality, no active pro athletes have stepped out of the closet. There is no evidence of gay tennis[1], football, basketball, soccer or hockey players. In the past, all we’ve had is NFL draftee Michael Sam, NFL player Carl Nassib and NBA player Jason Collins who were out. These players did not lead to the closet door becoming unhinged. The door remains firmly shut. 

 

Checking the forty-nine openly queer athletes at the 2026 Winter Olympics, only ten are male and the majority of them are figure skaters, a sport seemingly without a closet. (The other queer male Olympians are a curler, a speed skater and a couple of skiers.) 

 

When will it feel safe for pros currently playing in major sports to come out? It is true that gay progress has taken a hit under the current Trump administration. (See last week’s removal of Pride flags from the Stonewall Inn, declared a national monument during Obama’s presidency and state actions to remove rainbow crosswalks as well as seemingly everything regarding trans rights.) Still, marriage equality has been on the books for more than a decade. It’s unlikely there will be a perfect time in the foreseeable future for an active athlete to come out. If not now, when? I know the inner turmoil I felt while I remained a plain old, closeted college student and teacher. I can’t imagine staying in the closet throughout my twenties and beyond. 

 

Earlier this month, in the article, “What HBO’s Surprise Hit Gets Right About Men’s Locker Room Culture,” The New York Times cited a 2023 survey of 1,000 LGBTQ high school and college athletes in which 95% of the respondents described teammates’ reactions to their being out as ranging from “neutral” to “perfect.” This should be encouraging although I’d like to know the gender breakdown of respondents. Women are more inclined to be out. As that same article explained, sports are more aligned to a “masculine identity” and, therefore, “just by playing a sport…some women find it less risky to be more open because they are already going against stereotypical femininity.”  By contrast, the stereotype for male athletes is being “hypermasculine,” “dominant” and “emotionally controlled” while gayness still comes with a “more feminine” perception.

 

Unfortunately, neither Michael Sam nor Jason Collins nor Heated Rivalry has inspired and guided other male athletes in stepping out of the closet. The NYT article quotes Bill Kenney, an out NBA referee, saying, “[T]he needle hasn’t moved. The needle hasn’t moved because nobody else has done it” in terms of coming out. 

 

It’s possible some players have come out to their teammates without making an announcement to the wider public. I get that. Telling teammates has the potential for building camaraderie and being authentic to one’s day-to-day contacts. Perhaps their reaction is as much scrutiny as a player wants instead of waving the Pride flag at a press conference or making a statement on Instagram. If this is happening, it’s progress for the individual and his team. Not everyone wants to be a torchbearer. But with no one carrying the torch, other athletes, both professional and amateur, both younger and older, remain left without current role models. Fans too remain tied to the hypermasculine narrative for elite athletes.  

 

Will it take another generation or just a different administration before more professional athletes remove the closet door and step out? At this point, there are no balls or pucks in play. It’s all speculation.

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[1] Okay. There’s one gay tennis player, Joâo Lucas Reis de Silva, though he is hardly a household name. He is currently ranked 207 in the world. This means he cannot play the Grand Slams (the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon or the U.S. Open) without successfully going through three rounds of qualification. He lost in the first round of qualification in January’s Australian Open qualification draw. To my knowledge, he has never played in the main draw of a Grand Slam.  

MELTING THE ICE

Okay, I’ve just finished watching the sixth and final episode of the first season of Crave/HBO’s Heated Rivalry. Like all romances, it has a happy ending. If that’s a spoiler to you, then you don’t know the romance genre. A happy ending is required; the drama arises from how they get there. 

 

It felt like a lopsided series, with two couples featured but one—the storyline with Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov—being dominant with the Scott Hunter and Kip Grady plot serving as something on an afterthought. This is a shame because, quite frankly, I cared much more about Scott and Kip. Their relationship felt like the true heart of the series while Shane and Ilya should have been the steamy side dish. In fact, Scott and Kip were the subject of the first book (Game Changer) of romance author Rachel Reid’s Game Changer series while Shane and Ilya are the main draw in the second novel, Heated Rivalry. Alas, much of the storyline involving Scott and Kip didn’t make it to the screen in what was greenlit in a short-run first season.  

 

If the first episode caught viewers’ attention for the sex, the final episode got Shane and Ilya navigating the beginnings of a relationship. The jocks were still heavy on bro talk and bro behaviour but they managed to say the key words about how they felt in the now and where they wanted to take things. 

 

It isn’t totally strange that I kept comparing the lead characters to Nick and Charlie from the Netflix series Heartstopper, not simply because both series featured a gay and a bisexual character as the developing couple, but more on account of both shows portraying how people navigate the search for sexual identity and the journey to coming out. Heartstopper hit its marks better since this exploration happened at the developmental logical time, i.e., adolescence. By contrast, I felt less patience and endearment regarding the story of Shane and Ilya who were held back by the Neanderthal milieu of professional hockey. Sure, it was nice to see them break barriers—and maybe these fictional characters will nudge a few of the pros in real life—but I couldn’t fully suppress a surge of annoyance: Come on, guys. Get over it. Get on with it. 

 

Maybe that makes me heartless or at least hypocritical. I vividly remember spending too much time in the closet and, yes, it wasn’t until my mid-twenties that I began living a slightly more authentic life as a gay man… but that was in the late ’80s in the midst of the AIDS crisis. So much has changed in the thirty-five years that have followed. 

 

Professional team sports has basically remained in the closet while everyone else has moved on. It’s like watching an Amish character turning on a television for the first time. Personally dramatic but not so interesting to watch since we’re all beyond the novelty of turning on TVs. Been there, done that. I suppose the leave-very-little-to-the-imagination sex scenes in Heated Rivalry are what’s new(er) in the Crave series. Wow. They’re showing that on a regular streaming channel? This is the most that many straight women—one of the prime target audiences for the show—have seen of gay sex. 

 

I’ll most likely tune in when the second season airs which will apparently focus on the third book in the Game Changer series, Tough Guy, about hockey player Ryan Price and musician Fabian Salah and, according to series creator Jacob Tierney in a Variety interview, continue the story of Shane and Ilya. In the meantime, I may buy the first book, Game Changer, to get more of the story involving Scott and Kip.

 

 

 

 

 

  

“BOOTS” ON NETFLIX (A Review…of Sorts)

Okay, I’m a slow streamer. I don’t binge. It often takes two nights to watch a show, with a few “down” nights in between when I’m reading or doing something else instead. 

 

But I finished watching Boots on Netflix last night. 

 

I’m still not sure what to make of it. Like many original shows on Netflix, I shrugged through episodes. Things were just okay much of the time. It felt like how I watched Survivor back in the day. I always wanted to skip over the challenges and get to the whispered camp negotiations and the episode-ending tribal council. The challenges were just contrived nonsense with Jeff Probst yelling the occasionally cautionary remark. 

 

Same for Boots. I’ve already seen An Officer and a Gentleman. I know that military training involves a lot of camp activities on steroids (e.g., sink or swim; obstacle course; target shooting) and, instead of Jeff Probst, you’ve got drill sergeants who are built like tanks yelling at you. Belittling you. Saying things that should put them in HR if this were the corporate world. The berating gets old. It becomes an annoying buzz, like that of a mosquito swirling around your head in the dark at three in the morning. You listen; it’s grating; you want to smack the source of the noise to stop it.

 

Yeah, so I’m not the target viewer for Boots. A boot camp feels like too much testosterone, too much bravado, too much negativity. I’d have checked out even before having to put on the leather boots. But this, I was told online, was a gay show.

 

I tried to focus on the personalities. In my mind, the show comes down to three characters: Cam Cope, played by Max Heizer, his best friend Ray McAffey (Liam Oh) and Sergeant Sullivan (Max Parker). The rest of the characters are caricatures—the guy who just might be crazy, the guy who desperately wants to call home, the guy who’s too aggressive, the guy who alienates his mates. With all the focus on drills, there isn’t the opportunity to get to know the supporting cast. 

 

I’ve said the drill scenes carried zero interest for me, haven’t I?

 

Cope is a likable, passive guy—perfect for the “yes, sir” mindset of the military, but too scrawny to look like he’s got a shot at becoming a Marine. He’s also gay, a fact known only to his best friend who fully accepts him. This is 1990, by the way, a time when George H.W. Bush was president, a time before Clinton’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell…a time of just Don’t. Being gay meant living in a fortified closet or a dishonorable discharge.

 

McAffey has daddy issues, his father having served in the military and raising his son with a stereotypical stoicism that might serve him well on the battlefield but doesn’t make a good parent. McAffey must excel. He must exceed. 

 

Sergeant Sullivan just has issues. Early on, he seems to zero in on Cope as someone unworthy of being a Marine. (“Why are you still here?”) SPOILER ALERT: He’s closeted and anytime his gayness is in danger of being detected, he becomes a masculine prick, taking things out on the recruits (or someone else). I found Max Parker a stunning screen presence—enough so that I scanned his Instagram and discovered he’s a gay Brit with a husband—but he’s got a challenging role, most of his scenes played out with his guard up, emotion limited to whatever we can see in his stunning eyes or in a slight cheek twitch. Every time there’s anything vulnerable about Sullivan to make the viewer like or relate to him, it’s followed by a scene to make you hate him. Is he a compelling character? Not really. I may have been too distracted by Parker’s good looks to appreciate any nuance in his portrayal of Sullivan.

 

Once you strip away all the drills of boot camp and the obligatory let’s-get-drunk and let’s-throw-food scenes, Boots boils down to: Why the hell would a scrawny gay guy want to be a Marine? Cope seems like a remarkably composed person. He’s been bullied but he seems like a survivor, albeit on the meek side. We’re told several times he’s “smart enough,” which my biased mind interprets as he can do so many other things. I was a meek, semi-closeted gay guy in 1990, too. Would enlisting and beating up another guy in a sanctioned fight have made me a better person, more of a man…someone who won’t be bullied anymore? Somehow I think I would have felt more ashamed. But then, I never aspired to be “more of a man.” Testosterone was never going to drive me. Sometimes coming out involves coming to terms with what you are and what you’re not. 

 

But Cope chose the Marines. Go figure. He’s a likable character. I cared what happened to him. That’s something. 

 

The most interesting character to me wasn’t a part of boot camp at all. The very talented Vera Farmiga is almost wasted as Cope’s single mom, Barbara. She herself is a caricature, a cluelessly bad mother in dowdy clothes, but Farmiga makes the most of the few scenes she’s in. I’d enjoy just watching a reel of her work in the show. I doubt I’ll tune in for what is set up for a second season, but I hope there will be more time to explore the mother-son relationship. If written right, that’s where the magic will be. 

 

Boots is based on the memoir, The Pink Marine, by Greg Cope White. I suspect I’d have enjoyed the book more but, no, I’m not going back and reading it now. I have a seemingly endless reading list and I’ve had my fill of military storytelling, thank you very much.  

HOW GAY ART THOU, SHAKESPEARE?

I came across an article in the Advocate last week, another piece speculating that William Shakespeare was gay based on—Hark!—NEW EVIDENCE! 

 

Shakespeare’s sexual orientation…Is it much ado about nothing? 

 

There was a time in my life when it would have mattered. In my teens and early twenties in the pre-internet world, I was still a closeted gay. I lived in Texas and nobody was gay. Nobody dared. 

 

By the time I was twenty-four, I had the sense to get the hell out of the state. I moved to Malibu, perhaps hoping Ken would come to his senses and dump Barbie. Ah, but that would not go my way. In Southern California, there were plenty of gays for Ken to choose from. 

 

Still, we were a restrained lot, passing for straight as best we could until we’d hit West Hollywood on weekends. Shouting, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it” was not a daring feat in the gay ghetto. I longed for the chance to shake off the drama of having to come out to people in my life, one person at a time. I wanted to be free to be gay in Santa Monica, in Calabasas…even in—gasp—Orange County.

 

Back then in the late ’80s and early ’90s, coming out was especially important. We needed the numbers. We needed people in every household to know someone who was gay. Knowing people of a certain minority humanizes that minority, chips away at reflex stereotypes and ultimately reduces hate while reaching toward acceptance. It’s why I longed for a politician or celebrity to come out. Such were the times that coming out risked career kill for people in the public eye.

 

One of my favourite t-shirts I owned back in that era was white with an inverted pink triangle, front and centre. Surrounding the triangle in small all-caps block lettering were the names of public figures in history who were queer. The fact that Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Gertrude Stein were included implicitly legitimized gayness. Yes, famous, talented gays in history contributed to advancing science and culture. Ain’t gays grand?!

 

Of course, I only dared wear my shirt in my apartment—kind of like a pajama top—or when I went to West Hollywood. I wasn’t educating others, but I suppose I was still assuring myself that I was okay. 

 

Back then, I would have loved to have had Shakespeare on the t-shirt. What a coup if the gays could claim Sir William! (Actually, he was never knighted. Humph.) 

 

Henry Wriothesley

The evidence that Shakespeare may have had a male lover comes off as straining matters. It goes back to a photograph of his first patron, Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton. (Oh, Henry. Was thou a gent of importance?) Reputed scholars are making much of the earl’s appearance in the photo, a portrait that was apparently in Shakespeare’s possession (though the article never states this). As described by the Advocate, “[i]n the miniature, Wriothesley’s long blonde [sic?] ringlets, fair skin, and pearl earring make him look more androgynous than he does in other portraits.”

 

Well, here we go, playing up stereotypes regarding a person’s looks…

 

By gosh, the man is even wearing a “floral night jacket”!

 

And there’s more!

 

As was common during the time, the miniature was “mounted on the back of a playing card” and—wait for it—this card just happened to be a heart.

 

And…there’s more!

 

One of the hearts is “vandalised,” the symbol covered by the image of a “spade (or maybe a spear).”

 

This quite obviously reveals heartbreak, according to some reputed scholars. Alas, whatever Shakespeare and Wriothesley had did not endure.

 

In my twenties, I would have nodded my head to every piece of circumstantial “evidence” in the article. Lo and behold, Shakespeare was gay! I would have been gleeful. If the world’s most famous playwright was gay, then being gay was surely okay. Maybe I’d have added his name to my t-shirt in permanent marker.

 

There you go, world. Since Shakespeare was gay, it’s okay for me to be gay, too.

 

Ah, yes, such were the early ’90s when we had so few out public figures to be our trailblazers and role models. 

 

How far we have come.

  

A MOMENT FOR MATTHEW

It would have been easy to drive straight from Moran, Wyoming, a stopping point between Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks, to Denver in a day. Evan and I took turns driving so the nine-hour day wouldn’t have been too much of a stretch, especially with extended hours of summer light. But our journey along Beartooth Highway and through Yellowstone had gotten us in the habit of making frequent stops, to snap pics for social media or, more importantly, to actually savour a moment just for the sake of it being one to share. 

 

Let it take two more days to reach Evan’s home. I wanted more leisurely stops in Grand Teton and we both enjoyed taking in the bougie cowboy vibe in Jackson. More importantly, I knew we’d be passing through Laramie, Wyoming and that was a required stop.

 

In truth, I only knew one thing about Laramie. Prior to our road trip, it was one of only four towns in the state I could name. Laramie will forever be familiar to me as the place where Matthew Shepard was attending university and where he was beaten outside of town on October 6, 1998. He died in hospital on October 12. A stop in Laramie was a must. I wanted to go to his memorial even though I didn’t know for certain that one existed or what it looked like. I just expected one.

 

Thankfully, Google and Google Maps filled in the gaps. On a quiet Sunday morning, Evan and I wound up wandering the impressive campus of the University of Wyoming, first trying a divide-and-conquer strategy for reading plaques on park benches and statues. 

 

Not Matthew. Not Matthew. Not Matthew. 

 

I felt silly and awkward. So focused was I on finding Matthew Shepard’s memorial that I didn’t care in the least about these other people who’d had a bench dedicated to them. No wink, no nod, no calculation for how long they’d lived. 

 

Sorry about that.

 

Evan used his Maps app to get us warm and then warmer. The blue dot on his phone screen took us to a treed lawn on the other side of the building we’d parked in front of. We went from “warmer” to spotting the likeliest spot, a park bench adorned with all sorts of items. As we neared, rainbow stripes came into view. 

 

Once in full view before us, Evan and I marvelled at the collection of items left as part of a makeshift tribute. Multiple paper flags representing different versions of Pride. An oil painting of the rural Wyoming landscape. Bundles of flowers, now dying. A rubber duckie (just because?). A “Say Gay” sticker. A pink unicorn. Candles. Miscellaneous items to represent et cetera.

 

Our visit was on June 22, well into Pride Month so I don’t know if all the decorations were part of marking the larger occasion or if the memorial bench is decorated with items year-round. I choose to believe the latter. I’d like to think there are others who make a point of coming here when life takes them somewhere near Laramie.   

 

While we visited Stonewall Inn in May, the Matthew Shepard memorial may have been more moving, more personally relevant. I was four at the time of the Stonewall uprising. I would have been preoccupied with spying on my sister and her friends playing with dolls (all they had to do was ask me to join) and settling for playing with a collection of animal figurines. I did not hear any news about Stonewall until well over a decade later. But I was thirty-four when Shepard was beaten and left to die. I remember the news. I recall the sadness, the anger, the revulsion. I know his death in Wyoming had a chilling effect on me 2,100 kilometres away in Vancouver. Was I being alarmist and melodramatic thinking something heinous in a small town could happen in progressive Vancouver? Not at all. Two years later, Aaron Webster was beaten to death in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. That only added to fears for my safety. Could I be openly gay anywhere?

 

1998 was a vulnerable year for me. I was becoming more and more open about being gay. For the first and ONLY time in my educational career, I was out to staff. It was not on account of bravery on my part. There were three other gay teachers at the school. Being closeted wasn’t even possible. Oh, how the freedom made for so many laughs during lunch in the staffroom! When I transferred to another school after six years, I went back to being closeted. I told myself I wasn’t hiding anything; rather, I was tired of coming out declarations. I can see now that was bullshit.

 

I can’t adequately explain the fear. It’s an accumulation of life’s experiences: of elementary and high school taunts about being a fag; of my best friend outing me in twelfth grade when I still hadn’t come to terms with sexual identity myself; of fears I’d lose my job teaching in Catholic schools if parents or the nuns found out; of more taunts from carloads of dudes cruising down gay villages because The Gays needed to feel insecure even in their own ghettos; of a total lack of bravado. What happened to Matthew Shepard stoked the fears already within me. 

 

Being gay was unsafe, be it in the form of a certain voice inflection, a limp wrist (both of which were natural mannerisms for me) or when expressed through holding the hand of a boyfriend. Aside from a six-year career blip, being fully out has only been a relatively recent thing. I knew not to dare express myself freely. Twenty-seven years after Matthew Shepard was murdered, I’m letting down my guard, most of that thanks to Evan who has long refused to suppress or edit himself. 

 

I am thankful my visit to the Matthew Shepard memorial was with Evan by my side. We held hands. We hugged. I liked that. I think Matthew would have, too. He’d brought us to the University of Wyoming in a state that, due to lack of familiarity, probably has a lower tolerance for queer identities than the national average. But I’d like to think that, over time, Matthew has come to empower and embolden us. 

 

Like Stonewall. We will not be silenced. To remain more fearful would only be a nod to the people who killed Matthew, instead of a tribute to him.

 

 

 

  

IS IT OKAY TO STILL LIKE ELLEN?

Cancel culture sidelined Ellen DeGeneres before the term even entered pop culture. Back in 1997, she had the gall to take a popular sitcom and “use it” as a platform to come out as gay. Historically, the word gay meant happy, but the public consensus, as measured by Nielsen ratings (and ABC executives) was that gay was not funny.[1] (Will Truman and Jack McFarland had yet to be conceived.) The show was axed after five seasons in May 1998. (Will & Grace would premiere four months later.)

 

Ellen DeGeneres was exiled to Siberia or at least somewhere north of the Hollywood Hills.

 

Remarkably, she found her way back. A talk show. She didn’t step back in the closet. She remained open as a lesbian and even frequently mentioned her partner, Portia de Rossi. Ellen was accepted as fun and funny again. She was harmless, doing goofy little dances, filming her staff getting spooked in haunted houses and occasionally scaring guests as people and things popped out mid-interview. Mostly, she was lite and likable, a lovely afternoon accompaniment to getting a dinner casserole ready or stretching before hitting the gym. Her show ran for nineteen seasons, from 2003-2022, and seemingly could have gone on in perpetuity…or until Ellen chose to settle for good in somewhere like Palm Springs or another destination far warmer than Siberia.

 

But she got cancelled again. As a show, as a person. 

 

Ostensibly, it was Ellen’s decision. She’d certainly done her time. But the public had turned on her once again. In 2020, there were allegations that the set for the talk show was a toxic work environment. Producers—not Ellen—were accused of harassment and racist comments. Three producers were fired after an investigation. But, as so often is the case, the person at the helm, got taken down, too.  

 

Ellen, it would seem, was a tempting target for any negative views from past employees and guests. She’d been portrayed as the Queen of Nice and, at some point, began ending each episode with the remark, “Be kind to one another.” What I viewed as earnest, others viewed as self-righteous. Many don’t take kindly to being told how to behave by rich, pampered Hollywood elites. Media salivated over the chance to bring down a celebrity who called for kindness. 

 

According to an article in The Guardian summarizing Ellen’s pierced persona, a Dutch YouTube media influencer complained that, as a guest on the show, she couldn’t use the closest restroom because it was designated for the Jonas Brothers and claimed Ellen was “cold” off-camera. (Tell me this isn’t the media trying desperately to make or draw out a story.)  The takedown of Ellen also included an oft-played 2019 talk show clip where Ellen extended belated birthday wishes to Dakota Johnson and Ellen said she hadn’t been invited to Johnson’s party though, in fact, she had. (Ooh! Burn!) 

 

Ellen’s ratings dropped and, after its end, she disappeared from the public eye again. 

 

She’s back, allegedly for a final farewell on her terms, with a Netflix stand-up special, Ellen DeGeneres: For Your Approval. The show apparently premiered a few weeks ago, but I’ve been in Europe and streaming networks were not on my radar while away. I was home on Saturday night, jetlagged and not having enough energy to read a book so I opened my laptop, landed on Netflix and clicked on the special. Easy viewing. Sometimes when I am too tired, I cannot even process jokes. Laughing veers on being painful. But I maintained a steady giggle throughout the hourlong show. 

 

Setting aside allegations she was a Mean Queen instead of the Queen of Kind, the break in time from seeing Ellen in the public eye was in her favor for myself as a viewer. Her humor is lite. It focuses on everyday minutia. I especially liked and related to parts of the routine that focused on parallel parking and car features that are unhelpful or which she will never use. Bits about chickens and pigeons also had me laughing. Ellen’s timing was impeccable and she displayed a knack for physical humor I hadn’t realized was one of her strengths. 

 

Reviews haven’t been as favorable. In her stand-up, Ellen mentions her downfalls (first, from her sitcom, then her talk show). She talks of being labeled the Most Hated Person in America and acknowledges she wasn’t the best boss. Since she raises the subject—how could she not?—the critics swooped in, asserting her representation of the problems on the set failed to take responsibility for her own wrongdoings. For this, the reviews seem to give the special a thumbs down.

 

For me, I just wanted to laugh. I wanted to be reminded of the fact that Ellen DeGeneres possesses a cheeky, lite comic delivery, more akin to Jerry Seinfeld than Dave Chappelle. She speaks of mundane quirks in life rather than taking deep cultural fissures and commenting on them with any degree of satirical or scorching sense of humor. In terms of employment issues related to her talk show, she touches on them, but I never expected an emotional mea culpa. Any reckoning most likely came through employment grievances and settled litigation. Not my domain as a general member of the public. Not the domain of this stand-up special. I feel she’s paid for any wrongs in non-financial ways as well with the demise of her show and a damaged reputation that has clearly continued from the end of the show in 2022 until now. She may have “done time” but, to critics, she’s done. 

 

I took Ellen’s stand-up at face value. She made me laugh from the beginning of her routine. I wondered if she could sustain the funny for a full hour which is a real challenge for anything in the comedic realm. Can a schtick be sustained? There were, to be sure, some gaps between giggles, but I was into the routine to the end. The fact I watched the full show while exhausted and still laughed aplenty means it was a success to me. Bravo, Ellen. 

 

I am neither judge nor jury regarding Ellen’s culpability pertaining to a purportedly toxic work environment. Anyone allegedly aggrieved has had avenues of recourse. I truly hope there have been satisfactory remedies in terms of compensation, expressions of remorse and other ways of attempting to make things right. 

 

I remain an Ellen fan. Should this not be her final act, I would tune in again. Most likely, I’d respond positively to the jokes again. Her humor fits with mine, even if it might be trendier to dismiss her for pitching softballs. Sometimes that’s exactly what I need.

 

I will always have a degree of admiration and appreciation for Ellen DeGeneres. Her very public coming out, for her character on Ellen and for herself as the cover story for Time magazine did wonders to make being gay easier. She was a household name at the time. Many queer folks were still closeted in all or in parts of their lives (e.g., at work). As noted in the same article in The Guardian, “According to a 2015 poll, Ellen did more to influence Americans’ attitudes about gay rights than any other celebrity or public figure.” It helped that neither Ellen the person nor Ellen the comic was known for being edgy. She was unassuming, likable and relatable. Some of the criticisms I’ve read once again in preparing to write this essay point out she’s rich and, in some respects, an out of touch celebrity. At a point while doing her talk show, she was reportedly earning fifty million per year. Of course, she’s going to be somewhat out of touch. Her life is not like mine in many ways. The same could be said for almost any comic who commands a Netflix special. 

 

Ellen admits in For Your Approval she continues to care what people think. For me, at least, I still like her.

 

  

  

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[1] The specific coming out episode drew high ratings, but the show’s popularity dropped off significantly the following season. Many, including myself to a degree, felt the subsequent episodes were less funny as writers tried to include gay storylines. We know gay topics are funny, but it seemed the show felt a burden in representing gayness to an audience that may not have known neighbors, co-workers and family members who identified as queer. The tone was sometimes a little too serious for a sitcom.