I quit the softball team in high school because I was afraid that I was gay. There was no crush on any of the other players, or any threat to me staying closeted on the team. Someone somewhere once made a joke about dyke softball players and I became terrified that was me. For some reason that was too much for me to bear.
When I look back on the experience, the running, the hiding, the lying to myself … the reason I think is because I couldn’t imagine a reality where I would be accepted in my family and community if I were a lesbian. And I was able to hide it, even from myself, for many years. Eventually the hiding almost killed me, and even still I find myself in the practice of being closeted, not about my sexuality, but other things. The closet is falling apart here, as I get older and give fewer fucks, and as urgency arises in me to speak my truth so that perhaps someone else can go through what I went through with more light.
The other day we were at a family wedding and the crowd was so entertained when two men were slow-dancing, in a way that I perceived as mocking gayness. The crowd was laughing and the guys in the crowd started to razz one another about “liking head.” Ah, yes - this is familiar to me.
Women are allowed to kiss women for the lubrication of male fantasy.
If they are lesbians, they must hate men and need to shut-up.
Men being together is a dirty joke, a mockery.
These rules, dear family, are a crazy homophobic, sexist cocktail, and you all are drunk. You’re mean when you’re drunk.
The song “Whatta Man*” by Salt N Pepa played and a woman came over to me and my wife and laughed sarcastically, “you must love this song.” And my gut reaction was to roll my eyes. Somehow, ever slightly, my heart opened and I said, “OMG I do love this song. Salt N Pepa are the best.” And I kept dancing with my wife, and let this woman fade away. She seemed surprised, but mostly undisturbed by my response.
Her suggesting that the song may mean something different to us because we are lesbians is what I find so annoying about heteronormative spaces. In separating us from the song, she was separating us from the rest of the people on the dance floor, reducing our experience to lesbians. Why wouldn’t we celebrate a “mighty good man,” as the song goes? It occurs to me too, the racial dynamics of the song, as it plays in an all-white space, and I would like to argue about all of it, right there on the dance floor. Tell me more about your life as a “fiscal conservative.” Really, I’m curious.
They want gender, and sex, and marriage to be a simple set of rules that everyone follows. It’s just not like that with humans.
Calm down, the rules say. She didn’t mean it that way, and yes I am thinking about it too deeply, and yes I do realize that thinking is annoying to comfortable people who prefer not to think about how their social rules are impacting other people who they don’t want to take time to understand. Check yourself, the rules say.
It is human nature to separate from what we fear, and I can feel myself doing it now. It seems like this is the nut to crack - not needing to defend, and being willing to accept other world views exist. Where does this leave social change? What happens when another worldview threatens my life? It seems the tactics and strategies I’ve been using require a shift from some “other” to my point of view. I think this is the crux of what I have been trying to figure out how to let go all these years in meditation, and still this pattern persists. Us VS Them.
Rumi says, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass the world is too full to talk about.”
