Tag Archives: staying in the closet

See, This Is Why People Like Alec Baldwin Is No Ally To The LGBT Community

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An ally is someone who is able to not only empathize with the oppression and plight of a group of people but also actively seeks out solutions to bring about advocacy for equal rights. Allies are instrumental in helping a group or community eliminate discrimination. And if/when said person(s) has said or done something that is insensitive or harmful against said community, they reach out to understand the error in their ways to prevent any other insult. They openly challenge those that condemn us and are a bridge to a solution, not the cause of our problems.

What allies don’t do is belittle and compare us to stereotypes that are based in hate. They do not call us toxic little queens and threaten to sodomize us with foreign objects and then fetishize how much we would enjoy the pain. And they certainly wouldn’t tell us that we use our coming out stories as a way to have credibility and popularity within the gay community.

See that is what Alec Baldwin should have done when he was confronted about his latest twitter rant by journalist Anderson Cooper. Baldwin felt it was necessary to tell a photo jornalist earlier this summer to stop being a toxic little queen this summer after his wife was reportedly tweeting during a funeral. During Baldwin’s tirade to try to defend his wife while publicly shaming the photog was weak for being gay and tried his best to demean the man by his sexuality, and not by any unethical practices. Soon after Cooper spoke out against Baldwin and his insensitive statements that were homophobic in nature.

But Baldwin had to respond to Cooper’s comments by making even more insensitive, homophobic statements on the Howard Stern radio show:

“What I realize about [Cooper] is, everybody in media, they have a job to do. Anderson Cooper has a job to do. And that job is to try to reinforce his credibility in the gay community after the fact that you couldn’t get him out of the closet for 10 years with a canister of tear gas. Now he’s the sheriff. Now he’s running around writing everybody a ticket!”

Sounds less about addressing the nature of the business and more about an actor that has an inflated appraisal of his talents going on to again attack the ibe thing he feels he has dominance and power over Cooper, his sexuality. Never mind that the process of coming out is different for all of us and takes years, sometimes decades to reconcile the constant unending judgement that you cannot (and should never be taught to) get rid of. There are still men and women that take their entire lifetimes to gain clarity in accepting something society constantly shames you for.

Why is it whenever someone confronts people like Baldwin, they have a tendency to claim the person opposing their view is some politically correct zealot that is just trying to win points with a group thereby warranting them to  invalidate the truth? Was the fact that Baldwin felt he had to talk about a gay man as feminine and someone who’s prone to drama as he did in his latest twitter rant? Or how we talked about this man that accused his wife of tweeting at a funeral as someone that needs to be kicked in his rectum but would like that, because he apparently believes that we gay men love to sexualize violence.

The entire time Baldwin and his statements were about comparing homosexuality to femininity because they were implying that feminine is weak, which is the typical rhetoric of a bigot. And it is misogynist because it places not just femininity in gay men as a weakness, but all women as well. Claiming that you’ve had a long running history with helping numerous unnamed LGBT organizations does not exclude you from having a prejudice mindset or enacting in dialogue that is problematic, hypocritical and downright harmful to this community.

There is no timetable for it because we each have to accept it in our own time. But Baldwin, a straight man that never has to deal with anything other than being a mediocre sitcom actor, feels like he can postulate on the complexities of one’s coming out process. Snide remark aside, let’s go along with this assertion made by Baldwin of Cooper coming out merely to gain favor with the gay community. In a time when there are still LGBT youth that are still openly attacked, bullied, dismembered, driven to a point where they want to end their lives, then any visibility that eliminates the stigma and negative stereotypes that Baldwin promotes, then I still welcome it. Even if it is to gain some sort of status it is a whole lot more than anything Baldwin has ever done for this community.

So please tell me, how someone who can so easily trivialize the process of coming out could ever be an ally. Save the speeches and blanket apologies for someone that truly believes you give a damn, Alec Baldwin. You are no better than the bigots that openly try to oppress us. But at least they’re honest about it. We are now in a time when instead of a person admitting the error in their prejudiced ways they would rather double down on their idiocy while claiming they know the real complexities of a struggle they themselves are lucky enough to never have to experience. So they make even more insufferable, uneducated comments to try to cover up their ignorance their privilege of being a member of the majority has given them. And they look like insensitive, uncaring, completely unaware  fools while doing so.

I for one am exhausted from so called allies that deem themselves as a good guy that had a rough day who was simply using their offensive manner in a different context that we are just too simple to understand. Sorry but you aren’t that good an actor. Claiming that they can so easily discern the reasoning behind someone coming out is laughable and to refer to the process of coming out as a bargaining tool for popularity is not only insulting, it’s disgusting. It’s paramount that so called allies like Baldwin be called out so when they make their mea culpas that are supposed to make us forget their numerous transgressions.

You see the best quality about an ally is that they are willing to listen, because they know no matter how much they are made aware of the oppression and discrimination a group or community face, that they still will never know exactly what the experience feels like. So they must always be willing to accept that there will be times that they see nothing wrong with their behavior when it in fact is very problematic. And since Baldwin seems too keen on ignoring that aspect. we can not call him an ally.

From Summer Flings To Fond Memories Of People Places & Things; New Tales Of Growing Up Gay

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So it’s really late and today has been a really crappy no good soul crushing day from start to finish. As I was processing all that occurred I received a really sweet message about my first tale of growing up gay and it brought the first genuine smile to my face all day. It’s amazing how serendipitous life can be. And as a personal thank you to all that have shared your own stories with me because I have shared mine, I’ve decided to open my journals yet again and share more of my tales of growing up gay. Thanks for reading and enjoy!

The time of adolescence is always marred with confusion, doubt, and an immeasurable amount of angst. But during those times of our lives we are awakened to the innate desires that make us who we are. And at sixteen, I was the epitome of all those geeky, awkward moments indelibly etched in memories that at the time we hope we never remember but as we grow older we are so thankful for being a part of. Doesn’t hurt that there was a hot guy that was a part of it.

This was not a time of new discoveries, or at least that’s what I believed before all this happened.  For I had already began to discover who I was and having a good idea what I had always been, I still was not willing to accept that I was gay. Especially as the very introverted teenager I had become. Building toy models, holding down a job as cultivating and farming tropical fish from my aquariums in my bedroom. Always reading about different worlds and people but I somehow unwilling to interact with the people in the real world. And always writing in my journals trying to decipher why the world was the way it was and why people do the things they do that contradict their actions. But I learned it was a time of sweetness, and summertime flings.

I had not yet reached the level of confidence that I now have as a man that contrasts the meek adolescent I was back then. It wasn’t that I had a hard time being social, far from it. I’ve never had a problem of being able to talk and engage in meaningful conversations with people. It’s just that back then, I really had no desire to interact with my peers or forge new relationships. I know now that it was because of fear. Fear of someone noticing even more how different I was from all the other guys.

I knew that I had an attraction to other guys. My body had a bad habit of showing me how much I liked my own gender through involuntary dreams and involuntarily body movements. I knew it meant I was gay but was still deep in denial and wondering why God had made me this way. So I was experiencing the basic rules of attraction and the stages of coming out all the time. Thinking about it all the time because while at school I was constantly being reminded of it with no control over when these strong emotions happened.

That’s why I was so glad that summer break arrived to finally give me a reprieve. So I wasn’t constantly around guys that made me think about being gay or around girls that reminded how I was not attracted to them. So I spent the time reading and writing and selling the tropical fish I had farmed to support my hobbies of buying comics and building toy models or designing wood sculptures. And I loved taking long strolls through the country woods as the sun set and by the creek. Who knew that this daily walk would soon bring all the things I was running away from directly in front of me once again?

My childhood home was deep in the woods, the sparse neighborhood was surrounded by tall stoic trees were delicately woven in waves of green hills and farmland. The air was always fresh and a lingering sweet perfume that invigorated, even on the muggy, humid days in Tennessee. On a particular day in early June I took the daily route through the trees and down the path to the creek during sunset. Honeysuckles pilfered the air as the sky turned gold and rouge with splashes of fuchsia and magenta. As I was lost in the clouds I heard a branch crack and my eyes darted towards the source that had broken my daydreaming sequence. And there was this guy around my age staring back at me.

At first I tensed up because in the south you’re taught to always be ready for two things: a fight and for love because they both can happen at a moment’s notice. He was tall and lanky with olive tanned skin and stark black hair. Intense blue-green eyes and a chiseled smile that could crack rocks. I was in awe. Staring at him trying to take in what I was seeing while telling my brain to stop racing the thousand thoughts zooming at top speed making me unable to speak. He said hello and I kept staring, Repeated himself and I kept staring. He tilted his perfect head of curly hair and he turned to walk away when I began cursing at myself out loud because I hadn’t said anything. He turned back around and said it was cool. And I melted.

After the embarrassment wore off we introduced ourselves. “Sam” as I’ll refer to him here was athletic and charming. A year older than I and a running back for his old high school team. He had just moved into our widely spaced out neighborhood and hated how country everything was. We talked about TV, movies, videogames and just about everything else for three hours. We met up every day after that and did more of the same. I felt like I had a new friend but every time we were around each other those same racing thoughts and feelings came rushing back to me.

A few days before the 4th of July another neighbor who was my age showed up with her friends by the creek, no doubt seeing us cut up there every afternoon for several weeks. The ladies were all inquisitive to the magazines we were reading to spark conversation and I, as naively can be sometimes, and ignored all the signals that they were flirting with us. So I forgot to feign interest to mimic the way Sam was interacting with them. He flirted back and showed how strong he was while I rolled my eyes and continued reading. I was feeling jealous because I wanted him to flirt that way with me. Then I made snide passive aggressive comments, which is a clear departure of my subtle and docile nature.

When Sam asked what was wrong with me I panicked so I stormed off and he trailed for a few paces before placing his hand on my shoulder to turn me around to see I was on the brink of tears. Concerned, he asked what was wrong and my emotions were running wild so before I could process what generic answer to give I blurted out “why don’t you talk to me the way you talk to them” and I was mortified by what I had just said aloud. I hadn’t even accepted that I was gay so how the hell had I just exposed myself to someone relatively new? Sam was puzzled at first and then had the look of “Oh, he’s one of them” and I was even more upset because he knew, and obviously didn’t feel the same way. So I ran home and cried myself to sleep, worried he would tell someone else.

Days past but Sam didn’t show up at our usual meet up place. I was hoping that he’d just forgotten the prior events but that was most likely what kept him away. The next day Sam showed up at my house wanting to hang out like nothing happened and I was more than happy to oblige. we talked about our plans for the 4th that I worried were scrapped but Sam still wanted to continue on. Then while we were talking about bottle rockets Sam brought up how his uncle who was gay taught him how to light them and stared rather awkwardly back at me. I became angry and he said he didn’t mean anything by it (he did) so we tensely went back to going over the inventory of fireworks we collected. Sam then stopped and said “I’ve thought about it too” and ran out the door at what seemed like an actual rocket. Couldn’t process what it meant. Did it mean he was feeling the same way or was he just talking hypothetical. But I didn’t want to lose our friendship so the next night when we met up to pop fireworks I pretended he never said it. And so did he…

So we went on with normal conversations until interrupted by thunder. A storm was coming in and we had to hurry if we were going to do. We reached to the top of the hill we picked out and set up everything to get the fireworks going. We started setting off more than originally planned and as Sam lit up another round one went off unexpectedly and went past his head grazing him near his eye.

He fell down and I took a knife to cut off a part of my shirt to cover the wound. it spooked us both more than anything. But I just wanted him to be safe and okay so I was doing my best to tend to it and gingerly cleaning it. Then he looked at me I guess seeing the concern. Sam smiled at me in a way he never had before and I returned the expression. It all happened so fast but it began to rain with lightning flaring up the night sky. But instead of collecting the fireworks we both instinctively lit more up to match the sky. We were out in the middle of an open field lighting off firecrackers in the middle of a heavy thunderstorm which retrospectively was stupid but in that moment made us feel alive. Immortal.

So we lit the last one, a cannonball together and stepped back and it shot up so high it looked like it hit the lightning and we jumped and slid backwards with us falling over each other staring each other in the face. His eyes danced as he said what to do next. Time froze like it had when I was younger but this time the sensation and emotion I felt was not friendly as it was in third grade. It was romance. It was perfect. He touched my hand and the next thing I knew I instinctively wrapped my hand around his jaw and kissed him.

For a split second I panicked at what I had so impulsively done and was about to withdraw until I saw him close his eyes and kiss me back. I couldn’t believe this was happening but didn’t stop myself but at the same time I did not want to admit how right it felt. I didn’t want to think so I continued until the rain let up like a sign it was time for it to end. We walked back without saying a word and didn’t talk to each other for a month. The next time I did see Sam. he was holding the hand of the neighbor that had visited us before with her friends. They were a couple, and I retreated back into my world of toy models and exotic aquarium fish only this time a bit more confused and more grown up than I had left it.

Months later Sam randomly walked up to me when no one else was around asking if we were cool and I said we were. Then said what happened was just being curious and I quickly agreed to silence the tension building. He smiled and patted me on the shoulder like he had the first time and kept it there for a moment. Then he smiled and rejoined his girlfriend who was waiting for him.

We have kept in touch over the years and are still friends and when we talk about this story we refer to it as a nice moment between friends. He and his wife have been happy for over a decade and when the three of us do talk about that time openly we don’t spend hours on end debating if Sam may be gay or bisexual but rather that two people can share a moment like this and it is all it was. People experiment so I don’t want readers to think that there was more to it on his part.

The point of sharing this particular tale is to remind us of even when it doesn’t work out the way we planned that we can appreciate those moments that meant something special to us. Even when it ends abruptly for no reason. Even if the person you shared it with turned out to be someone completely different than you expected. Even if you find out that they don’t feel the same way that you felt. We can always appreciate how it made us feel and how for a little while we felt a dream coming to life. And if we can remember that lesson, we know that taking control and making those dreams is possible so long as we are open to them when the opportunity comes to you. To remember there is always something new when we least expect it.

After all, it was summer

 

Beards, Bisexuals, & Busybodies: The Schematics Of Staying In The Closet

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So today I came across the video that’s making the rounds in the gay community of the remarks made by television host and radio personality Wendy Williams. Known for a very blunt, sometimes crass commentary that seems controversial, today her comments about gay men that date women for years before coming out of the closet illicit a very strong and quite visceral reaction from Williams.

It all started after she was asked about the ex-fiancé of Jason Collins, the NBA player that came out of the closet and sparked a huge debate about being gay and being involved in professional sports. Williams felt that Collins had implied that Collins cheated this woman out of eight years of her life. Known to what many call a beard, or a woman that either knowingly or unknowingly is in a relationship with a gay man that is still in the closet, and in this case, Collins omission about his sexuality was hurtful. That even though the struggles he went through were important, he and any other closeted man should not involve other woman that want to one day have families into that situation.

During this sound bite there was one quote made by Williams that really stuck out for me and I haven’t been able to move past it because it angered it me as it seems so dismissive to what we fear as gay men:

“The one thing that irks the hell out of me is a deceptive closeted closeted man”

To sum it up Williams was making the argument that she was somewhat sympathetic to the plight of men still in the closet and the struggles that it has on an individual but we should know better than to bring someone else into it and deceiving them which results in them losing years of their life. Later on in this candid interview, Williams also inferred to the legitimacy of bisexuality as questionable and that it was not something she.

So is staying in the closet deception? No, I don’t or at least not in the way Williams referenced the term. I’d like to remind Williams that first off, there are no winners in the scenarios of closeted men that chose to be with women but that it is a very delicate subject. Because being in the closet is not only a psychological and emotional dilemma, but can manifest into a physical one as well. The fear of being judged, persecuted, even having your life threatened making you have to constantly be on alert to if anyone around can detect it.

Being in the closet is not about deception as the term is to maliciously withhold information to use against someone. Being in the closet is the time in which we deal with accepting our sexual nature and how society still wants us to conform to some form of heteronormative practices. Its basis has been and will always be about fear. Fear of what judgments can await us from our loved ones, security with our jobs/careers, and those that may try to harm us. This is about protecting ourselves, and in some cases that does mean our very lives.

But we cannot be unsympathetic or dismissive to how it affects the women in these relationships once the man they once believed was straight, a man they once believed desired them sexually, may not have been sexually attracted to her. That she may feel that she was being used as a protective shield around this man’s life all the while whatever dreams she had of commitment and family was not the same schematic blueprint of family that he envisioned. It’s true that he could have had some sexual desire as sex does not always equate to attraction, or that he too wanted to build a family the same way she did and truly wanted to make the relationship work. He may have even loved her but sexual orientation was the thing that made it not work.

And these women have the right to feel sad, hurt, even cheated out of time because in truth that is what has happened. It’s not easy to say but they too are a causality of these circumstances that compels a man to stay in the closet. But I won’t call this deception so much as I see it as two people that were unable to make it work because they are too different. Because this man felt like the only way he could have a family was to subscribe to what our society tells a man how he should act, who he should be sexually attracted to, and who he can love.

This is a touchy subject, but the one thing that I feel Williams and others with opinions like hers need to take into account that instances like this are driven by a deep sense of fear that is sometimes so crippling you do everything in your power to mask any signs of it. One may even begin to convince themselves that you can be sexually attracted to a woman and have sex, that you can build a family, and that you can fall in love until you one day are finally able to see that it is not enough to pretend to believe just to make it so. It’s fear.

Williams also made a snide reference that Collins partner should have been able to pick up on his sexuality, like some animal that is roaming for prey and that frustrated me as well. Because of this busybody mentality, she’s no better than any other bigot shouting slurs at us from across the street. It infers that gay looks or acts a certain way when it does not. Sexual identity is more than any stereotypical paradigm to be identified. And inferences like this puts blame on the woman because it says “she should have known better” when none of this is her fault. So incredulously, Williams insulted the very gender she so flippantly tried to defend.

What would be beneficial in preventing things like this from happening is talking more about our experiences and to stop shaming homosexuality. Comments about the legitimacy of bisexuality don’t help matters at all. It is not about “easing your way into being gay to hold on to some masculinity  It’s biology and the one thing we’ve learned from that is that it is all shades in nature. Just like skin color, sexual identity comes in all different shades with varying degrees.

Williams should also remember that since she herself is a part of the problem as she loves to sensationalize the potential sexuality of some of the celebrities she talks about. She makes endless speculations on whether or not someone is gay adding the note of scandal for her viewers to buy into and she profits from it. She may not know it, but doing this infers that it is somehow wrong and shames the men and women that may be struggling in this situation.

None of this is fair to anyone in the situation. I hope that those of us who are out and proud can show the men and women that are still in the closet, still living in fear that they don’t have to be trapped anymore. That our community is growing with love and support that will stand by them. Hopefully those that make scandals out of homosexuality like Williams can see that they’re only adding to a very difficult situation.

Thoughts On Being Gay In The Workforce

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There are many times when I wonder how being gay will have an impact on other aspects of my life, like future careers. Honestly, I don’t know why the topic would ever come up in a therapy session, as disclosing personal information isn’t done very rarely. Usually, the only times it would even happen is to help a client see that we understand or if I worked in an environment that specialized in LGBT issues (which I would LOVE to do someday). But what about other careers, like a lawyer, a doctor, or an actor? How does that   affect what they’re doing as a profession?

For perspective, here’s Ben Baur, an up and coming actor who is gay as he weighs what being out will mean for his acting career. First, Baur weighed even coming out of the closet:

And therein lay my dilemma. Should I be who I am, Ben Baur, the out-and-proud gay man, or Ben Baur the actor who skirts around the issue of sexuality and plays the pronoun game? 

On the one hand, my sexuality is private and really isn’t anyone else’s business. I want to go to work and do a job that I am passionate about and have that be enough. However, with any measure of attention in this day and age, it’s foolish to think that who an actor is dating is never going to come up.

On the other hand, however, I am completely free to be who I am, but there’s the fear that my career would suffer because of it. Recent tweets/interviews from the likes of Bret Easton Ellis and Rupert Everett have contributed to the message that being an openly gay actor will definitely hurt your career and you will definitely be pigeonholed and typecast.

I can identify with a few of the things he’s talking about. Especially the pronoun game. I was a MASTER at it actually. Hmm…. I’ll write about it so look for that one in a couple of days (probably tomorrow). Anyway, in the end, Baur decided it was more important to live an authentic life and be out. Others like Matt Bomer have done the same.

But what about other careers, fellow readers? I’d love to hear other perspectives on this subject. Sure, it may not be as difficult being out now. There’s even websites dedicated to jobs specifically for LGBT. Some may feel that it’s unnecessary to have such sites, but until LGBT have federal sanctions such as ENDA (Employee Non-Discrimination Act), that would protect LGBT from being fired because of their sexuality, it’s a benefit, not a detriment.

So, please share your experiences in the comments!