Brenner on Penn coming-out stories

From: bbthomas@sas.upenn.edu (John B Thomas)
Message-Id: <200102040052.f140qGj22131@mail1.sas.upenn.edu>
Subject: this is a W.H, Fellows Seminar Special Report...
To: whseminar@dept.english.upenn.edu
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2001 19:52:16 -0500 (EST)

Below are the fragmented interviews of two gay men. They have been pieced 
and parsed out according to what I have considered relevant, or 
informative, or interesting in their stories. Editing is a subjective 
enterprise, I hope I haven't butchered their realities too horribly. 
What's here is more my attempts to elicit what the "gay experience" is 
like; I asked the questions, shaped their stories, and thus the 
representations here are limited. As it is clear below, the men represent 
two very different points in the continuum of that experience. Despite 
their differences I hope there might be points of contact; in those 
perhaps the truer things about being gay may be registered.   
Brenner Thomas
 	My first interview was with "James," a sophomore at Penn who for 
reasons of privacy will be referred to under the aforementioned alias. He 
has come out to himself and to those closest to him only within the last 
year. It's been difficult. When I met him a year ago he had trouble 
saying the word "gay" at all. The fact that he was willing to do this 
interview, even anonymously, signifies both his struggle to progress and 
his courage. 

              I am the boy that can enjoy invisibility
					James Joyce
						Ulysses
 BT: "How do you identify yourself at this point?"

James: "Sexuality wise?"

BT: "Yeah"

James: "Gay"

 BT: "When did that realization come about?"

James: "I guess I started realizing something probably in eighth grade, 
but I denied to myself. I tried to suppress, and I didn't really fully 
admit to myself until like a year ago maybe.

BT: "So eighth grade to freshman year in college is a good hunk of time. 
What did you do with those feelings?"

James: "I tried to suppress them, I felt guilty about them for a long time."

BT: "There's a lot internalized homophobia that we grow up learning, 
we're taught that heterosexuality is the only way to do things, and 
anything else makes you a social deviant. Do you remember feeling social 
pressure to date girls and go through the motions, or talking the talk?"

James:" I definitely felt pressure to, but I never did. I went t o small 
school, so people didn't really date that much. I kind of got lucky that 
way. I remember freshman in high school year that some guys had some 
magazine with Tyra Banks in it, and they were all talking about how hot 
she was, and nobody asked me what I thought. I always wondered what 
people thought of me.

BT: "Did your lack of participation arouse suspicion? A lot of gay teens 
have horrible experiences in high school, verbal abuse, physical abuse. 
Did you get any of that?"

James: "No, none of that. There were people that suspected, some girls, 
but like they encouraged it. It wasn't hostile"

BT:    "There was just inner conflict"

James: "Yeah"

BT: "So it' been about a year since you've given what you're sexuality a 
name?"

James: "There's been a lot of progress"

                 "I can handle the pressure, I am a gay man and I am used 
to pressure."
                                                                Tony Kushner
                                                                             Angels in America: Part I, p. 117.

BT:  "You're also in a fraternity, which isn't really an easy environment 
to be gay in. How has that affected your coming out process? What's like 
for you now?"

James:  "I can't really say, but I think it's more difficult. I feel like 
the brothers are pretty closed-minded. I don't think that's unique to our 
house. During rush actually some guys were talking about how we should 
get the house more diverse, and someone was like, "except for sexuality". 
Stuff like that happens all the time."

BT: "Sounds like it's pretty hostile"

James: "Oh yeah, I hear like faggot used casually every day, everybody 
has derogatory names for everybody else that involve being gay. Last 
night even during bid signing we were waiting in the chapter room for the 
pledges and some guy next to me was said something about me being gay. He 
said, "oh well you're gay right?" and I just said yeah. He knows I was 
joking around, but people say that kind of stuff to me all the time. It 
definitely bothers me."

BT: "Have you told anyone in your fraternity?"

James: "Yeah, I've told my roommate. He thinks I'm experimenting. He 
hasn't really confronted it; we don't talk about it. He can't even say 
the word."

BT: "Have they been giving you any support? Do feel like there's anyone 
talk to about the homophobia you have to put up with on a day to day basis"

James: "I've talked about it to my roommate some. But he'll still say 
that's "gay" or whatever"

BT:   "That type of talk is so engrained in people's vernacular. 
Homophobia is so part of the way that people think, it 's astounding." 

                           "Looking for home"
                                         Tony Kushner
                                                  Longstanding Problems, 
p. 10

BT: "How do you feel about the frat given where you are with your sexuality?"

James:  "There's two ways to go about it. I can either live my life the 
way I live it, or I can go start announcing it to people. I much more 
tempted living my life, though some people would 
think that dishonest. I mean the guys that have the most problem with it 
are they guys I don't deal with anyway. So I'm letting their reaction 
affect how I live my life."

BT: "Have you been, have you gotten the chance to go out in the gay 
community at all, to tap into that, and surround yourself with people 
like you? Do you feel like you need a community?"

James: "I haven't really done anything. I guess the only option would be 
going to the QSA meeting, I really have no desire to do that. I've heard 
negative things about the meetings as well. I mean I'd like to have gay 
friends, but I wouldn't pick my friends based on that. I would definitely 
like to me people, but I don't know where to start really.

BT: "Do you think that gay people can have fully realized, can be happy, 
successful, lead fulfilled lives?"

James: "Yeah, I mean it sounds terrible, but probably"

BT: "No just be honest"

James: "I think, I hope so, I honestly don't know. It's more difficult 
certainly"

BT:" Do your parents know? You told them a couple months ago right?"

James: "Yeah. I was shocked at how little reaction they had, um but then, 
they say that I shouldn't tell people, because straight people don't go 
around announcing it. But um, I was talking to my brother, they told me I 
should tell him, and he said that they were cool with it."

BT: "Sounds fairly positive. There's always that period of adjustment. 
It's taken my parents 7 years to even broach the subject of my sex-life 
in a positive way. Their comfort level is always being challenged. "

BT: "How do you feel about your sexuality now? What problems do you 
foresee, what goals, if any?" 

James: "I'm happy where I am internally. I'm just unsure of where I'm 
going. There's a lot of fear, a lot that I just place on myself."

BT: "what is the nature of that fear, is it the fear of rejection?"

James:" I don't know where it comes from, I guess its about not being 
accepted. I don't understand how someone could treat you differently, but 
on the other hand, I do understand, because my own friend came out to me 
recently and I felt so uncomfortable, I was scared of.I don't know him 
hitting on me or something. I was initially suspicious"

BT: "Are you weary of falling into stereotypes, of becoming those a 
"stereotypical gay man" whatever that is? Is that a concern?"

James: " I was a lot more worried before, but honestly I think am 
homophobic against those guys who are extremely effeminate."

BT: "Part of Kushner's vision is that the struggle for gay rights 
parallel to those of other minorities and that there should be some type 
of connection there, and his vision is very inclusive or all oppressed 
people. I know a lot of gay people that don't feel that their sexuality 
does not affect their political alliances?"

James: "I guessed I've been more sensitized. But it's different because 
race or gender is visual. But no one knows if you're gay. You can be 
invisible." 

"To need to be invisible, or to feel that you need be, if there is a 
reason for that fear, is to be discriminated against."
Tony Kushner, Longstanding Problems
                                                                                                                        Tony Kushner
                                                                                                                             Longstanding Problems p.26


 *************************************************************************************	
	

Jay Wahl is in a very different stage with his sexuality. Coming out at 
17 to what he describes as a very "pro-gay family," Jay has been able to 
reach a place of acceptance and awareness at a young age, though not 
without trial. He is currently the head of Penn's Queer Student Alliance 
(QSA), and is very active in Penn's Queer community. He is outspoken, 
out-going, unapologetic, and forgiving, a bit like I imagine Kushner to be.

"Mothers and fathers shouldgive [their children] fire, and link them 
proudly durably to the world in which they live."
Tony Kushner
Longstanding Problems, p. 4.


BT: "When did you come out"? 

Jay:  "I was 17 years old. And I was dating this boy. My mother new were 
dating, and she asked what was going on, and I said, "Were dating," and 
she said, "what does that mean?" and I said, " I don't know, what do you 
think that means. And that was the whole conversation. Once that in the 
open, she asked me again, she asked again what this meant, and I said, 
"Oh, I think it means that I'm gay." And she was like, "Oh, okay." 

BT: "It sounds like your coming out wasn't a stressful event."

Jay:  "Things really weren't stressful until a year and half later and I 
moved to New York. I was living the life of Rent. My parents hadn't seen 
this part of gay lifestyle. It worried them. Because my sister and aunt 
are lesbians but they are like."

BT:  "They were straight-laced"

Jay:  "Well, my sister went to med. school. You know she has a doctorate, 
so me hanging out in the Village with drag queens wasn't quite what my 
parents were used to, but they got over it, it just took awhile for them 
to realize I wasn't self-destructing."

BT: "It seems that there are different levels of acceptance"

Jay: "That was part of it. They just hadn't been exposed to it. But I was 
lucky. I was blessed with this understanding family and yet my mother 
will say, "okay, you can be gay, but you can be have to marry Jewish, or 
you can be gay, but you have to have children." But it never really 
mattered to them."

"I think that there is a way in which people take hatred and transform it 
into some kind of style that is profoundly movingbecause it shows 
people's enormous capacity, or the enormous power of the imagination to 
transform suffering into something powerful and great."
 									
Tony Kushner						                     Conversation,p.75

BT: "Did you have any trouble in high school? You know the usual crap gay 
kids have to deal with"
	
Jay:  "Well we moved from Florida to Pennsylvania my junior year in high 
school and I was the only new kid they had in like 10 years, it was 
bizarre I was already different and I was new and that was odd. And I 
dressed as a Floridian, Now I never knew this was an issue, but in 
Florida we wear colors, ya know, like its okay to wear greens, and blues, 
and yellows. Ya know it's tropical. Well this was wrong in Radnor: you 
wear black and navy blue and that's it. Already the new kid in weird 
clothing, so I was screwed from the get-go.  I was made fun of. Being gay 
didn't help. But the football team calling me gay never really bothered 
me. It wasn't insulting, because they were right. I knew. I just blew it 
off in a positive way; I recognized that they were ignorant."

BT: "It seems like you were able to maintain a healthy perspective all 
the way through. Ya know a lot of gay kids get a lot of hell, and leave 
high school hating themselves"

Jay: "Well I did get in one fight. I was 14 and I was talking to this 
girl, and her boyfriend came up and hit me because he thought I was 
hitting on her, and called me "faggot" and I was like "doesn't he 
recognize the irony here." I mean if I was gay then what's the deal? But 
that was the worst of it."

Jay: "When I got to college, I met this boy and I was enamored and we 
started dating. But that's where I learned about homophobia, from him, he 
was the most homophobic person I ever met"

BT: "What was that like?"

Jay: "It was horrible, the worst. We spent all this time together and I 
had no idea what was going on with us. He said that he wanted to start 
dating, but that if I told anyone, he would kill himself."

BT: "Was he serious?"

Jay: "Completely. I had to protect him from the world. It got worse and 
worse. He tried to tell me he wasn't gay. I had to lie and argue, and 
defend this guy from all the suspicion.  It was obscene. It was really 
that six months of his homophobia and self-loathing that really taught me 
that when I came out that I never wanted to be like that. That was the 
most shaping experience in my self-identity. It was brutal.
	


"Our suffering teaches solidarity or it should." 
                                         Tony Kushner
                                              Longstanding Problems, p.32.

Jay: "I think we all have the power, if we can be involved"

BT: "Yeah just being gay and public is a political gesture"

Jay: "Just being open and not necessarily loud can make a difference. 
Just exposure"

BT: "What has the environment been like at Penn for you? Coming out at 
Penn, being out at Penn, or because of your involvement with the QSA 
(Queer Student Alliance) what the administration is like? "

Jay: "Penn has this really weird dichotomy. Because administratively it's 
really easy to be out at Penn. There are organizations, and no 
discrimination in application process or whatever. On the other hand, the 
kind of families that students are coming from, upper middle class or 
whatever, where they're coming from is difficult. I don't see that it is 
easy to come out here if you're really homophobic. Like if you're dealing 
with yourself. 
The other problem is that I think the gay community doesn't come out and 
work harder to raise awareness. Because there's no fight, there's no 
political fight at Penn, we have all of our rights administratively, 
there's nothing to fight for. Nobody feels repressed if you're gay here. 
We have lots of opportunity to learn about sexuality through coursework 
or community resources or whatever. And because of that it's hard to 
mobilize people that would otherwise mobilize around an anti-gay policy. 
We would all bind together and rally and march and the whole bit. So 
instead, people are apathetic or scared, and the meet each other on the 
Internet. 

BT: "Sex for the mutually repressed"

Jay: "People who are caught in this cycle of anonymous hookups, and they 
don't really address their homosexuality at all, and are genuinely scared 
of people who are out and active in the community. It seems that these 
groups aren't meeting, ya know the people who need the support most are 
stuck on the Internet.

BT: "That seems to be a really good assessment. And how much do you think 
of that, of people not feeling like they can come out is a result of a 
homophobic student body?"

Jay: "I'm always out in my classes, to the people I meet. I never feel 
like I have to censor myself. People have been encouraging. 

BT: "There seems to be a lot of homophobia in the fraternity system. 
That's been my experience."

Jay: "Well, as homosexuality becomes more acceptable, I think that the 
frats become more homophobic. A group a guys that live together all of a 
sudden have to defend their sexuality. That never happened before. Gay 
people threaten that institution. It's ridiculous."

BT:  "It's a really insecure way to look at homosexuality"

Jay: "That's right. They have nothing to worry about, if they just opened 
their eyes and dealt with it. But their backgrounds won't allow them too. 
And I don't think Penn does much to stretch people from their 
backgrounds. They have all this diversity stuff, but there's not a lot 
cross-cultural talk. I would love to get the QSA to get something with a 
fraternity. We really need to reach that population of Penn. "


Jay: "I wasn't involved the gay-lesbian student organization at the U. 
Delaware. I was terrified of it. I didn't see the need to do that. I 
didn't understand the need to proclaim it. I didn't what a powerful thing 
it is to be out. The same thing here with a lot of gay students at Penn. 
People flip out that I represent this "queer entity" at Penn. Being 
political scares a lot of people"

BT: "It has to do with levels of acceptance. People can accept being gay 
at rhetorical level, but being public about it is a whole other ball of wax"

Jay: "The problem with Penn people, is that these aren't' active thinking 
people. These are people who worked hard in high school and now want a 
career. There's no rule breaking there. Not a school for radical thinking 
people. It's even hard to mobilize people that are out. Where is 
everyone? There are people who don't need the group; it's meaningless to 
them. Makes it difficult to increase awareness. "

BT: "What do you think about Gay conservatives? Kushner thinks that the 
gay rights movement is indivisible from other minority movements, gender, 
race, what have you.  It's an all-encompassing vision. How do you account 
for a lot of people in the gay community supporting Conservatives, or 
saying that hey I'm gay, but that doesn't necessarily affect my politics? 
Is there a contradiction there?

Jay: "Alignment of minority groups is a very true statement. A struggle 
for civil rights is a struggle for civil rights and if you believe in 
civil rights you believe in civil rights for everyone. Unfortunately, it 
s a very ethereal thing, its not very visceral. Gay men will accept for 
themselves even if it was piecemeal. It's a problem. 
	People are conditioned to understand society in terms of what is part of 
society and what isn't. People are only really concerned with getting 
their group involved. It's selfish. There are women's movements who don't 
include lesbians. It's ridiculous. Nobody stops and looks behind them. No 
one says whom else can we include. It's the easiest path of resistance. 
Some people want to keep the government out of their bedroom. It depends 
on your political argument. Its not hypocritical it's just shortsighted. 
It's easier to fit in with a don't-ask-don't-tell-policy. If we don't 
tell people, we don't exist. Kushner's idea as all minority struggles are 
analagous, of course they are, but not everybody is viewing their own 
sexuality in terms of that."

BT: "Kushner might say, and perhaps where you guys would differ, is that 
he would say that those people are being irresponsible"

Jay: "I think they are being irresponsible because they are being 
ignorant. I don't think it hurts the cause, because gay people don't 
agree on anything. I don't know. I think that maybe everyone should come 
out. Everybody in Kansas, everywhere. 

             "Our unhappiness as scared queer children doesn't only 
isolate us, it politicizes us."
                                                                                                  Tony Kushner
								
Longstanding Problems, 32.