LGBTQ+

Photo by Ludovic Bertron from New York City, U.S., CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

I’m not even sure how to categorize this blog post. Let’s just say that I had a straight male friend ask me why I was a supporter of the LGBTQ+ community as if it was something I came to realize much later in life, or something I’d supported longer than a few short years. He found my answer quite interesting.

Now don’t get me wrong, my friend is supportive himself, but he simply wanted to know how I “reached my conclusions” about it, or something like that. And it wasn’t that I reached any particular “conclusions” as it were, I was simply exposed to it and thought nothing of it. It was like “Oh he’s gay? Huh.” in the same vein as “Oh he doesn’t like pineapples? Huh.” Instead of explaining, or straight-splaining, I’ll just tell the story.

Before I begin, I am not going to mention names (or I’ll change them) as some of these names are from my past with people who I have lost touch with, and I have no idea if some of them are out and open. I also may change a few details if I think this will give things away. Besides, as a kid you’d hear rumors about people, and the rumors could be about all kinds of things - Johnny is gay, Billy likes to start fires, Jenny drowned a cat, Shelly loves motorcycles and spends her last dime on them, George’s father beats him and his family - and they all tend to fall into a big lump of maybe. But they’re all still decent people (except Jenny) so regardless of those rumors, they were my friends, so one didn’t think about it a lot. At least I didn’t at the time.

School Age

As a kid growing up I heard all of the slurs against gays. A lot. Most of the use of them really abstracted the whole concept to the point that when I encountered my first gay person, the situation seems to have nothing in common with all of those slurs and derogatory descriptions of various gay acts.

During junior high, I was approached by a friend who asked if I wanted to have sex with him. I told him no, that I preferred girls and was not interested. He blushed and apologized, and said he was sorry, and I told him I simply did not feel right about it for me, but otherwise no big deal. We quickly moved on to discussing other things, and I kind of forgot about the entire episode, at least to the point that even now I can’t remember how he asked me or eluded to the sex thing.

Later on I heard he had approached another friend with the same type of question who got really mad. This insulted friend wanted a group of us to jump him and beat the shit out of him. A couple guys said they would be happy to beat him up, but the rest of us said no. I simply refused, and I asked this guy why didn’t he just say no to having sex with him. That got me beaten up. I simply did not understand why someone couldn’t just say no thanks, I don’t swing that way or whatever.

In high school things seemed to get more real. I knew at least of one teacher that was gay, and two male students that were gay. They were all in the closet as we said back then. There were a pair of girls that were lesbians, or at least bi-sexual, and when they were outed (in an attempt by one of the girls’ ex-boyfriend trying to be malicious) they decided to be open about it. Sure there was some ridicule, but for the most part them holding hands in the hall or during some school assembly really kind of defused the entire thing. The vast majority of people would maybe raise an eyebrow but simply were like “oh well..” and move on.

However the strangest thing was probably the rumor about this guy Fred (not his real name) at another high school that came to school dressed as a girl regularly. I thought that was simply a rumor until I turned 16 and started my job at Dickie’s Fish and Chips, and one of my co-workers went to Fred’s high school. One day I asked him about this Fred guy and it turned out to be true. My co-worker had a class with him, and even relayed a long story about how our respective high schools had some big game and after the game some football players from my high school’s team were threatening to beat up Fred who was in attendance dressed in women’s clothes, but my co-worker’s football team members physically stepped in to protect him.

Interestingly, my later-in-life wife Kim had also attended that high school and not only knew Fred, but would often accompany him to help pick out makeup and whatnot, teaching him how to apply it, and gave advice on clothing choices. And even though it was the late 70s, Kim told me that Fred’s parents were quite supportive, and as a high school graduation present they paid for the transition surgery. I only knew Fred’s deadname, never learned what happened in her life after that. I hope she has had a good life.

the Family

My family growing up was certainly exposed to gay culture although for a long time we were not aware of it. My dad had two siblings that were gay. My Aunt Pauline was a lesbian, even stereo-typically in many regards, as was my Uncle Jim. As kids we didn’t know this. We did know that my dad’s siblings were very much in their hilarious element when around each other – I think that in many ways this was because they could be themselves around each other during a time when being open with their sexuality wasn’t accepted.

My Uncle Jim had a “roommate” that myself and my siblings were introduced to at a family gathering as “Uncle Bart”. I do remember that we were all gathering at my grandmother’s house, and my aunts told me and my siblings to all run up and start yelling “Daddy! Daddy!” to Uncle Jim when he and Uncle Bart stepped out of the car upon their arrival. I also remember my aunts laughing hysterically and Uncle Jim smiling and shaking his head at my aunts, but also appreciating the joke.

Aunt Pauline’s “roommate” was “Aunt Sissy”. In a classic scenario, they had met ages ago in a convent where they were going to be nuns but coincidentally left at the same time and decided to become roommates, or at least that was the story my mother told me. Aunt Sissy was more gentle-natured and a gifted painter, while Aunt Pauline wore the stereotypical butch hairstyle, loved woodworking and built a lot of things when she wasn’t doing landscaping or other large-scale projects around their shared home.

In my late teens or early adult years, I remember my mother telling either me by myself or me and one or more of my siblings that she needed to tell us something about Uncle Jim. Based on the nature of her embarrassment at having to discuss something, the immediate feedback she got before she could say anything was “Is this about Uncle Jim being gay?” She looked shocked and surprised, especially since I told her “yeah we all know and have known a long time.” Truthfully I don’t really recall the exact moment myself and my siblings discussed it or came to the conclusion, but it seemed obvious and was just accepted as normal.

I do remember when I figured out my Aunt Pauline and Aunt Sissy were lesbians. The band I was in moved to Portland, Oregon and had lived with our band managers who were themselves a pair of lesbians. They were like a married couple with their quirks and whatnot which we experienced up front and personal as we were a three-piece band of guys living in a two-bedroom apartment with two gals so we were all in each other’s business pretty much constantly. After the failed attempt at regional success, we were going to road trip back to Tulsa, and along the way we stopped in Wichita, Kansas where Pauline and Sissy lived.

This was the first time I was ever with the two of them when they were not around my grandmother or my dad. And we saw some of the same relationship dynamics we had experienced in Portland playing out in front of us in Wichita, in fact we saw this almost immediately. I don’t know if we just “vibed” or what, but almost instantly the five of us seemed to let down barriers and just be ourselves. I remember instantly thinking to myself “Of course! They’re lesbians, it is completely obvious and they seem to be the embodiment of every lesbian stereotype ever. Why didn’t I see this?” After we left and continued heading back to Tulsa, my bandmates were asking me why I didn’t mention my cool aunts were lesbians. I told them that this was the first time I had been around them away from my parents and grandmother, and relayed my mental revelation. I found out later my siblings had figured it out well before I had.

Tulsa

In the early 80s, Tulsa was a weird place. There were strong divides between what I’d guess one might call left and right, but it seemed more rooted in two subdivisions - religious vs non-religious, and white vs non-white. But probably the weirdest thing about Tulsa (and Oklahoma in general) at that time was the gay community. It seemed to grow in leaps and bounds in the late 70s and early 80s to the point that Tulsa supposedly had at that time the second highest per-capita rate of gays in the nation - second only to San Francisco. Tulsa had a long history of openly gay bars, but I mainly remember a very popular gay club back then called Zippers that many of us frequented.

Every gay bar I knew of in Tulsa had mixed clientele, and Zippers was no exception. Friday and Saturday nights were mainly when I had attended, and during the earlier parts of the evening the clientele seemed to be half straight and half gay. I remember the signs on the restroom doors said Men and Women but these were largely ignored and one would simply go into the one with the shortest line.

Why did we go to these bars? We originally went one night because a friend of a friend said he went, pretended to be bisexual but mainly gay and would try to talk lesbians into “experimental” sex with him. My friends wanted to go and I went along since I had the working car. Well, either this friend of a friend was lying or just some kind of sex con man as no one in my group even attempted to get a lesbian to have sex with them, but it didn’t matter - we arrived and had a blast. Yes I was asked multiple times by various guys if they could buy me a drink, to which I replied “just so you know, I’m straight.” Half the time they’d be like “what the hell, I’ll buy you one anyway” and I’d end up meeting their friends and we’d do the usual - drink, complain about some aspect of our lives like our jobs or the price of rent, and tell goofy funny stories. I’d often be introduced during these moments like “his name is Mark, and warning - he’s a breeder” and they’d all exaggeratedly groan and then laugh. Total fun crowd.

The sound system there was one of the best I’ve ever heard - easily the best at that time. It was mainly loud on the dance floor, in fact quite loud, but adjusted so it was not harsh on the ears at all. In the rest of the club it was not so loud that you couldn’t have a conversation. The drinks were strong, the clientele was inviting, inclusive, non-judgmental, and simply just a friendly lot overall. I visited many bars back then, and quite a few gay bars mixed in, and I have to say this is probably the only club from back then whose name I actually remember. It was that good.

After fast food and early tech jobs, I ended up working for the Sabre Travel Information Network aka STIN, which at the time was a division of AMR, the holding company of American Airlines. The travel industry has long had a well-deserved reputation of hiring heavily from the gay community, and STIN was certainly no exception to this. Starting in Tulsa and eventually transferring to live in Arlington working in Fort Worth, my time at STIN did nothing but solidify my thoughts about the gay community. To me, it seemed no different that let’s say knowing someone that was left-handed. Sure, most people were right-handed but one never thought less of a person that was left-handed, you just accepted it and treated them the same as anyone else. And they treated you the same.

Did we ever make fun of them? Of course! We’re all people, and we’d all rib each other about aspects of each other’s lives. I’d make jokes about some of the gay stereotypes and they’d make jokes right back about straight stereotypes and we’d all laugh. You know how your group of work friends tease Sheila about her weird hair color? Bob’s habit of over-cleaning his desk and having a drawer full of hand sanitizer? That. Exact same thing. Basically that thing all people do. And we all defended each other. Everyone was friends, everyone stuck up for one another, and if we encountered homophobia or racism or sexism we’d all band together as people.

tECH World

I think another part of this was the tech industry. Early on in tech it seemed gay culture was more readily accepted, although I am not exactly sure as I don’t have any real scientific data to back that up. I had friends that worked in other industries and if the topic of gay co-workers came up they’d report on a strict hetereo emphasis at work, including heavy usage of gay slurs – which at my places of employment was simply not ever heard.

Things like Queercon that happens during DEF CON is an example of this. I had heard from more than one person in the gay community that Queercon started as a gay orgy at Pool 2 on Saturday Night when DEF CON was held at Alexis Park. Actually maybe it started before then, but every gay person I knew that went to those Alexis Park DEF CONs referred to this orgy event as Queercon.

More than once I had attended a security conference somewhere and when it came time for some afterparty at a bar and there was a DJ or something, there would be dancing, and the males that wanted to dance usually wore out the unfortunately few female attendees on the dance floor as they were asked over and over again. And it certainly did not matter if they were trans or gay or whatever – they’d get asked just as much. I’ve danced on a dance floor at an afterparty with straight people of both genders, trans, gay, anyone and everyone – it didn’t matter.

I feel like I’ve been fortunate, probably more fortunate than most in that I’ve been exposed to the gay community for so long that it was easily accepted to the point that I didn’t even think about it. That is my long-winded explanation to my friend why I’m an advocate. And truthfully I don’t even feel like advocate is the right word. There are some people who wear the term “advocate” like one who is purposely trying to be something they are not for someone who is lesser than they are. So I’d like to say I am simply supportive of my fellow human beings, especially when someone treats them less than who they really are for no other reason than they’re different in some slight way - be that culturally, racially, or sexually.