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documents. Of course you’re working with people, sizing up
their needs, their agendas, but there isn’t the same level of subjective
judgment and analysis that Roslyn’s job requires. In addition, the “product”
that Roslyn comes out with will change every day, shifting with every client.
At the end of every day I’ll come up with pretty much the same thing that I
came up with the day before.
With her background, Roslyn was busy scrutinizing,
analyzing what was happening with Andrew, trying to figure out how we should
cope with it.
I just looked at it as a reality. That’s the way
it is, now let’s get on with our lives. Move ahead.
And if you’d asked me then, I’d have told you
we’d taken all the sexuality-based trauma that could be dished out to one
family.
I would have been wrong.
Chapter
3
Coming
To Terms
DOUG
1960-1991
DOUG My own memories of coming out
are, alternately, excruciating and mystifying... agonizing in the piecemeal
pace of my growing self-awareness and mystifying in the lengths to which I’d go
to willfully ignore the truth. No doubt there were many pivotal moments that
shaped my experience of coming out that I don’t remember at all, and perhaps
the experiences that I do remember aren’t recalled with pinpoint accuracy. But
as with Andrew’s coming out story, maybe it’s the way I’ve filtered the key
moments, rather than any definitive fact, that has shaped who I am.
For me, the clues started arriving early. In
fact, my first attraction to men dates back nearly as far as my memory itself.
At four years old, I remember watching westerns and perking up whenever the
shirtless Indians were onscreen; then curling up on the couch with
“Professional” wrestling (yes, wrestling was on TV thirty years ago, and even
this four year old could have told you it was every bit as phony back then).
Several years later, I remember greeting a nine year old friend who had come by
our house on his way back from a football game. The smell of sweat, grass and
something else indefinable, all wafted through my screen door on that sticky
summer afternoon, stirring an irrepressible craving in my gut. Like most gay
kids, though, I couldn’t fathom quite what I was supposed to do about
any of it.
No doubt, I was “different” in a dozen ways.
Admittedly, I was a cliché gay child. Listening to cast recordings of too many
Broadway shows, shying away from most sports, afraid of the ball. I wrote
poetry, played piano... You get the picture.
There are countless kids who grow up gay without
any of these giveaways, boys who make the football team and conform to all of
society’s expectations. And childhood may be a whole lot easier for them - on
the surface, anyway. I’ll never forget a story told by an old roommate. He had
been a languid, light-footed teen, growing up in Memphis, when a girl came up
to him at recess in front of a big group of kids, and announced, real loud,
“Honey, it sure shows on you!”
Well, you could say my entire adolescent
experience was like a visceral version of that encounter. Someone was always
letting me know, with a kick, a taunt, a jeer, it showed on me. And,
like chicks establishing order, I was getting pecked mercilessly, relentlessly,
nearly to death. Hardly a day went by during my three years of junior high that
I didn’t pray for the courage to kill myself. What is it they say about
unanswered prayers?
As a result, when I hear today’s debate about
discussing homosexuality in school, the fear that it will teach students that
gays and lesbians are regular people, it rouses mighty, righteous indignation
left from some ancient scars that will never heal. When you grow up facing fear
and loathing on a daily basis, broad societal issues have a way of becoming
inextricably linked with individual trauma. This is how, for me, the political
has become forever personal.
One day, I carried home another wrecked piece of
clothing. This one, a jacket, was written
their needs, their agendas, but there isn’t the same level of subjective
judgment and analysis that Roslyn’s job requires. In addition, the “product”
that Roslyn comes out with will change every day, shifting with every client.
At the end of every day I’ll come up with pretty much the same thing that I
came up with the day before.
With her background, Roslyn was busy scrutinizing,
analyzing what was happening with Andrew, trying to figure out how we should
cope with it.
I just looked at it as a reality. That’s the way
it is, now let’s get on with our lives. Move ahead.
And if you’d asked me then, I’d have told you
we’d taken all the sexuality-based trauma that could be dished out to one
family.
I would have been wrong.
Chapter
3
Coming
To Terms
DOUG
1960-1991
DOUG My own memories of coming out
are, alternately, excruciating and mystifying... agonizing in the piecemeal
pace of my growing self-awareness and mystifying in the lengths to which I’d go
to willfully ignore the truth. No doubt there were many pivotal moments that
shaped my experience of coming out that I don’t remember at all, and perhaps
the experiences that I do remember aren’t recalled with pinpoint accuracy. But
as with Andrew’s coming out story, maybe it’s the way I’ve filtered the key
moments, rather than any definitive fact, that has shaped who I am.
For me, the clues started arriving early. In
fact, my first attraction to men dates back nearly as far as my memory itself.
At four years old, I remember watching westerns and perking up whenever the
shirtless Indians were onscreen; then curling up on the couch with
“Professional” wrestling (yes, wrestling was on TV thirty years ago, and even
this four year old could have told you it was every bit as phony back then).
Several years later, I remember greeting a nine year old friend who had come by
our house on his way back from a football game. The smell of sweat, grass and
something else indefinable, all wafted through my screen door on that sticky
summer afternoon, stirring an irrepressible craving in my gut. Like most gay
kids, though, I couldn’t fathom quite what I was supposed to do about
any of it.
No doubt, I was “different” in a dozen ways.
Admittedly, I was a cliché gay child. Listening to cast recordings of too many
Broadway shows, shying away from most sports, afraid of the ball. I wrote
poetry, played piano... You get the picture.
There are countless kids who grow up gay without
any of these giveaways, boys who make the football team and conform to all of
society’s expectations. And childhood may be a whole lot easier for them - on
the surface, anyway. I’ll never forget a story told by an old roommate. He had
been a languid, light-footed teen, growing up in Memphis, when a girl came up
to him at recess in front of a big group of kids, and announced, real loud,
“Honey, it sure shows on you!”
Well, you could say my entire adolescent
experience was like a visceral version of that encounter. Someone was always
letting me know, with a kick, a taunt, a jeer, it showed on me. And,
like chicks establishing order, I was getting pecked mercilessly, relentlessly,
nearly to death. Hardly a day went by during my three years of junior high that
I didn’t pray for the courage to kill myself. What is it they say about
unanswered prayers?
As a result, when I hear today’s debate about
discussing homosexuality in school, the fear that it will teach students that
gays and lesbians are regular people, it rouses mighty, righteous indignation
left from some ancient scars that will never heal. When you grow up facing fear
and loathing on a daily basis, broad societal issues have a way of becoming
inextricably linked with individual trauma. This is how, for me, the political
has become forever personal.
One day, I carried home another wrecked piece of
clothing. This one, a jacket, was written
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