This is the place for commentary.
For now it is ours but if you let us know yours we might
include that as well.
Dialogue. Communicate. Telling our stories.
At this site you can pretty much go wherever you want.
Just say what you think. We will.
Four/August 20TRUE COLORS
When we look around we sometimes wonder if things really are changing.
We still see many gay men we know playing the game of in and out of the closet. Sometimes in, sometimes out. When it seems dangerous or unpleasant in we go again. When we are feeling better or braver, out we come. We are not talking about the times when sheer survival means keeping our mouths shut. We are talking about the everyday things--Mom and Pop, the kid's teacher, or new on the job. We are talking about the things that come naturally like what we did this weekend, are we married, and did we hear the latest fag joke.
Sometimes though issues demand our true colors. These are the ones that transcend how we live our lives and what we decide to say about our orientation. The one issue that comes to mind is this: If we stay in the closet, even part of the time, how do we ever expect the young gay men to find their way? If those teenagers struggling to understand their gay nature have no one to look to for guidance, no one to be a model, where will they go for help?
Unfortunately many turn to death. As gay men we cannot justify any reason for not being out in the face of our young brothers killing themselves. They desperately need to see us working and being a family and loving. We must stand for what we know to be our rightful place so the youth can learn from us. As it is, many of us are learning from the youth who have survived. But what about the youth who haven't survived.
There has been some talk lately that maybe the high suicide rate of gay teens has been overstated and misplaced. But even if you take the statistics and reduce them for larger margins of error, there are still gay youth killing themselves.
A recent study from Massachusetts surveyed high school students. (The response rates in this study were high and the researchers suggest that we can think of the study as being a microcosm for things nationwide.) They found that students who identified themselves as gay or had same sex sexual contact were four times more likely to have attempted suicide when compared to peers, five times more likely to have missed school, and five times more likely to have used cocaine. The study showed that 36.5% GLB students attempted suicide (compared to 8.9% other students), 62.1% smoked (compared to 35.2% for other students), 28.8% were threatened with a weapon at school in the past year (compared to 6.7% for other students).Whatever explanation you give to these results, we still have a major problem.
It is interesting that there are two major groups in this country in a position to help gay teens. And both are failing. First the Boy Scouts. There has been much waffling on whether it is a don't ask, don't tell situation or something much more devious. But anyone who has been involved in Scouting knows that homosexuality is only discussed with regard to molestation and there is never any discussion of gay men providing good moral leadership for the boys. Stories abound of good leaders being ousted because they are gay. Some have even gone to the courts. There is such potential for the kind of model gay youth need in the Scouting movement and yet that organization is completely closed and homophobic. The second group that is just as egregious in their lack of leadership are the churches. Mainstream churches are still embroiled about where to properly place homosexuals while down in fellowship hall, the needs of gay youth are being ignored.
Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, brave, reverent.
We would close this conversation with the most heartfelt and compelling argument for gay men to be out for our youth. We received the following from a gay man in Des Moines. We had been talking about the film Beautiful Thing and here is what he wrote. True story from one among us.
"...saw Beautiful Thing last evening. It moved me to tears. When I was 15, my best friend made a pass at me. I responded exactly like the boy [in the movie] who said 'keep your hands off me you fucking queer.' That was in the spring of 1972. Tom, my friend, killed himself two days later by shooting himself in the head in his basement. No one knew why but me. Made for a long road, one I have just begun coming to terms with. These stories need to be told. Our children need to understand this road. The public needs to understand this road."
Amen
Three/August 1A READER WRITES
[We got this note from Dr. Chapler in Pittsburg and she agreed to let us post it. She wrote in response to comment ONE below. Nice to know someone is reading us!]
"I just found your page. Great stuff. I lived in IC from '70 to '90 (age 10 to 30)...great place to grow up bisexual but still tough. i used to think, once i got older (you know, 20s), that iowa city really sucked and all the gays were superficial assholes.......then i moved to pittsburgh......it's the same here.....it 's the same with straight folks....we HAVE made it, we ARE just like everybody else! remember, there are great, quality people in every part of society...we just have to find them and get to know them.
Suzi Chapler, M.D.
Pittsburgh, PA
Two/June 10
PRIDEFUL
This week is one of feeling good about being gay, getting some reinforcement from numbers. This year we can't help but think about how things have changed even in the past year. Good films about gays. Famous people coming out. Stories in the mainstream press. It seems like more often than not the stories are just news stories about a topic relating to gays and is less encumbered with sensational tones and emotional rhetoric than in the past.
But for us, some of the most encouragement comes from the past. If you missed the Quire concert on Saturday in Cedar Rapids or Sunday in Iowa City, you really missed out. (Mark your calendar to search our page for the Quire concerts coming up in the next year.) For those who don't know, the Quire is Iowa City's gay, lesbian, transgendered chorus. Their performance was quality music infused with something very special that comes from being able to stand up publicly, unafraid and sing about struggle and love and honor.
As we sat in the special quiet of a church and watched as this group of gay men and women streamed in, something very important happened. A feeling of unity overwhelmed us. Our diverse group comes together with a single purpose. And to do it with song took the message into the dimension of spiritual and emotional. It touched the heart. It brought tears of joy and hope to our eyes. We were proud to be part of the struggle, proud to be friends of people with such a fine sense of music, proud to be out and unafraid. We think it will be hard to top the experience with speeches and parades and fun times. The feeling there transcended all the politics.
For us, the music was it. Much of the music that the Quire shared with us was anthems and rallying cries from other struggles from the past--freedom songs from South Africa, Black Spirituals with connections to civil rights fights, and songs from the women's movement. We sat there hearing about other beaten down groups and felt a connection that gave us such hope. Quire director Rick Yramategui wrote in the program "The struggle for liberation has a history and there are important lessons to be learned and allies to be made by remembering and honoring the struggle of other communities for freedom and justice. " The Quire put us in touch with those communities and made us realize we really are not alone in our struggle and that for gays too there is hope.
Thanks Quire.
A GAY COMMUNITY
We all know that Iowa City has a reputation. Among conservatives it is that hotbed of liberalism. Throughout the state we are often explained away with "Well, what can expect. That's Iowa City." We have an amazing reputation worldwide on a variety of fronts--amazing when you realize how small Iowa City is. The Utne Reader just named us one of the best places in America. You can easily run into someone in a distant city with some working knowledge of Iowa City. We even remember being asked in Des Moines once about the reputation of the hot adult video stores here.
We think that there also is a view outside of here that it is a good place to be gay. To be sure, it is much better to be gay here than many other places. There is the level of tolerance. There are numbers of gays. There are university and city assurances of our rights. There are activities and events and performances and readings by and for gay people.
But a recurring theme keeps popping up whenever we gather in groups of two or more--where is the community of gay men in this town? It seems like this topic comes up in a variety of settings and everyone has a view. The conversation is predicated on that consensus agreed there is no strong community of gay men here. There is even envy that the lesbian community has done it so well.
In an opinion piece in a recent Accessline, the writer says that he can't wait to get out of Iowa City in spite of its large gay population. He refers to the queer community here as characterized by vicious gossips and standoffishness. A more reflective comment to us recently was that the gay men here fall into some rather distinct cliques based on social standing and that makes it hard to come together--social or otherwise.
Perhaps because it is so safe and decent here in Iowa City, there are no rallying cries to bring us together. We recently took to reflecting on the comparison between the black civil rights movement and gay rights. Experiences like the Birmingham bus boycott brought the community of blacks in that city together with a critical mission. As the fight against them got nastier, they were more resolved. It really bound them together. They didn't have time to analyze it from all angles or even worry very long over the physical danger. They just worked. Worked hard. Didn't give up.
So we have a group of gay men in this city who are cliqueish, domestic, standoffish, snooty, and complacent. Hmmmm. Sounds like society at large. Maybe we have really made it when we just act like everyone else--we take everything for granted and look out for ourselves.
Gee, maybe assimilation isn't so desirable.
