- During the period when I was coming out to friends - one lunch at a time - I was careful to make sure that they understood that our son, Joshua, didn't look gay. Of course, what I meant was that he doesn't look feminine. Then, when our family attended its first PFLAG meeting, I said it again and, after the meeting, Joshua challenged me. "If I was feminine, Mom, would you still be proud of me?
As President of PFLAG I talk with a lot of parents. As I get to know them and ask about their children, I hear the same theme over and over again. They tell me with pride how "normal" their children are: if it's a daughter, she's described as very feminine, and if it's a son, I'm assured he's "straight" looking/ A PFLAG parent who portrayed her son as a "normal gay person," defined what she meant by saying, "Well, he's not like all those people you see at the Gay Pride parades." Where are the parents whose kids don't look "normal?"
Recently I went with several straight friends to see the movie Philadelphia. All agreed it was good for society to see a "normal" gay man. But when this gay man admits on the witness stand that he succumbed to the "repulsive" gay lifestyle by going to porno flicks and having some kind of sexual encounter, he faints. Later in the movie, one of the gay man's law partners describes an experience in the service when a gay man had his head pushed in a toilet into which all the military "guys" had urinated. Did the law partner faint at the memory of his shameful acting out of the heterosexual male lifestyle? No siree. Somehow, even in a film meant to portray gays in a positive light, the idea is fostered that gay sexuality, because it's not the same as heterosexuality, is horrible and shameful.
I was faced with this issue again when I was in the process of hiring a new administrative assistant for the PFLAG office. Would a feminine man or a masculine woman be an acceptable choice? After all, do we want a distressed parent who calls the PFLAG office to encounter a man with a lilt in his manner of speaking? Would such parent be more comfortable talking with someone who has a "normal" voice? Is that what we are all about?
Every morning I see my next-door neighbor, a regular straight guy, as he goes for his recreational run. He dons his one- hundred-dollar running shoes, his running tights, his he-man T-shirt, and swaggers past my house, the epitome of the Tarzan male. He likes the way he looks. It's his fun. Is it any different from the gay man who wants to have his fun by dressing in drag? Is one "normal" and the other "abnormal?" I think not. Different, yes. Abnormal, no.
Recently I spoke with Michael Bailey, a researcher interested in the feminine behavior of gay boys. He has coined the term "fem-phobia," to which I would like to add the term "mascu- phobia." Especially in this day of pressure from the religious right, I think that we parents have to be very conscious of our fears. It is not good enough to overcome our homophobia; we have to be very careful about its more suble form of fem- and mascu-phobia. We are not just parents of "normal" straight-looking and -acting gay kids; we are also parents of boys and girls who look and act like the opposite of what is called "normal." We have to make sure that our quest for acceptance includes embracing the diversity that exists in the gay community and that political correctness doesn't become discrimination. We have to think about the father I encountered, who boasted about being the coach of the football team on which his gay son plays. If this boy occasionally dressed in drag, would he fall out of the "normal" category? What would happen then between the father and son? Would it mean the difference between getting kicked out of the house and being allowed to stay?
We want our kids to be able to express who they are. Is there any sense in coming out of the closet if you can't come out in your personal style? That is exactly what you see in the gay community - gay men and women in their full diversity, in all their many individual personas. As parents, we have to appreciate all of them as "normal," whatever that means.
PS: If you haven't seen Torch Song Trilogy, I highly recommend it. It was a turning point in my own understanding, and it's available on videotape.
Catherine Tuerck is the president of PFLAG Washington, D.C. --- Please share chapter PFLAG helpline handouts and newsletter favorites with the PFLAG-Talk/TGS-PFLAG library - http://www.critpath.org/pflag-talk/library.html