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friend of mine who’s taking a French class at San
Francisco State University told me recently how the
professor asked students, one by one, to answer the
question, en français,
“How would you describe your ideal man or woman?” My
friend Toby began to describe his ideal—his boyfriend
Marco (“His eyes are brown, his hair is black…”)—but the
instructor suddenly interrupted Toby mid-sentence. “No,
no,” she scolded him in English. “You’re not supposed to
use the masculine form of the possessive. You should say, ‘Her eyes, her
hair.’”
 Toby thought the whole thing was pretty funny, but I
wasn’t so amused. I spent my whole adolescent life
changing pronouns and possessives, altering my language
to pass as straight in school. I even learned to tell
fag jokes as often as possible so they wouldn’t be told
about me. When a boy in my seventh-grade Pre-Algebra
class accused me of having a lisp, which he claimed
meant that I was gay, I nearly banished the letter “s”
from my speech. Plurals were out of the question. Things
became singular, alone.
If I had known then that I’d see that same boy in one of
the many gay bars in the Castro some fifteen years
later—if I’d understood that he was just the first in a
long line of gay men who’d pressure me to pass so they
wouldn’t feel so lonely in the closet—maybe I wouldn’t
have taken him so seriously. But take him seriously I
did. As a result of my linguistic efforts, I probably
have a larger vocabulary than many of my old classmates,
but fifteen years later I still shy away from sibilant
words whenever I’m the least bit nervous —like when I’m
out on a date with a guy who manages to wear his
masculinity with some semblance of authenticity and
self-possession.
Now in college and talking to my openly gay friend Toby
in the office of the Queer Alliance, San Francisco State
University’s gay student group, I realized that the same
pressure to conform I’d felt in the seventh grade was
still alive and well here in San Francisco. Only the
words had gotten bigger. Instead of being accused of
being a cocksucker, I might be accused—if I were to take
a French class too—of improper use of the masculine
form.
When I arrived at SF State, I was ready to relax and
stop fighting. After years of straining to pass as
heterosexual in school, followed by more years of
activism and advocacy for queer youth, I was ready to be
on the academic equivalent of R&R —basking in the warm
glow of queer community that San Francisco promised. I
was ready to be accepted with open arms into that
community, and I expected that I’d find a boyfriend by
the end of my first semester.
But it wasn’t that simple. When I arrived, I was shocked
to find that I still felt relatively invisible. What was
going on? Hadn’t thousands of students from all across
the country come here seeking safe haven from their
backward backwater hometowns? The Castro was full of
such refugees, even though they were loath to talk about
such things at their favorite watering holes. I knew
that, ever since the Gold Rush, San Francisco had been a
place that attracted misfits and miscreants dreaming of
hidden riches and open lives. That was the city’s
reputation, but where were these misfits now? Changing
their language in classrooms, changing their behavior on
the streets to avoid the harassment that still happens.
A lot of people, including most of the gay people I
know, think San Francisco is one of the best places in
the world for gay people to live. But if San Francisco
is one of the best places in the world for us, that says
more about the sorry state of the world than it does
about San Francisco. Sure, you can hold hands with your
same-sex partner in the Castro. But travel six blocks
north, south, east or west from the intersection of
Castro and Market streets, and you’re just as likely to
be sneered at as you are to be cruised. You might even
be catcalled by passing motorists.
 In a city where many gays look unnervingly like our
“Governator” in his box-office prime, most bigots are
sensible enough to wait till they’re in a moving vehicle
to vocalize their bigotry. Just last week, in fact, I
was walking through Hayes Valley, the upscale
neighborhood just east of the Castro that’s home to our
city’s LGBT Center, when a carload of boys yelled “fag.”
At first I thought maybe they were calling me “fat”— was
this, I wondered, a driveby attempt to urge me to spend
more time on the Stairmaster? But no, they didn’t care a
lick whether I toned up my midsection or not; they were
calling me a faggot, urging me to tone down my faggish,
gay, unmanly appearance. Their jeers were diminished
slightly by the Doppler effect, but rang clearly in my
ears even after their car had disappeared over a hill.
Accusations like this, such blatant reminders that I’m
not cutting it as a “real man,” are blessedly rare now
that I’m all grown up. Which makes me grateful,
sometimes, to be single. The odds of being pegged as gay
go up, after all, when you’re coupled, and if you two
manage to walk out of the gay ghetto into some other
neighborhood without being hassled, you’re aware with
every step you take that you’re making a political
statement. If you lean over to kiss your lover in a nice
restaurant (since going to a nice restaurant arguably
means leaving the Castro), you’re not just being
affectionate, you’re being radical. And if your date
seems cold and distant over dinner, you’re left to
wonder, “Is Bob not interested in me, or is he afraid of
being attacked?” Small wonder, then, that even in a city
that’s about 25 percent gay, very few gay men seem to be
in long-term relationships... (continue reading)
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4 COMMENTS ON THIS ESSAY:
If I had 1% more estrogen in my body, I would have probably cried my eyes out when I finished reading this. It was phenomenal! Thank you so much.
Brent Calderwood's essay reminded me of my Italian conversation class. My instructor had a bad habit of constantly interupting me to correct my Italian but when it came time to decribe my ideal mate I corrected my teacher: "Non e' "lei', e' "lui"!" (Translation: It's not "she", it's "he"!) After that my intructor had to constantly prove how liberal and pro-gay she was, the cute Chilean class mate changed his mind about going to the movies with me and most of the other students were cool. It was a great way to come out in another language. Back to Brent's main point, it was a sad day when I realized there is as much pressure to conforn inside the gblti community as outside in the larger world. Joe
A great essay for sure, although I am not sure I completely agree: being gay does not necessarily mean you have to be swishy and skinny. I am sure some people are uber-queers hiding in muscle/macho bodies for fear of rejection, but there are some of us who just like how we look when ripped and who do like cars, sports, home renovations, sitting on the sofa drinking beer, burping and scratching ourselves, etc... I've even been accused of "trying to act to macho and I wasn't pulling it off", but the truth is, this is the way I act and who I am.
I agree with you Nicolas, the idea that being gay is pure formula, kind of suggests, to me, that being gay is a commercial pursuit.
That's why i consider myself to be queer, and never gay.
Gay has been rendered into retreat, and if you don't behave a certain way, fellow gays will assume you are scared, or closeted.
There is a constant fight, and it isn't just with the hetero standard but it exists amongst ourselves.
“You’re not supposed to use the masculine form of the possessive. You should say, ‘Her eyes, her hair.’”
This reminded me of when i said Loca instead of loco, my teacher scolded me, but i explained that the masculine and feminine are traits of the past and that soon they will be left behind.
Nice essay