Living in the Past

Here's another piece on how things have changed since I was young. Stop groaning and read it. When I came out to my mother way back in 1991, it was because I had decided to spend Christmas with my boyfriend's family. I knew he couldn't spend Christmas with us. There were tears, we decided my father could never know, etc. When my mother finally did tell my father five years later, he said: "I know." In fact, he knew before she did. Last year I told my mom that my best friend's husband was born with a vagina and she didn't even blink. When people find out I'm gay now, their reaction is "oh, that explains it." Nobody came out in high school when I was young. I was out in college but only to friends, although one of my male friends carried a purse, for no reason other than to make straight people uncomfortable. He was threatened with a baseball bat once, but it didn't deter him. I quickly learned that I could hang out with people that were outwardly gay because I didn't want to be the type of person who was ashamed of my friends. But I was still too ashamed of myself to do anything to draw attention to my own sexuality. I'm still a little that way. I'll defend my gay friends to the end but I won't defend myself. Anyway, these days being gay just isn't that big a deal. Young males are still homophobic and the whole religion debate is still around, but I sometimes feel like I'm living in the past. I still act like it's 1991 and I have to keep a low profile, when the truth is, nobody cares anymore. Oh you still have to be cautious. When you're alone in a Battlecreek train station and some rough looking people are discussing how JCPenny promotes "faggotism" by marketing pink shirts to guys, you might want to keep a low profile. But it's 2009 now, and I should be living my life without fear of what everyone else thinks. I need to catch up.