LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Gray 'n Gay : The Cancer Within |
by John Siegfried |
There's no such thing as a "good" Cancer. But some are better than others. And, at least by my definition, the good ones are the ones with some external manifestation so they can be seen and detected. The internal ones, hidden from view, you're unaware of until signs and symptoms pop up. Detection is often delayed. That insight confirms an observation a friend made in the past, "John, you have a marvelous grasp of the obvious." I have to confess, he's right. I started a college Physiology report on the liver by noting, "In order to live, every animal needs a liver." It sounds like an attempted pun, but I was serious. Equally profound was my statement to a friend that, as an Eastern ivy educated White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, I was, of course, a liberal and unbiased. The only group that I really couldn't stand were "bigots." Immediately I broke into laughter realizing that this profound insight, in fact, made me a bigot and part of the population that I couldn't stand. It placed me and the rest of the world's population in the same bigot-pot. Despite my cosmopolitan all-accepting pose, I was/am just as bigoted as the next guy. Without question, bigotry is a societal cancer expressed internally and externally. As with cancer, often the internal slow destruction isn't noted until there's an external explosion. The civil rights movement is replete with examples. Immigrant laborers, despite the gains forced by Cesar Chavez and others, experience the force of bigotry in the work place on a daily basis. And so it was with pleasure that I read the Washington Post June 4 report of the reversal of policy by the AFL-CIO leadership who have long supported sanctions against employers who hire undocumented immigrants, i.e. those without a "Green Card," in the name of keeping jobs for Americans. According to the Post, the AFL-CIO leadership is now calling, "... laws that would criminalize employer exploitation of undocumented workers and grant amnesty and permanent residency to working immigrants who are in the country illegally." Most of them are here in the lowest paying menial jobs and regularly send money home to help family members simply survive. Delmarva has many immigrants in this category and the policy change by AFL-CIO is a major step in curing the cancer of bigotry in the treatment of immigrant workers. But what about the internal bigotry that doesn't show? One way that has expressed itself for me in recent years has been my reluctance to accept bi and transgendered as part of the lesbian and gay movement. "Bi" in my limited construct equals "gay, in transition," and transgender I don't understand. I wanted to make "them" different from "us" partly out of fear that adding their baggage to our own would slow down societal acceptance for lesbians and gays and because, personally, cross-dressing, drag, and its associated venues have always seemed, well, different than my experience as a gay man. More to the point, I've never really known a transgendered person and have conveniently relied on stereotypes. Sound familiar? I read with interest, therefore, a recent book review of "Crossing," a memoir written by Deirdre McCloskey who until age 52 was Donald McCloskey, a renowned economist and historian. McCloskey was married and the father of two grown children when he acted upon a life time of suppressed feelings. To get even a glimpse of the personal struggle, internal and external, of the economic and psychologic cost, the grit and determination to reach the final goal, is staggering. The New York Times in the May 28, 2000 Sunday Magazine had a cover spread titled "An Inconvenient Woman" which detailed the life and experience of Calpernia Sarah Addams, a pre-operative transsexual, or "transgendered woman" as Addams prefers to call it. She was the love interest of Pfc. Barry Winchell prior to his murder at Ft. Campbell, KY. As the Times reports, "...Winchell brought almost no philosophy or gender theory to this relationship. He considered his girlfriend to be a woman, yet considered himself gay for sleeping with her..." Addams reflects, "But Barry? Barry just seemed to take me at face value. He liked me for me, as much as that sounds like a cliche. He thought I was beautiful and he enjoyed our sex life totally." As one who's gray and gay, I have trouble understanding all this. But, you know what? I don't have to understand it. I have to do what Barry Winchell didtake it at face value. Every time I fly in an airplane I consider it a miracle that I can be safe in the clouds and miles above the earth. I don't understand it, but I accept airline flight and its benefits at face value without understanding the physics or mechanics that make it possible. So, I really don't have to "understand" whether Bi is a real group that's different from gay. Nor do I have to "understand" what drives a person to move from one gender to another. What's important is, that, with or without understanding, I accept all colors that make up the rainbow. After all, it's where the red and the blue fuse that we get lavender. John Siegfried is a retired association executive who resides in Rehoboth Beach. John Siegfried is a retired association executive who resides in Rehoboth Beach. |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 10, No. 7, June 16, 2000. |