The Gay Lifestyle
Choosing to live on a houseboat is a lifestyle. Being gay is a part of my life. We need to establish this from the outset. It is a big part of who I am only because it seems to be the part that receives the most attention from the world around me. In my inner circle it is relatively unimportant. It is ironic that in the world’s tireless effort to suppress this part of me it has actually exacerbated it beyond necessity.
I have heard reference made to my gayness as a “lifestyle” on many occasions. The gay lifestyle. My gay lifestyle. Their gay lifestyle. This description always made my right eyebrow arch with equal parts skepticism and confusion. Confused by the odd analogy that a fundamental part of who I am can also be used to describe someone deciding to live in Europe for a year. The back-packing lifestyle. The Bohemian lifestyle. The lifestyle of the rich and famous. Skeptical about whether or not this person actually knew what gayness or queerness is and further what the word “lifestyle” means. Lifestyle sounds to me like a luxury more than a fundamental. A lifestyle is something you cultivate and choose. Tina Turner lives in France full time. She has chosen a French lifestyle.
The dictionary defines “lifestyle” as:
“the way in which a person or group lives.”
Fair enough. Perhaps the actual definition of the word is broader than my more limited interpretation. Still, the word is not applicable to being gay. Or black. Or latinx. Or female. Or male. I am white and based on the last Presidential election I can assure you that I do not engage in a similar lifestyle as compared to many of the white co-lifestylers who voted.
We don’t attach lifestyle to these other descriptors because it would be silly to do so and probably racist. I am not about to go around talking about the “black lifestyle”. Rest assured it is just as silly to apply it to being gay. The point of calling gayness a lifestyle is an intentional effort to diminish and demean the person who is gay or queer or lesbian or bisexual or transgender. It is meant to put us in our place and to point out that our lives are merely sinful choices and as sinners we must repent or be damned. I am not being hyperbolic here — people think this. A lot of people think this.
Being gay is as much a part of me as my little toe and way less important in the grand scheme of things. Your little toe is essential to good balance, after all. I am not going to cut off my little toe and I am not going to stop being gay because someone doesn’t like it, or understand it, or want it to be. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I don’t want to. I have yet to see any evidence that would support that the straight lifestyle is so superior. If there were such a thing it doesn’t look like a ton of fun and seems a bit overwrought at times. That being said, straight people being innately lame is the last thing I would want them to change about themselves. It is a part of them.
Sure, you may say that if it isn’t a lifestyle then why do gays need special cruises and vacation spots? Why are our bars more fun? Gay people, like all oppressed minorities, are more fun because we have to laugh to counterbalance the crying. We get beaten over the head, both literally and figuratively, by people telling us how unequal we are and how terrible we are all the time. This is why we need vacation spots and cruises that you aren’t invited to. It isn’t because we are indulging in some lifestyle to spite you or make you mad. We just want to get away from you sometimes because you’re boring and sometimes mean.
And by you I don’t mean YOU — unless I just described you and then I mean YOU.
So do me a favor and quit calling my life, my gayness, a lifestyle. I am a person, not a lifestyle. I live in Texas and Michigan and Malawi and Moscow and Tokyo and everywhere else that you can imagine. Just treat me the same. I’ll do the same to you. I don’t go to your bars but we may have to share vacation spots periodically. That’s a lifestyle point I’d happily negotiate on.
