Are Queers Today Free to Choose Their Own Expression of Queerness?
Seeking liberation from stereotypes
In 2004, I published an academic article in College Literature, “Constrained in Liberation: Performative Queerness in Robert McAlmon’s Berlin Stories.” Drawing on Queer Theory, particularly Judith Butler, I argue that “In Robert McAlmon’s Berlin stories, set in the early years of Weimar Berlin, three Americans attempt to construct their (homo)sexual identities; yet their constructions are informed by — and limited to — signs of queerness already in circulation. The city that offers all three characters the freedom to be queer thus also ‘confines’ them to a degenerate, self-destructive lifestyle.”
I go on to note that “[i]n each case, we can observe how the character consciously performs queerness, seemingly creating a queer identity, yet at the same time drawing on established cultural codes that mark him or her as ‘queer’ in normative society’s eyes.”
These stories, a rare glimpse into queer life in Berlin ca. 1921, were written by an American expatriate who himself was bisexual. He and a small group of fellow Americans, mostly writers, including Djuna Barnes, left Paris to spend some time in the German capital because it was an extremely cheap place to live; and of particular interest to this group was that cocaine was readily available at a fraction of the cost in Paris.
The first story, “Distinguished Air,” which is also the title of the collection, vividly describes a nocturnal world of decadence, where queers mingled with other “lowlifes” in Berlin, which the ostensibly straight narrator clearly disapproves of. He is merely a tourist, or perhaps a voyeur, or both.
The second story, “Miss Knight” — yes, dear reader, you guess correctly, “she” is a biological male — is a campy monologue that, even at the time, must have been seen as a caricature. Yet, this performative character is trapped in her/his creation.
Well, of course, that was 1921. Things have changed, n’est-ce pas?
When I Came Out in 1980
I will time travel to San Francisco, 1980, the time and place where I first openly revealed my inherent sexual orientation. Although I had known at least since puberty to which gender I directed my interests, I didn’t relate to the dominant gay model I had been aware of since Stonewall. At the time of that foundational moment, I was a high school student living in New York, and what comes to mind is not so much the history-making event played out in Greenwich Village in June 1969, but rather Judy Garland’s funeral on the Upper West Side.
News footage showed thousands of people, the majority of them gay, waiting patiently, some in tears, others listening to the late singer’s songs on a tape recorder, to pay respects to the legend whom they venerated.
Don’t get me wrong, I have great appreciation for the formidable talent of the legendary singer and have sympathy for the suffering she experienced especially in her later life — victim of others and herself — but, this fifteen-year-old just barely entertaining the notion that he was, in fact, “gay” did not feel naturally compelled to join that group of mourners. A year later, I saw the film “Boys in the Band,” which did not make gay life any more appealing. I didn’t feel a connection with any of the characters and none of them seemed happy or satisfied with their life.
I just sat back and let things take their natural course.
Back to San Francisco. Coming out was very easy. I was working in a natural food store owned by two gay men, partners in business only. My two employers, let me call them Tom and Jerry, represented polar opposites of gay lifestyle at the time. Tom was in a rather “domestic” monogamous relationship, never going out into the bar scene, spending his evenings at home with his partner in a very tasteful, refurbished horse stable right across from the ocean. A beautiful, peaceful environment, far from the wild nighttime action in pre-AIDS San Francisco.
Jerry, on the other hand, lived on the famous Haight St (although the hippies were virtually all gone), and not only frequented gay saunas, almost nightly, but also indulged in all types of recreational drugs. I know about this because he openly talked about it and seemed to want to shock me with the details. But, I wasn’t so much shocked as horrified and, in my mind, retreated to the safe sanity of Tom’s lifestyle.
Yet neither of the two trajectories really appealed to me. Although if the normative police were to insist I choose, I would naturally have chosen the domestic one.
I dipped my toe into the bar scene, choosing the well-known “Stud” in the South-of-Market area, steering clear of the leather bars. Nevertheless, I was well aware of the “leather-uniform” normally accompanied by a mustache. I thought, “live and let live” but it was not a lifestyle for me.
I should admit that I was a romantic looking for love. Not the Hollywood kind, just a loving, caring, non-domestic relationship with my soul-mate. I wasn’t looking to spend every moment, every day with my partner because I was aware of needing breathing room in order to follow my individual, vaguely defined spiritual journey. I knew there must be others looking for something similar, but I only saw the Toms and Jerrys (including the leather-boys with the latter). It is possible that I didn’t look hard enough.
There was a glimmer of hope on the horizon. I discovered that there was to be a weekend gay spiritual retreat in Marin county. I immediately registered and soon found myself at a secluded, peaceful retreat center.
The retreat seemed promising at first. Our first activity was to sit in silence across from someone else and make constant eye contact for fifteen minutes. Needless to say, each of us at some point, at least for a moment, broke the contact. I found myself trying to gain control over the person with whom I was locked in eye-contact. Not a very spiritual endeavor on my part.
I don’t recall much from that retreat except that everyone was encouraged to walk around naked. It was a wooded area and summertime, and though not very hot, there were lots of shrubs and, of course, insects. I instantly bonded with Philip from Philadelphia, who was around my age. We were, I expect, the only ones there from the East Coast. He and I didn’t follow the order and kept some clothing on. With some amusement, we noticed that there was a lot of activity going on among the lush shrubbery, naked bodies enjoying some intimate spiritual encounters with one another.
The retreat did not offer me any alternative to the two lifestyle options I had found in San Francisco. Only missing here was the leather and the drugs. I do regret, however, not remaining in touch with Philip, who returned to Philadelphia after the weekend. There might have been possibilities….
So Many Ways to Be Openly Queer
The question I now have to ask is: Have things really changed since Berlin in the early 1920s or San Francisco in 1980? Is there space today for queer individuals to define their own lifestyle identity?
I refer particularly to those who do not fit into either of the two broad categories I outlined above: monogamous domesticity or promiscuous nightlife. For instance, queers who live alone, who have or don’t have a partner, those who are celibate or not, those who are monastics (you mean there are queer monks and nuns?) or spiritual seekers — Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, Jews, Sufis, etc. who know they are queer. Queerness is merely a part — though an important one — of their self-identity. Can they lead an active spiritual life as openly queer persons and be able to resist the efforts of the normative majority to place on them a particular lifestyle label not of their choosing — one that is not easy to ignore?
Of course all queer adults can decide for themselves how they wish to lead their lives, but they cannot choose how they are perceived by the normative majority. Those who are strongly independent and feel secure in their particular queer identity may simply brush off the ignorance of their neighbors, colleagues or employers. Sticks and stones may indeed break their bones, but labels will never harm them.
But what about those who are not so self-assured, who do not have the inner strength to be whom they wish to be, and cannot like leaves shaking off raindrops on a windy day easily shake off the inaccurate and hurtful labels that are thrust onto their shoulders.
I am not well informed about whether the situation has changed markedly because I spent fifteen years with my head partially buried in academia followed by the last fifteen years as a cloistered monastic. So, I will ask those LGBTQ people, particularly of the X and Millennial generations, if there has been marked change.
Perhaps it depends where one lives. There is no doubt a big difference between being queer in Peoria (I was once told by someone from that city that it was used as a place to test what the typical American consumer wanted) and NYC or L.A.
Are the not-so “silent majority” (thank you, Richard Nixon, for your partial accuracy in coining that term) content to allow queer people to define themselves and their lifestyles freely? Is it possible to escape mentally the normative drive toward categorization of minority groups, especially those of non-normative gender and/or sexual identity? Categorization can easily be used by the dominant norm in society as an effective tool for vilifying non-conformists.
Gay liberation was officially launched on that night of the Stonewall riot in 1969, commemorated annually ever since. But true liberation will only have been realized when any gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, asexual individual is free to choose whichever lawful lifestyle and self-definition resonates with them and not feel compelled to occupy a category imposed on them. Perhaps that day has already arrived. If so, I beg the reader’s forgiveness for my redundant railing amidst the air of freedom.
If you are interested in reading my article on McAlmon’s stories, leave a message with your email address and I’ll send you the pdf.
