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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 1, 1986)
Becoming Her by Le e L y n ch I cam e out twenty-six years ago. Such a solid chunk of tim e is nothing to be sneezed a t If it were not for the dangers involved in marking our milestones by, for example, wearing five, ten, fifty year pins — “W hat a lovely pin! A pink triangle with a seventy-five? Have you been married seventy-five years?” “ I, uh, well, not exactly. That is — I’ve been g ay f o r . . No one wants to celebrate by watching horrified inquirers run screaming in the other direction. T H E AMAZON TRAIL Still, I 've felt the urge to celebrate. With som ething like that in m ind I m entiond this anniversary to m y first lover, Suzy. We ended up in a friendly squabble about what year it actually had been. / said 1960, S u z y said 1959.1 wanted her to be rig h t Com ing out post-1970 makes one a w om an’s movement dyke in some circles; pre-1970 makes you “ old gay." Discovering “the good life” before 1960 would have made Suzy and I part of a whole other, som ehow more prestigious, era. But 1960 it was. We were newly high school students, or had Suzy, too rebellious to fit in, too outspoken to hide, dropped out by then? I’ve forgotten a lot, but I remember a lot, too. Like back streets. It seems we were always seeking the less populous back streets of New York where we could hold hands or dress up. One day Suzy came by the high school for me. W ho knows how I got out early. How I dared to go into the girls’ room and dress like I did. The clothes were boys’, I remember th a t and m y hair was slicked back. I may have worn a tie, carefully covered by a fully zipped ja cke t Thus I was transformed from a skinny, painfully introverted intellectual kid, into a swaggering, proud fifteen year old butch, to m between wanting to be seen by my teachers, and needing to fade into the shaded back streets lined with curtained older homes. Suzy was likely to have been heavily made up, high-heeled (she was al ready three inches taller than me, dam n her), in some sultry black outfit beneath which her stockinged legs flashed. I would have lit her Marlboro, then m y own Kool as we, fright ened but defiant, self-conscious but proud, made our way under the sheltering trees to the bus which would carry us where we w ouldn’t be known. Were those the good old days? Sometimes they feel that way. I rem em ber our loneliness, though. The only gay we knew at first was an older woman all of eighteen w ho’d threatened to wait outside m y school and beat me up for taking Suzy away" from her. I have no idea if she ever showed — I hit the back streets and would go hom e the very long way. In m y senior year we finally made lesbian friends — Pete and Little Suzy. I’d fallen in love with Big Suzy, as she came to be called, while ice skating at an indoor rink. Som e thing about the circum scribed circling, the grace of gliding on ice, the rom antic organ music, even the hot dogs heaped with m us tard, set m y adolescent heart pounding. Suzy Just Out. M arch. 1986 was warm and laughing in her soft furry jacket. I fancied myself graceful and dashing on the ice. Skating became part of our land scape of love. It was on an outdoor pond that we met these first friends. We’d seen Pete back in ju n io r high. Called Pat then, she’d been aloof and alone in the long cold corridors. We could not have named her attraction for us. Now, like a miracle, she reappeared. She was sixteen, handsome, tough, and had a girl of her own. Awkwardly, shyly, we’d all meet, skate, share what we’d learned of the gay life. The ice on the pond eventually melted, but I recall a painful longing to love those two kids, and an equally painful reticence between us. We each tried so hard to be cool in our fledgling gay ways, that we couldn’t say how glad we were to have peers. I felt practically normal as we double-dated, flirted, wove fantasies around one another, conjectured about the big gay world in which we yearned to find our places. How Suzy and I strove to learn the ways of that world! Every chance we got, we’d be in Greenwich Village, watching the crowds for lesbians. This one's diddy-bop, that one’s DA, another’s jean jacket We copied the right ways to smoke, to smile, to give other women The Look. I wonder if there's a course in Signaling at the first official gay high school now located in the Village. It was the unexpected, though, that always hit me hardest I was a yearbook editor, along with m y more exciting extra-curricular activi ties, and the whole editorial staff went into Manhattan one day to consult with the pub lisher. 1 was already writing, and the word “ publisher" was to me what 'Broadway'' w ould be to an actress. Glam our colored the crowded office. I didn’t care that the walls were lined with yearbooks instead of novels, technical journals instead of pretty volumes of poetry. So when S h e walked in, I saw my future. She m ight have been an editor or a secretary, an artist or switchboard operator. This slight, dapper woman with short salt-and-pepper hair and the plain stamp of lesbian in every line o f her face, every move of her body, was In Publishing. Oh my, she was perfect While the yearbook staff poured over types and papers, I stole impassioned glimpses of Her. Hoped for a chance to give her The Look. Dressed her, in my mind, in street clothes, furnished her apartment, fixed her up with a bevy of fem m es— no, with a long-term lover just like Suzy — no, with a cute young pro tege still in high school. She never noticed me. Suzy watched as I graduated from high school that June. The next September, after two weeks at a faraway college, and an en couraging grade on m y first English paper, I packed a small suitcase with underwear, clean shirts and innumerable books, tucked m y portable typewriter under my arm, and ran away. I could wait no longer to become Her. But as always, the main avenues were off limits. I got sidetracked onto the circuitious back streets and learned patience. I never saw Her again, never moved back to New York. I broke up with Suzy in pursuit of fresh and varied pastures, lost touch with Pete, finished college like I was told to and stopped writing. I didn’t stop being gay, though. I became m ore and more a part of the subculture I'd studied with such devotion in those early years. I became, too, a part of the world of publishing. And — I'm reminded each time I pass a m irror and note the slight, dapper wom an with short salt and pepper hair and the plain stamp of lesbian in every line of her face, every move of her body — I ve become Her at last, the future I chose twenty-six years ago. r RAYMOND M. BERGER, ACSW, Ph.D Nationally Certified Counselor Phobia/Fear Control Program Relationship Counseling I Stress I Depression Sexual Identity I Personal Transitions Sliding Fee Scale Cedar Hills and Downtown Locations ( 503 ) 292-2735 SEEING IS BELIEVING Quality eyewear at near wholesale prices. The Optical Brokerage featuring: Avant Garde Carrera Logo Paris Luxottica Marchon Optyl Revue Rodenstock Silhouette Terri Brogan Tura Univis 134 NW 21st Ave. 295-6488 7325 SE Milwaukie 231 -0096 Compare quality, service and price! Our usual delivery time is just 5 working days. 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