Heterophobia
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Homophobes have not spread their fear to everyone,
just to us heterophobics
BY
L E E
L Y N C
H
am at a workshop attended by seventeen
presumably straight men, eleven straight
women, and two lesbians: Lover and myself.
As I am familiar with most of these people, I
look around the circle in a relaxed way,
listening and idly watching the straights
fidget, doodle, yawn.
The impulse takes me to toy with Lover’s
long hair. I reach my arm around her to do
this. A thought nags — is this appropriate
behavior right here, right now? I trust Lover
to stop me if she is not comfortable, but she
seems content with the touches. My actions
seem to interfere with, distract no one.
Yet the nagging thought makes me self-
conscious. I tell myself no one will condemn
me — it’s not sexual but affectional. Cut it
out, I chastise myself, you’re being a real
throwback closet case, w e’re out to everyone.
It’s what we give here, not who we are that
matters.
I
AMAZON
T R A I L
At that moment. Hawk-eyes catches my
gaze. The largest man in the room, with
brows as sharply arched as First Officer
Spock’s, with a set of stinging dark eyes and
arms folded across his chest, he’s looking me
straight (so to speak) in the eyes. Is he
censuring me or off in outer space somewhere
dreaming about some heroic deed or lovely
lady? I resume looking around the group, but
every time my eyes come back to his, he’s
glaring at me.
Oh, bother, now what? I ’m not about to
stop petting Lover’s hair just because Hawk-
eyes is homophobic. Is he playing some sort
of intimidation game?
I remove my hand from Lover and take up
my usual weapon, a pencil. Life is like math,
often I can figure out problems on paper that I
can’t Figure out in my head. On the other
hand, I am your classic sufferer of math
anxiety.
The man’s homophobia is his sickness,
there’s nothing I can do about i t Then what
can I do? Ah-ha! I can work on my
heterophobia.
Yes, I admit it — la m heterophobic.
Hawk-eyes’ folded arms threaten me, his
hounding eyes change my behavior. My
immediate assumption is that he is writing
letters to the editor in his head about requiring
the death penalty for queers. And enjoying
himself thoroughly.
It’s not an easy habit to break, 29 years of
acknowledging masses of Hawk-eyes. Not
just noticing them, but watching for them,
playing to them, as. if I can’t be a whole gay
person without a hostile audience.
At Fifteen Suzy and I would go to
Greenwich Village and taunt tour buses. The
sightseeing companies of New York City
included the Village on their itineraries. I saw
my share of Hawk-eyes staring through those
many-windowed caravans.
When we saw a tour bus we’d make out
like two — a popular word back then— _____
nymphos. At the last possible moment, as the
bus loomed over us, we’d break away, smile
and wave. We wanted the tourists to know
that we were both young women. We wanted
them to see that we looked just like their
daughters. It was simply an expression of
who we were, queers in a straight world. The
act completed our identity.
Heterophobia is as much part of my
makeup as lesbianism. Somehow, by defying
the tourists I created the courage I needed to
walk the streets hand in hand with Suzy. I
loved her with all my Fiery adolescent heart,
but I also loved being gay. And being gay
was intrinsically political, long before the
marches, the rhetoric, the shouting and
dancing in the streets.
It takes two to make a phobia: the feared
and the fearful. Hawk-eyes may have been
conditioned to cast hate and disapproval my
way, but I have been conditioned to react. I
know that Lover, who came out post-
Stonewall, presumes acceptance, expects it.
So drawing on my history, my foolhardiness,
or courage, I put down my pencil. I reach
behind Lover once more. I toy, deliberately,
defiantly, with her hair.
It is two days later. I still have no idea if I
made up Hawk-eyes’ hatred or if it was real.
Meanwhile, the National Organization for
Women has announced that it has targeted
Oregon for attention because of a restrictive
abortion initiative. Molly Yard, President of
N.O.W. will speak here this week.
The anti-choice people have taken out a
full page ad in the local newspaper, blown it
up and are pushing it in people’s faces outside
the post office. It is full of quotes taken out of
context, and leads with large letters across the
top of the page:
The simple fa ct is that every woman must
be willing to be identified as a lesbian to be
fu lly fem inist.
Do you think they are gay-baiting?
Pulling out the old lavender herring? The ad
asserts, “...N.O.W. amounts to a lesbian rights
organization that has been ingeniously
marketed by its backroom strategists under the
appealing banner of ‘Women’s Rights.’’ The
ad is paid for by “A Few Good Men.’’
I sit by the phone, contemplating all this,
loathe to make a call. It has nothing to do
with lesbians, or abortion or Hawk-eyes.
And, of course, it has everything to do with all
of it. I need a catsitter so Lover and I can
travel together now and then. A non-gay
friend gave me a name. She does not know
how the woman feels about gays. I tell this to
Lover who recommends that I ask the
potential cat sitter how she feels.
Ask her? Say w e're gay is that a problem
fo r you? (then breathe). Okay, I tell Lover,
knowing this is the best way. How could I
ever think I could hide it anyway with a house
full of lesbian and gay literature, photos of us
at the prom . . . .
I make the call. Oddly, my heart does not
beat as it once might have. Forty four years
of this stuff. “I want you to know that we’re
gay,” I say to the woman. “I’d rather know
now if it’s a problem for you.”
“No, no, no,” says this non-gay stranger.
“My grandson is gay. I ’ve worked with
lesbians on the assembly line. That’s your
lifestyle. I don’t care.”
When we meet later I learn that her
grandson has HIV disease and expects to
come home when it is time to let go o f life.
His mother is a friend of the Neighbor Boys
and has been wanting to meet me for years.
A Few Good Men have not spread their
fear to everyone. Except perhaps to us
heterophobics.
____________ ▼
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