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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 1, 1990)
3 4 T Nowmbf 1 990 ▼ Ju*t out Outing: psychically violent means A quandary between ethics and necessity he first and only time in my life that I was outed, I was 15 years old, barely knew what a lesbian was, and simply denied the accusation. The world was a lot less sophisticated then. People seemed to prefer not to know that someone they loved or looked up to, family or film star, could be so “afflicted.” Outing often served only to toughen will ing denial systems. In my case it was a disappointed rival who called the family and rudely dropped the bomb. Few were capable of believing in 1960 that a 15-year-old could be sexually active, much less seducing 14-year-olds of the same sex. And the gay people of my acquaintance then and for many years there after were equally incapable of the act of telling anyone outside the club. One simply did noL One, as a matter of fact, did everything in one’s power to pre vent that from hap pening. Sometimes I like to think that my life would have been a lot more simple if the Rude C aller’s word had , ^ j L C C L T I N C n been accepted. ■ ' That I would not have learned to lie so facilely, or to hide so successfully. That by confronting society’s stereotypes at an early age I would not have absorbed them myself and walked for dec ades with self-hatred as a second skin on my body and soul. That was a rom anticization. I would have been yanked out o f my puppy love reveries and shoved into the offices of shrinks. The first shrink I saw, when I was 17, loaded me up on new and improved addictive tranquil izers, because I was having a hard time coping with the world. My college referred me to a second one who tried to persuade me to fight my “tendencies.” The third was outspokenly Catho lic. One visit was all he got outta me. It could have been worse, I know. I could have been locked up like my 14-year-old paramour. Diag nosis for her? Suicidal tendencies. You bet we were self-destructive. You bet we couldn’t bear the pain. Today, I have a suspicion of outing. A bit too who is supporting heterosexist legislation. Once much like Pandora’s box for my stomach. The I accept that circumstance, however, which oth consequences o f such radical interference with a ers become right in my eyes? Do the lines get human life are unpredictable and can be devas fuzzy, does my judgment get shaky? Where do tating. W hich is m ore culpable? The police I get off making such judgements about others’ department that conducts raids on gay bars and lives? publicizes names, “driving” the ashamed to sui The fervent and self-righteous rage o f our cide? Or gay crusaders whose more direct pub front line outers, though one I am either genera- licity has the same effect? tionally or constitutionally incapable of joining, Outing is a natural consequence o f the incred is one I respect. These are our radicals. Society ible frustration and rage of a people who have does not leave us many tools to defend ourselves, been subjected to raids and ignorant shrinks and to make the world a better place for gays to live. rude phone calls since the beginning o f time. I Outing is a psychically violent means to end want the gay doctors and lawyers and sailors and violence and worse. politicians and actors and bankers and educators My Rude Caller was a wounded gay child and writers and housewives and philosophers and like me. Unlike me, she’d been battling in the musicians and construction workers and rabbis straight wars for centuries by age 17, in jails and and athletes to come marching across the world’s mental hospitals, on the streets — a knife-wield conscience saying we are proud and you won’t ing, cop-stomping baby-dyke. Society’s silence ever shut us up again. did this to a kid who looked and acted queer. I believe fervently that Silence = Death, al She knew 30 years ago that breaking the silence though, all too often, it’s the opposite we see. would get her what she wanted. Except she Obviously, if we ended the silences, we’d end couldn't break it alone. One screaming gay child the shame and we’d end the death. could not call or shout or scream loud enough to I t’s a quandary my poor little Virgo mind out even one other kid who had the defenses of hasn’t been able to sort through. I ’m not at all a whole culture protecting her. sure there is one answer, just specific situations. Today the outers are grown up. T hey’ve got Whether people on an individual basis can sur the media, the tactics of the ‘60s, and numbers. vive outing, whether mass exposures for the Would I condemn anyone who’d outed a Roy greater good o f the gay m asses is ethical, Cohn at the height of his power? I can’t imag whether I personally would participate in outing, ine that I would. I may be ethically confused, etc. my heart going out to both the outers and the On the other hand, I cannot entirely condemn outed, but I do acknowledge that the problem is pulling the covers where it will do enormous silence. I just wish there were such a thing as a good. A certifiably gay politician, for example. gentle war. T BETTER HEALTH CHIROPRACTIC CLINIC "A Total Personal Health Concept" AMAZON TRAIL • Deep Muscle Work • Exercise/Prevention • Sportsmedicine 222-2888 R en a Sandler, D C. Doctor on 24 hour page for emergencies 812 SW Washington, Suite 800 W orkers’ Comp & Auto Insurance Cover Chiropractic Care Insurance Accepted SUNDAY * OCT. 14th 1 P.M PEOPLE'S FOOD FOR PEOPLE NOT FOR PROFIT â * 0 / A N atural F o o d S to r i . 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