28 ▼ july 1. 1904 ▼ just out
BANSHEE ^\>
DESIGNS
,
’Tis the season of Mother ’s and Father’s Days and sadness is
inevitable for those who choose not to come out
▼
Beautiful batiked
and silkscreened
clothing in sizes
uptoBXL by
artist Bridget
Benton
by Lee Lynch
THE LESBIAN
COM M UNITY
PROJECT
Come visit my booth at the !
Pacific NW Women's Musical J
and Cultural Jamboree
f
Bellingham, WA July 1-3 #
UPCOMING EVENTS
A ll events wheelchair accessible
GA
Sat., July 9
5th Annual Pride Dance
Emerald Ballroom, Tiffany Center
SW 14th & Morrison, 8 pm -1 am
A W cif
Event
Be Proud! Dance Your Sox Offl
Tues., July 12
"On ta ck ” Newsletter Mtg.
LCP Office, 6 pm- Volunteers needed!
Tues., July 12
Small Events Mtg.
Starbucks Coffee, NW 21 si & Lovejoy
7:30-8:30 pm
A ll Welcome! Volunteers Needed!
Yardbirds
Unique and Unusual
Gifts for Home and Garden H
Thurs., July 14
Anti-Violence Pro|ect Volunteer Training
It's My Pleasure, 4526 SE Hawthorne
7-9 pm - Get Training! Get Ready!
B
A membership organization., join today!
288-9985
8 blocks East o f Lloyd Center
M on-Sat 10-8 p.m.
Sun 12-5 p.m.
" ★ ★ ★ ★ ! A SEXY, FREE-WHEELING
AND BRACING TALE o F lovE!"
"REAL COMIC VERVE! v * FisU' looks <nF love
- Gese Seyv*A0ur, NEW Y c R x NEWSDAY
be tw e en wovnen wiFW c\ wiF FU¿\F's long <Jvev<Aue.w
- J*neF P U T H E n E w YORk TIMES
O L A 4-
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concern and, all too often, horror.
“Ian did live in a secret place when he was
younger, a place only gay children know,” writes
Georgia Dullea in a New York Times interview of
set designer Ian MacNeil and his father, Robert
MacNeil of PBS’ MacNeil/Lehrer Newshour. As
I read of Ian’s “secret place” I immediately envi
sioned green bowers, like illustrations in my child
hood copy of Robert Lewis Stevenson’s A Child’s
Garden o f Verses. There was always an androgy
nous white child pictured in such drawings, an
unsmiling but not unhappy being with Prince
Valiant hair, who was intent on some solitary
activity. This secret and necessary place of ours is
recreated by queer adults in bars or works of
imagination, elaborate gardens or very exclusive
intimate relationships. Interior decoration takes
on new meaning when we consider all the queer
children perplexed by the world and retreating to
secret places to dream.
“I think gay people are some of the best actors
in the world,” says a young lesbian in The Wash
ington Blade, commenting on the personas we
slip into for families, employers, the futon sales-
Whenever I run into one particular parent my eyes
mist over. She so obviously loves her queer child,
and is so active in fighting those who not only
discriminate against him but hate and threaten the
whole family because of its activism, that I am
overcome with admiration and gratitude—and
pain—because this is the way it should be for all
of us. Yet I know that particular child did not
willingly come out to his accepting, educated,
liberal parents. They respectfully, kindly, gave
him the opportunity to say what were probably the
most difficult words of his young life. He was
unable to initiate the disclosure, perhaps because
every queer person knows that no words can ever
completely express who and what we are. With
out that wordless understanding, I doubt that any
heterosexual parent can ever completely accept a
child’s queemess. They may love us, reserve
judgment, support our unions, but when we listen
hard— let our lavender antennae tingle— we know
there will always be a sense of bafflement, a
caution around us.
In Irish literature there is a fascination with the
changeling, a new child suddenly substituted for
the “real” child, the one the parents thought they
had. The changeling is a mystical explanation of
the different, disappointing offspring. We see our
difference cloud our parents’ eyes with, at least,
person. I imagine the wary pride in that young
lesbian voice, already alert to how accomplished
we are in our subterfuges. I also imagine the heart
breaking sadness in her eyes, her knowledge that
no child should have to make believe forever.
As we celebrate the season of Mother’s and
Father’s Days, sadness is inevitable for those of us
who choose not to come out to parents— and for
many of those who do. That invisible cloak a
queer child draws around herself is no seasonal
item. Whether we store it in a handy closet or
donate it to a thrift shop, the years of wear have
imprinted us. Our parents are as alien to us in this
one respect as we are to them. There is an extra
guardedness built into what, for many, is already
an uneasy relationship.
Regret our defenses as we may, the ironic truth
does not change. The very parents who fight
hardest to eradicate discrimination, who struggle
most intensely to love us unconditionally, are,
through no fault of their own, often the people
who taught us that we needed to wear cloaks, to
hide in secret places. If it is true that most parents
simply don’t know how to have queer daughters
and sons, it is also true that we don’t know how to
have straight parents. We become the best actors
in the world to bridge that awkward gap. But
when we act, it is from love.
I
AMAZON
TRAIL
Anti-Violence Project
796-1703/1 -800-796-1703
• WAI l KIM. C ANS • PLANTE Its • HOOKS •
*,r
n his Washington Blade column, Lawrence
Biemiller writes of his father: “Not that
he’s not a nice enough guy, ’cause he is. He
just didn’t know—doesn’t know—how to
have a queer son.”
How true of most parents, and how unutter
ably sad. As children, we don’t have the words to
communicate who we are. Some of us come out,
a simplistic and incomplete revelation of our real
selves. Our openness often has the unhappy
consequence
o f— on some
level—repelling
those we ask for
acceptance. Par
ents seldom want
to deal with a
sexual child,
much less a ho
mosexual one.
■
And my experience has been that homosexual, for
a straight person, means “sexual,” to the exclu
sion of other qualities.
As adults, we have the words—or do we?
(503) 223-0071/ T D D
Fax 242-1967
f
P.O. Box 5931 O -
Portland, OR 97228______
2200 NE BROADWAY
3e
A secret place
We are everywhere.
^ OC\ l
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