"Normal" Gay?

My friend, Jason Styres, recently posted a note on Facebook with a quote from Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart. This play was one of the first dramatizations of the AIDS crisis and the effect it was having on the LGBT community. One of the characters makes a speech about the importance of the queer community uniting as a community that has to claim its right to exist because we have a history made up of people who were not invisible.

It makes me question all of the times in my life that I've ever said that I didn't want to be a "banner waving queen." All the times that I've ever looked down my nose at someone I thought was too swishy. Doesn't make me feel too great. I don't know if this is an internalized bit of homophobia or whatever...that doesn't actually matter. I don't actually dislike these people, but for some reason, I don't want to be identified with them. Which is stupid, because I readily would jump to their...our...defense were it ever needed. But, they are people who are different from me. And I don't know how to interact with the community as a whole.

I have a hard time getting worked up about the injustices being done to the LGBT community. And I think that the reason is because nothing audacious has happened that directly effects me. I'm just barely an adult...I'll turn 21 in three weeks. And in my life, nothing bad has ever happened to me as a gay man. Sure, I came out in south Georgia in conservative surroundings, but I pulled a wild card in how well it turned out. I was never accosted in high school. I was called a fag three times in college. That's it. That's everything bad that's ever happened to me. And so I don't know how to relate to a world that seems dangerous, reactionary, and unfair when I read about it but not when I live it.

I have no plans to get married anytime in the discernible future (for that, you'd have to date...), so gay marriage isn't an imminent concern. I've never been the victim of harassment or a hate crime, so the Matthew Sheppard Bill doesn't effect my gut.

It's a little known fact about me, but I briefly planned on going into the military in 2005 once I graduated from college and serving a basic stint before moving on with my life. It's just something that I privately thought was important--I think that it's every person's responsibility to serve their country and their neighbors if there is a need that you can fulfill. But, with Don't Ask, Don't Tell, fulfilling this goal wasn't worth nailing back up the door that I'd already kicked in. So, I joined AmeriCorps instead, beating a sword into a plowshare.

I intellectually understand that these are the issues facing my community, but I don't know what I can do. It feels like nothing. And if there's nothing I can do, then it feels like fate. And I'm no Lachesis.

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When I went to college, I went to find myself. And every summer from 2006 to 2008 I considered my summer in the Booley House, referring to my favorite book, Leon Uris's Trinity. In this section of the novel, the two main characters spend the summer tending herds in a booley house. While there, they learn who they are and how to be men.

I feel like I've become more who I am than I ever have been. At the same time, though, I don't know how I feel about so much of the world. Years ago, opinions were simple. But I've been dragged to see the middle ground and to occasionally walk that path. I've been forced to concede that the lines are moveable and that black and white are just extreme shades of gray. Maybe one day I'll be set in my ways...right now, that feels like the opposite of my constant confusion.