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Thursday, Nov 26, 2009
As the happy virus spread from state to state, I went on reading the daily front-page gay wedding stories, gazing at the daily front-page gay wedding photos, waiting for a stab of sorrow, a ripple of regret, a frisson of romantic or activist fervor to kick in. It never happened. Instead, I felt a growing and disturbing sense of, well, disorientation.
I'd had that feeling before: seeing the once-militant gay-pride march morph into the faggots-are-fun gay parade, watching "ER's" Dr. Weaver having a baby with her girlfriend on one major network and Ellen DeGeneres hosting her own talk show on another, hearing the pundits remark that supporting same-sex civil unions had become a mainstream position. Being warmly greeted on Sunday mornings by my son's Christian church-mates, who know that I'm his lesbian mother.
I felt I should be relishing these fruits, so to speak, of the gay movement's labors. Instead, as one city after another started issuing same-sex marriage licenses, as the progress of the gay rights movement became nightly dinnertime conversation, as the straight people around me started casually conversing about their same-sex flings and fantasies - as the gender-inclusive dream I'd spent much of my life fighting for seemed to be coming true -- I had a strange, nostalgic longing for what I'd known to be the natural order of things: hets on the inside with the door locked behind them, homos on the outside, banging to get in. Even if we weren't really sure we wanted all those trappings of boring-ass straight life; even if we secretly liked the compulsory creativity of our "commitment ceremonies" and fabulous family configurations; even if we wouldn't have dreamed of asking the state to sanctify our love (unless, of course, it refused to), this was the world as we knew it -- the us-vs.-them rules of the one game we'd been invited to play.
The goal of every social-change movement -- or (gag me with a chakra) personal-growth process -- is its own obsolescence. So why wasn't I celebrating all the gains, both personal and political? Maybe because I felt I had too much to lose. For better and for worse, living as an "out" mom, an "out" neighbor, an "out" writer had given me an identity and an address to go with it; a sometimes scary but stable spot on the outskirts of town, on the margins of the mainstream. There's a steep price to be paid for being gay in America, and the compensation package -- at least for those coastal big-city dwellers who can take advantage of it -- is what those hard-earned dues buy us. Being gay got me the secret password to the in (out) places only queer people go, the in (out) jokes only queer people know. Why would I want to share those membership benefits with hets who haven't paid to join the club?
And as I settle into middle age, being gay has become more than a built-in, nearly effortless expression of my activism -- it's become one of the few cool things about me. But how cool can it be to be gay when macho straight guys swoon and preen, allowing themselves to be fluffed and petted by screaming "Queer Eye" queens on national TV, and giggling gay-day marchers chant, "We're here! We're queer! We've got our own TV shows, Mary!"? How cool can it be to be gay when the love that dared not speak its name makes lead news headlines and campaign hay? If the world is as ready as it seems to open up and let us in, will we -- will I -- lose the edge we got from being out?
My greatest hopes and worst fears were realized when I came home to a changed world -- well, a changed Bay Area, anyway. Suddenly it was retro to be hetero. Straight friends I ran into asked if I'd gotten married, eager to horn in on the joy; gay friends displayed marriage certificates and wedding photos where "Hate Is Not a Family Value" posters and rainbow flags had once hung on their walls.
A week after I came home from the retreat I went to open a joint savings account at our local Bank of America. "My wife and I are saving for a vacation," I told the young, meticulously manicured, straight-appearing teller. I sneaked a peek to gauge her response, and witnessed ... absolutely none. "Oh, did you get married in San Francisco?" she asked nonchalantly, bringing to a screeching halt a lifetime of uncomfortable silences, defensive conversational maneuvers and elaborate explanations. "Even though Katrine's not here to sign, I'll put both of your names on the account," she offered before I answered. "After all, you guys are married."
