Defined by more than sincere impulses
Often when I make a new friend (or at least meet someone new and strike up a conversation with the person), I tell one of my best friends from college , Elias, about him or her. I have been lucky enough to have come across quite a few brilliant and talented people in my line of work — intelligent and sharp people whose world views embrace all that’s worth fighting for in this life; people whose self-ambitions have melted into their own dreams for society (and thus their dreams are, in fact, living realities in the process of being created. Hopes shared by millions in this country, and billions more abroad).
Usually though, when I’m not describing someone’s striking sense of humor or kindness, I focus on particular skills or talents of people I meet. If he or she’s a writer, I speak of his or her writing; if he or she’s a painter, I describe his or her artwork, and so on.
When I tell Elias about these people, usually, quite predictably, he asks - "Is he (or she) gay?"
Elias, who’s straight and a fratman (Upsilon, UP Diliman), is firm in his belief that anyone who’s talented or particularly gifted has to be gay.
Or at least not completely straight.
When he first got his Apple computer, he kept rhapsodizing about the interface, and he kept repeating like some broken phonograph record "The people from Apple have got to be gay. No straight person can create this. This is art, this is technological beauty."
Sometimes we would make lists of talented people we knew and figure out where in the gender orientation spectrum they’re classified. The more talented, the greater the chance the person was gay.
"Darn it!" , we both said. "If we were gay, we’d probably be smarter and more creative than we already are."
One of my favorite writers, Alan Gurganus, is gay. I do think his being gay has something to do with his being such a brilliant writer (Gay people tend to be more artistic and sensitive. Maybe it’s because they’ve gotten the best of mental and emotional strengths male and female. This is just a theory). Boy do I covet his language and artistic sensibility! For instance, his "Plays Well With Others" is a wondrous, painful yet beautiful tribute to friendship. It revolves around the lives of three friends in Manhattan, struggling artists all, before the outbreak of AIDS.
Hartley is a writer; Angie is a painter; and Robert is a composer. All in their early 30s, they work and play and live and love as hard as they could as if, as the cliche goes, there is no tomorrow. Their economic backgrounds range from upper to lower middle class, and they’re all extremely talented. The core of the story, however, is how their friendship survives despite unrequited love, unwanted envy of each other’s small but definitely growing success, and the Plague. Gurganus writes the way Sarah Brightman sings: with awe-inspiring beauty and grounded humanity (the raw emotion translated into a purer form - the heart’s language written or expressed through song ).
What I like about Gurganus is that his fiction does not at all read like usual gay fiction. Is there such a thing as ’straight fiction?’ I have read some pieces openly declaring themselves to be gay lit and I found them too, I don’t know, strident and defensive. There’s a certain grace that’s lacking. The politics too blatant and hard-sell, hitting the reader over the head until one becomes weary and says ‘okay, okay, you’re gay, I get it, sheesh. ‘ The characters often become stereotypes. It’s like all the person is is his/her gender orientation.
(A person, I think, is much more than that. How’s that for an understatement. There’s something Albert Camus said in his essay on Absurdity - a person defines himself by his make-believe as well as by his sincere impulses. To me this means that, well, we are also what we like and love; what we enjoy, create and imagine; by what we hope and wish for. Am always reminded to try to see people in their entirety, or at least in more than three or four aspects. The light always changes, and so do we under the deepening shadow or growing brightness.)
Anyways.
Mr. Gurganus writes about gay people like they were, well, like most other people with their thoughts and feelings and defining, life-affecting experiences. Gay people as regular people - because they are regular people only, well, more interesting (I have my own biases, sorry.) There’s nothing particularly, shriekingly gay about his characters. I mean, they don’t bear the usual stereotypical characteristics attributed to gay people. They’re just men who are in relationships with men; women in relationships with other women. In any case, well, Hartley, Angie and Robert eat and drink and wait on tables and handwash their laundry — as well as enjoy theatre and art and music like the rest of working class albeit artistic humanity.
I don’t think I’m explaining this properly, and I would hate to be thought of as naive when it comes to the politics of gender (I do know how gay people are discriminated against in this feudal, patriarchal society with its culture of exploitation and abuse), but to put it quite simply and without artifice, reading Gurganus all the more convinces me that it’s so stupid the way some people (straight people, ok) lay down all these arguments attacking homosexuality and denouncing it as a social or biological aberration.
What a bunch of idiots. Using gender to further divide people. As if humanity wasn’t divided enough because of so many other factors economic and political! To discriminate and attack based on our differences in whom we love and how; to condemn because of how we each express our own uniqueness and qualities as individuals. The stupidity of it all is appalling. I can’t even begin to argue with people who are anti-gay. They have brains the size of lima beans.
The biases and narrow-mindedness (religious bigotry, gender discrimination, moralist self-righteousness) of mainstream culture maintained by the ruling economic, political system should be continously exposed and condemned as anti-people. All these are just means to divide people and keep them from seeing the true enemies, the true exploiters. When we discriminate on the basis of color, race, religion or gender, it strengthens the forces that divide us and blind us against what humanity can be: fully creative, relentlessly productive, a society united by common goals.
Namely equal economic and political rights for all. The only real war is class war. Part of that class war is to expose and oppose all forms of discrimination - racial, religious and gender-based. Because even among the exploiters are gay people — and they exploit gay people belonging to the poor and working classes as well. There are capitalist gay people, presidents of transnational corporations that extract profits from neo-colonies in Africa and the Philippines; and they live such decadent lifestyles the same as straight capitalists.
Sa kabaliktaran naman, marami ding mga bakla at lesbyana sa Kilusang Mapagpalaya. They don’t separate or compartamentalize their fight for equal treatment and against discrimination from the general struggle for civil liberties, human rights and against class exploitation. The debate on gender rights they consider part and parcel of the over-all struggle for genuine freedom and democracy. Pag pinalaya ang uri, mapapalaya din ang kasarian. The fight for recognition and respect for gay rights — and women’s rights — should be waged on the same plane as the fight against social injustice.
As an aside — I’m a woman, and the person I hate most these days is another woman. That #$&%&%$!! illegitimate and corrupt president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. What a disgrace to womanity.
Deeds, not gender or race or religion. Our measure and our worth are how and what we contribute to the betterment of society. Straight or gay, Muslim or Christian or atheist — how does one live, for whom, and what do we leave behind as marks of our humanity and individual uniqueness are what inevitabitably count, I think.
I have to make an admission here though — whenever I get into an argument with anyone about gender rights, I am almost always tempted to say I’m gay.
"What is it to you if I choose to have a relationship with another woman? Does it affect your way of life? Are your democratic rights in any way violated by my being gay? Does my homosexuality cause you any physical or mental harm in any way?!"
Sheesh. It will take another entry to describe all the times I’ve beeen envious of gay men who are so freaking beautiful dolled up in summer dresses. Or worse - I’ve gotten so many crushes on men who turned out to be gay. Writers and poets and painters. Aaaagh.Syempre, wala akong ka-pag-a-pag-asa. The frustration of it all! #
