Tag: How Queer

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Queer, Just How Queer by Betsy

Imagine that we could measure an individual’s degree of sexual orientation by taking, say, a blood test. This would be an ugly world indeed with a rigid caste system. The most heterosexual would be on top and the most homosexual on the bottom.

Newborns would be immediately tested at birth. Here’s one scenario.

“Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Jones. You have a healthy baby boy measuring only two on the “queerometer” He will be your pride and joy.

Or the dreaded scenario:

“You have a healthy baby boy, Mr. and Mrs. Jones. He has 10 fingers and 10 toes and all his parts. I’m sorry to tell you that he tests positive on the queerometer. He’s a 9.6”

“Oh, says Mrs. Jones, gasping for breath. A 9.6 ! Does that mean, does that mean? “

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” says the attendant. At the age of eight years you will be required to turn him over to the Department of Corrections. He will be yours until then. Enjoy!”

Or the following close-call:

“Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Jones. You have a beautiful baby girl. She appears to be in perfect health and all her parts are in the right place.” However, she does measure a five on the queerometer, which, as you know, is high. The state will provide you with all the materials you need to guide her in the right direction. If you use the manual wisely and stick to it, she will turn out just fine and I’m sure she will live a normal life and give you many grandchildren.”

Or imagine a world in which LGBT people took on a particular hue at puberty. Say, a shade of purple. The really dark purple ones would be the really, really, queer ones, and the light violets would be only slightly inclined to be homosexual or transgender, or bisexual, or queer. I can see the pride parade right now. A massive multi-shaded purple blob oozing down Colfax.

Parents who suspected queerness would dread the day puberty started for their child. Of course, in this world everyone starts out with lily white skin. So the outward signs of race and ethnicity would not exist. In this world their would be no race and ethnicity. Only sexual orientation has meaning.

Of course, in the real world there is no such thing as a queerometer or purple-skinned LGBT’s. The world we know is so very much more complex than that.

In our world we have a choice. Not a choice of whether or not to be queer, but rather we choose to be in or out of the closet, we can choose to accept or deny our queerness, we choose our behaviors every minute of every day. A great raising of awareness over the last few decades has given us even more choices. At least, this is true for the most part in this community that we know so well and in most cities of this country. As acceptance becomes more and more prevalent I am very thankful, indeed. I am thankful everyday, that I have been free to choose to live my queerness with honesty and integrity and pride.

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Queer? Just How Queer? by Colin Dale

     This question is so obviously a scientific one, although it goes against my nature, it’s only fair I give it a scientific reply. I did a little checking, and I see there is a Queer Scale, or Queer Magnitude Scale, just like there’s the Richter Magnitude Scale for earthquakes and the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale for hurricanes. And just like with these other two scales, there are numbers indicating severity. For example, with the Richter Magnitude Scale you can have a 4.Oh to 4.9 earthquake, which, according to the Richter Scale, means a light earthquake, with noticeable shaking of indoor items, rattling noises, but no significant damage. With the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale, you can have a Category 2 hurricane, which means winds of 96 to 110 mph, winds strong enough to lift mobile homes and snap the anchorages of small craft; extensive to near-total power outages are likely. Similarly, with the Queer Magnitude Scale, or QMS, you can have a 4.Oh to 4.9 queer, which means a light queer, with noticeable shaking of indoor items, rattling noises, but no significant damage. Or a Category 2 queer, strong enough to lift mobile homes and snap anchorages, but people living in brick homes or well-built high risers are probably okay.

     Now I’m going to take a look at my life–to see if I can answer this question: Just how queer am I? And for simplicity’s sake, so we don’t keep having to go back and forth, let’s just put the QMS (remember, that’s the Queer Magnitude Scale) up against the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, Categories 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5–5 being the meanest, toughest, most destructive.

     I started out like most of us, at puberty or maybe a little before, as a Category 1 queer. Now if I’d been a hurricane, that would have meant, as a queer just starting out, there would not have been much structural damage. Maybe a few shingles blown off, a few crushes on boys that made no sense, but that’s about it. According to the QMS, life, as a Category 1 queer, is almost always survivable.

     When I was a teen growing up in The Bronx, I got my first job: Christmas part-time in a suburban Macy’s; men’s dress shirts. There was this guy, my age–let’s call him Nicky B.–working the same evening shift. One night going home in a lightly falling snow, me to the elevated subway, Nicky B. to his home, which was within walking distance, Nicky B. grabbed my hand and led me into an apartment building and into a deserted stairwell where we had a little fun. That was my first time. And even though it was my first time, I liked it enough to know that I was now a Category 2 queer. If you recall, a QMS Category 2: small craft snap their anchorages. My anchorage had been snapped, all credit to Nicky B.

     I remained a QMS Cat 2 queer all through high school, all through my undergrad years, but then came Army and graduation to Category 3. Between the stairwell and the Army there had been a couple of Category 2.2’s and 2.6’s, but I can’t boast making it all the way to a Cat 3 until the Army. And Mark C. The setting is South Korea. Winter. Christmas Eve. (I’ve made it a practice to always upgrade my QMS at around Christmastime.) The officers’ club: a jumbo Quonset hut overlain with snow. Night: late enough so that all of us junior officers are morosely shitfaced . . .

     Before I bring Mark C. into the picture: according to the Saffir-Simpson Scale, a Category 3 hurricane is described as a “major hurricane,” capable of inflicting significant damage to a building “lacking a solid foundation,” to include the “peeling off of gable-end roofs” and the “penetration of inner curtainwalls.” Damage, according to Saffir-Simpson, can be “irreparable . . . “

     Enter: First Lieutenant Mark C., Alpha Battery commander, gruff, tough, recruiting-poster good-looking. He sits down next to Second Lieutenant Ray K., battalion adjutant (adjutant? that’s what they do with guys with English Lit. B.A.’s)–Second Lieutenant Ray K., self-conscious, mild, rapidly balding. A few whiskeys and First Lieutenant C. invites Second Lieutenant K. back to his hooch (hooch: Army lingo for quarters; quarters: regular people lingo for bedroom) to admire his new Samsung Acoustics Subwoofer Speaker System. We spend a quarter-hour tasting Wild Turkey and looking at the subwoofers; then turned–to my woozy surprise–to peeling off gable-end roofs and penetrating inner curtainwalls–definitely Category 3 stuff.

     I left the Army after Korea, Missouri, and Vietnam (Missouri being the most terrifying of the three). Toss in a couple of Category 3-point-this & that’s before I got to my QMS Category 4 level. Those point-this & that’s all happened after I’d moved to Colorado and was going to grad school: Western State in Gunnison, and, after that, D.U. . . .

     In fact, it was in the D.U. Theatre Department where I met Jake. No last initial needed. Jake was one-of-a-kind. The singular love of my life: five years younger, red-headed, perpetually cheerful, a fine actor and a frighteningly good cartoonist. You could say, when I met Jake, right then and there I applied for promotion to Category 4. Saffir-Simpson warns: “Category 4 hurricanes tend to produce more extensive curtainwall failures . . . ” (un-huh) ” . . . with some complete structural failures: some homes are leveled. There may be extensive beach erosion, with terrain flooded far inland. Total and long-lasting electrical and water losses are to be expected.” (un-huh) Jake and I were a couple for a long, long time. We were definitely QMS Category 4 queers. Had we the chance back then, we would have become Category 4 married queers. But we didn’t have that chance. We’d become QMS Cat 4’s about three decades too soon. But we had a good life together, Jake and I: Denver, New York, Denver again, San Diego, Seattle, and San Diego for a second time: a good, happy life.

     But, just like with hurricanes, the one-of-a-kind loves of a guy’s life–even Category 4 loves–sometimes move inland, their fierceness dissipate, their strong winds subside. Jake now does motion-capture animation with a film studio in Tel Aviv. He’s alone, living singly, and I’m genuinely sorry that’s true.

     I’ll stop here. I’ve never been a QMS Category 5 queer. I’m not sure what that would feel like. I know Saffir-Simpson says: “Category 5 hurricanes are the highest category of hurricanes. Complete building failures are a certainty, with some buildings totally blown away. Only a few types of structures are capable of surviving intact.” To be honest, I’m not sure I’d ever want to be a Category 5 queer. Katrina was a Category 5 hurricane. I’m afraid if ever I had a chance to be a Category 5 queer, I’d find myself, years–after my Mother of All Loves had moved inland–I’d find myself still waiting for some relief from the damage done to me, inside and out, still living among the debris of a Cat 5 relationship that was too wild, too strong, too indiscriminate.

     And probably still living in a F.E.M.A. trailer.

About the Author

Colin Dale couldn’t be happier to be involved again at the Center. Nearly three decades ago, Colin was both a volunteer and board member with the old Gay and Lesbian Community Center. Then and since he has been an actor and director in Colorado regional theatre. Old enough to report his many stage roles as “countless,” Colin lists among his favorite Sir Bonington in The Doctor’s Dilemma at Germinal Stage, George in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Colonel Kincaid in The Oldest Living Graduate, both at RiverTree Theatre, Ralph Nickleby in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby with Compass Theatre, and most recently, Grandfather in Ragtime at the Arvada Center. For the past 17 years, Colin worked as an actor and administrator with Boulder’s Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Largely retired from acting, Colin has shifted his creative energies to writing–plays, travel, and memoir.

      

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How Queer Is Queer: Just Being Me by Donny Kaye

“SOME DUDES MARRY DUDES.  GET OVER IT”
“I HAVE A PHD. Pretty huge dick”
“BEST LICK ON A STICK”
“I LIKE GIRLS THAT LIKE GIRLS”

     These were some of the t-shirt messages I enjoyed while interacting with participants in this past weekend’s PRIDE celebration.  And the t-shirts?  The t-shirts don’t hold a candle to some of the titillating visual experiences of viewing participants in various costumes throughout the weekend.

     So, just how queer is queer? Can you ever be too queer? Is there an option to be or not to be? How Shakespearian!

     Yes!

     I am! Queer that is!

     It’s Friday night of PRIDE weekend and I’m walking down Colfax headed into the action, as it were. My youngest daughter has just text me saying “it’s your first dad” referring to it being PRIDE weekend. Actually last year was, she just didn’t know it!  Then, that is. And yet when I came out she was the one of my three children who said “I’ve always known dad”. In that instance I must’ve been too queer.

     That warm sunny Sunday afternoon in April over a year ago when I had my “I can’t stand it any longer” conversation with my life partner, she said “I wondered when I first met you”.  There must have been something there, I mean, like over-the-top in too queer.

     When I had breakfast with my dearest friend Grett who I’ve known since she was two years of age, amidst the tears and in the sense of shame in revealing to her that I kept the secret for far too long, she said “I’ve always known”. 

     There seems to be a pattern; partner, daughter, best friend, all seemed to have known. In fact when I consider the many coming out conversations I had with my “then” circle of friends” not too many were surprised. It was the confirmation that sent them scrambling! 
I don’t know if that was about me, or them, but definitely it was too much!

     And so this Friday afternoon as I walk through the cloudy streets in Denver headed into Friday night PRIDE celebrations I wonder about too queer and it being too much! In the question of too queer it seems more about them than it does about me, after all, I’m just being me.

     Yes, I do have an eye for design and color. I’ve always searched for just the right things to put together, like in clothing-wise and decorating-wise and in every-other-way-wise!

     If not HGTV and the shows on design always (or most of the time) presented by recognizably gay men, I enjoyed the food channel. Could that possibly be a tip-off, in terms of being too gay?

     Yes, I’ve always been on the sensitive side as my mother used to say. Even when I announced to my mom that I was getting married her response was, “Why do you want to get married? There is so much of life for you to experience!” I have an ability to listen to people and to intervene on others behalf as they need me. I sit and cry with them. I’ve always been able to put my arms around someone consoling them in their upset, doubt or grief.

     So, there you have it; my attention to design, my interest in food, the emotional sensitivities and then you add the fact that I’ve never liked sports, and I happened to choose a profession where I worked with women all the time–what else could you expect. Even before I began my career in education when I worked in the factory, I was one of the only stockmen who could keep all of my dyke female machine operators happy!! 

     Certifiably queer! I am just me! 

     The questions and the discomfort around my possibly being too queer really do rest with everyone outside of me and not really with me.  As I exist in that realization, I wonder if the pushback is about their doubt about themselves and the possibility that they are too much, in one way or another. Possibly at some point in their lives they’ve considered a variant sexual experience too! One thing for sure, I’ve certainly gotten their attention, if gaining attention is what the t-shirt slogans and the unique dress (or undress) are all about.

     When considering the question of “too much,” the actual realization is that the quality of being too much exists in the eyes and mind of someone outside of myself and then gets projected back onto me, making me wonder if I am too much!  Those dirty rascals!

     And so I ask you my dearest of friends am I “too queer” or might I just be BEING ME?

About the Author

Donny Kaye-Is a native born Denverite. He has lived his life posing as a hetero-sexual male, while always knowing that his sexual orientation was that of a gay male. In recent years he has confronted the pressures of society that forced him into deep denial regarding his sexuality and an experience of living somewhat of a disintegrated life. “I never forgot for a minute that I was what my childhood friends mocked, what I thought my parents would reject and what my loving God supposedly condemned to limitless suffering.” StoryTime at The Center has been essential to assisting him with not only telling the stories of his childhood, adolescence and adulthood but also to merely recall the stories of his past that were covered with lies and repressed in to the deepest corners of his memory. Within the past two years he has “come out” not only to himself but to his wife of four decades, his three children, their partners and countless extended family and friends. Donny is divorced and yet remains closely connected with his family. He lives in the Capitol Hill Community of Denver, in integrity with himself and in a way that has resulted in an experience of more fully realizing integration within his life experiences. He participates in many functions of the GLBTQ community.

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I Do Deviate by Nicholas

     I am not terribly fond of the term “queer.” I do not share the enthusiasm for that word that many younger gays and lesbians seem to. I came out in the great age of gay lib when we most wanted to show the world how not-queer we were. I needed also to show me how not-queer I was. 

     “Queer” depends on a context. It needs a norm to deviate from. It needs a norm from which to accuse others of not measuring up to or violating. Queer back then meant weak, inadequate, incapable, diseased, shameful. A queer was one who couldn’t live a healthy life. A queer was sunken in lust and incapable of rising to the romantic heights of love.

     I’ve had my lusts for sure but have known and given love as well. The problem for me is that while I do not identify as queer nor take any pride in being queer, I am definitely not normal—normal as defined by present day American culture. I do deviate. Let me count the ways.

     Sex, of course. I, a man, have sex with men. Not normal, though I hardly see it as queer. Most of that sex is currently with one man—my husband—in a sort of nod to normality. But I guess that is queer, for me to talk of a husband.

     On to politics and the queer thing shows up again. Though I see many of my political views as fitting easily into mainstream liberal American thinking, I can’t help but feel that is getting queerer and queerer. For one thing, I value intelligence. So that by itself pushes me off the political stage. I tend to be critical of politicians, all politicians, even those on my side. I don’t believe Barack Obama can fix the economy and certainly not in ways I would think essential—like helping poor people instead of rich ones. But Republicans on the other hand would only make a bigger, more inequitable mess of it. I would really rather see an American president talk about investing more money in public transit than giving nice speeches about gay marriage. Go figure. I must be queer.

     I do see myself as part of some larger things like a community, a society, a world, a natural system. That’s queer in the individually greedy USA. I don’t mind paying taxes and think that more people (i.e., those who have fed hugely from the money trough) should pay more so others can count on a decent life. Now that’s really queer. My lavender is now turning pink, as in pinko.  

     I can’t leave out religion because this is where I get really queer. My soul pulls me in to be part of one though I remain highly skeptical of it. I guess I’d call myself Christian though I prefer to follow the example of Jesus Christ as a man seeking to include everybody in his fellowship. I find it intriguing that Christ taught with stories and parables and not the heavy-handed lectures that his followers prefer today. I think that the “Jesus is my personal savior” approach to spirituality as kind of preposterous and egotistical and the body and blood stuff is just gruesome and distasteful. 

     I see the Christian message as one inspiring humans to be kind, do good, practice humility, and restrain egoism. It is a way of questioning, not of imposing answers on others, not a way of trumpeting ego and excluding people you don’t like because of something handily called “god’s will.” I am so queer, in fact, that I like to say your faith is only as strong as your doubts.

     Well, it seems that I am more queer outside of bed than in it. And that is a status that I highly cherish and value in friends as well. One is better off being queer not only because the sex is actually better but so is the rest of life. Be yourself means, always be yourself, that unique person with your unique perspectives. It’s a full-time job being queer.

About the Author


Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.