Chapter 77: Uncommon Perspectives

Wednesday, March 27, 1985

The Batt announced two events next week that we just had to go to.

The first was right in our wheelhouse. ‘MSC Political Forum’ and ‘MSC Great Issues’ were jointly putting on an event (Debate? Maybe) about gay rights. It didn’t seem to have a title, but the ad raised the usual question: was this a matter of constitutional rights supporting gay people, or was it gay people asking for special rights?

We had some strong opinions on that, after all!

The second was another big-name political forum. Zbigniew Brzezinski, James Schlesinger, and Ambassador Arkady Shevchenko were having a discussion entitled ‘U.S. - Soviet Relations: The Quest for International Security’. Edwin Newman would be moderating.

Everyone wanted to go. Pretty much everyone said they were looking forward to hearing my perspective after it. Angie had hers, of course, and Laura’s matched up as much as we could tell, but it would be interesting to see how far off they were.

My money was on ‘well off.’

The other piece of gay rights-related news in the Batt perhaps boded well for GSS. In a 4-4 tie, the Supreme Court let stand a circuit court ruling that prevented Oklahoma school boards from firing teachers who ‘advocate, encourage, or promote homosexuality.’

Based on my experience with such laws in the past, I imagined the teachers in question had done no such thing. How many cases were there where a teacher actively did that? I imagined it was vanishingly small.

What did happen was a teacher saying ‘It’s fine to be gay,’ or perhaps a more daring ‘I and my boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife were on vacation last weekend’ when the partner in question was of the same gender. To some minds, merely saying it was ‘okay’ to be gay, or merely saying one was gay, amounted to ‘advocating, encouraging, or promoting.’

Justice Powell had not heard the case, thus the tie. Perhaps Powell would have sided with the school boards — he was somewhat of a conservative — but no one would ever know, and Powell might be retiring soon anyway.

The Supreme Court had still not issued ‘cert’ to the GSS case. Every day that ticked by increased the odds of them simply allowing the Fifth Circuit ruling to stand. It wouldn’t create a national precedent (nor would the Oklahoma case), but simply abstaining would give GSS the win.

Angie and I took turns talking with Jane once we were home from shopping.

I spent much of my time talking over some of the recent conversations about my new sort of Impostor Syndrome. Jane mostly listened. She, of course, had always known me as a fit and fairly handsome guy who seemed to have no trouble meeting and forming relationships with girls. Heck, that might be an understatement!

Of course, she ‘knew’ there had been another me, but that’s one of the places where people have trouble. Knowing someone was once older, and knowing they had lived an entirely different life, is ... unusual. Most people will never have that.

Once we reached that point, the ‘solution’ was fairly obvious. Jane could consider how she would treat a patient who ‘knew’ things that weren’t true and apply that to me. Technically, perhaps such a person is ‘insane,’ but believing you’re not as handsome or attractive as you are isn’t a threat to yourself or others, nor does it (in most cases) interfere with one’s ability to live a healthy life. It certainly hadn’t for me! Without those, ‘insanity’ really isn’t actionable. A therapist can help, but they can’t really judge.

In any case, I was (probably) getting better. It was hard to be sure, though. Becca had perhaps made the point better than anyone else. But, until I actually followed through with dating someone I met independently, without someone else giving me a nudge, it was all just conjecture.

That might be an unfair standard, in that (at least technically) I’d met Megan, Jaya, and others ‘by myself’ and no one (except them) had ‘nudged’ me, but still.

Angie’s call didn’t go that long after mine, but I had a feeling they deferred some things to May (just as I had). We really were fine right now, but one of the ways to stay fine is to keep at it!

Much to my surprise, Claire said she wanted to go to the GSS meeting tonight. It seemed like it was perhaps to her surprise, too. I got the feeling it was a very spontaneous comment, one she hadn’t planned at all.

Still, she wanted to go, and that was that.

Perhaps to mess with me (but perhaps not), Jas volunteered to ride along with us. That would let Angie and Paige take Mel and Cammie in their car. We, apparently, were also giving Katy a ride.

That would be an interesting dynamic right there!

We also made a date for Friday night. There was a Humphrey Bogart festival at the MSC. We would be seeing ‘Casablanca’, with dinner (at the very romantic MSC cafeteria) beforehand.

They were showing a bunch of Bogart films, but the only one we wanted on Friday was ‘Casablanca’. We discussed ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ on Saturday. It was the only Saturday offering we were really interested in. That one, though, would just be a ‘social outing’ (with or without Claire). ‘Casablanca’ was a date.

Jas was going to check with Katy. There was a good chance they would go out to something more current, or maybe just do something that didn’t involve movies.

We picked up Claire and Katy about twenty minutes before the meeting. Katy lived in Krueger, the other women’s dorm in the Commons, right next to Mosher. The two met us by the curb since this was, officially, not a date.

The conversation on the way turned into a bit of a discussion with Katy on what it was like to be a lesbian in a women’s dorm. She was quite closeted at the moment. Her roommate didn’t know, nor did the other girls in her suite. One friend from high school was in Krueger and knew, but she had kept Katy’s secret thus far.

Katy wasn’t loving the tension at all and was looking forward to moving into an apartment next year. That brought with it its own tension, though. Pick a straight woman for a roommate and the ‘do you tell?’ question hangs out there. Room with a lesbian and the question became (for Katy, at least) “Are we ‘roommates’ or are we “living together?”’ — even if there was no dating relationship at all. Katy was half-convinced that a gay guy might be the perfect roommate, but her parents would explode at the very idea of her ‘living with a man!’

It was all very dramatic, but the questions were serious and real. None of us knew how to help, but hopefully some of the older girls in GSS might have ideas to offer.

The ‘meeting’ part of the GSS meeting was consumed by three things: discussion of the Oklahoma ruling (everyone thought it was a good thing), discussion of the lawsuit (no news is good news, hopefully), and discussion of issues within GSS. That last one consumed most of the time and escalated much more than I thought it would. Apparently, absence had not made the heart grow fonder, at last amongst the squeaky wheels.

There were roughly an equal number of guys and girls with axes to grind. Some of those were aimed at each other, or at least segments of either the ‘gay’ or the ‘lesbian’ population. Fewer were aimed at Marco, but he still took his share of abuse. Marco was too showy, or he was too reserved. He spent too much time courting the media, or too little. He claimed to speak for everyone too often, or he spent too much time saying he didn’t.

These things were natural, of course, but they were also the sorts of issues that tore organizations apart. Sometimes fights over differences that appear minor to outsiders take on a life of their own in clubs and become knock-down, drag-out fights to the bitter end.

As usual, once the meeting ended, Angie, Paige, Cammie, and Mel were networking for all they were worth. Mel’s toe got plenty of attention, particularly when she explained how it happened. We had no idea if the motive was sexual, but that was entirely plausible. It got Mel a certain level of ‘street cred’ that she’d both blasted the guy with pepper spray and also (possibly) made him severely regret the error of his ways.

Part of the whole thing was an underlying tension: all of us guessed the GSS fight might be resolved by the next meeting. If the Supreme Court did grant ‘cert,’ it would not. In that case, we would have to wait until mid-summer for an answer.

If, however, they did not (and everyone thought the odds were improving), it would all be over.

And, of course, if it was all over, then the biggest piece of common ground in GSS would be gone. It would be good, of course, but it could also be very, very bad.

We invited a number of friends to see ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre’ with us on Saturday. Lindsay and Paula were in, but that was it. None of the guys seemed all that interested.

It might be harder for me to be ‘just friends’ with these guys than it was for me to be friends with a bunch of lesbians. Notwithstanding my having two very close gay male friends, neither I nor any of the girls would name them, because (of course) they were still very closeted and risked major backlash should their secret come out. We slanted things so it sounded like family crises rather than what the stakes really were, because our knowing a couple of football players wasn’t a secret.

With that, though, I had enough credibility to be an ally, but perhaps not enough to be a friend, at least for many of them. Combine that with their having to hang out with a bunch of lesbians if they came over and it perhaps just wasn’t that tempting. The ones we already liked would stay friends, but that circle wasn’t expanding.

So, we would keep having parties at our house and the current gang would keep attending. Over time, that might open things up to more genuine friendships.

Either way, we had tried.

Katy came up to me a while into the socializing part and rather deftly guided me into a quiet corner.

“I wanted to check,” she said. “You’re not upset or anything, right?”

“With ... you and Jas?” I said, carefully. One should never assume what a woman thinks you might be upset about.

“What else?” she said, chuckling a bit. “Yes, with us.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Why would I be? I mean, I’m spending time with Claire...”

She shook her head, too.

“Sometimes, you know ... what’s good for the gander is not so good for the goose, at least from the gander’s perspective.”

“Not a problem for us. And, really, if it was a problem for me, I’d say ... well, it would be more a problem for me than a problem for you and Jas. The rules, such as they are, are clear, and I like them the way they are. If I got jealous, I’d be upset with myself. I would still talk it over with Jas, of course, but it would be more for me to work on.”

She nodded.

“Which is what Jasmine said, but ... you know. Better to check.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Claire and Jasmine have talked a bunch. I imagine some of those conversations were pretty ... interesting.”