It's Not Any of My Business


I have several friends who are gay.  I have a pseudo nephew who is gay.  I even have a couple of relatives who are gay.  Other than using the correct pronoun when asking how their significant other is, it’s none of my business as to what they do with their significant others.

My hometown was a typical Midwestern town of around 10,000 people.  Even if you didn’t know everyone, you probably knew “their family”.  Sports like football and basketball were the paths to popularity and acceptance. Being smart i.e. nerdy or worse artistic were the paths to being outcast. 

Our class sizes were around 200.  By the time we were in junior high our social ranks were fairly set.  I always referred to my group as the misfits, we really didn’t fit in except among other misfits.  We weren’t jocks as we were athletically challenged.  We weren’t grits, because we didn’t smoke and skip classes.  We were smart without being brilliant and we liked theatre- this was our ticket to escape that little Peyton Place. 

 While theatre felt safe for the girls, the boys who were artistically inclined were vilified by other boys in the school.  Those friends of mine were tortured just because they weren’t “male” enough for that small town.  But I didn’t know that in those days,  I just knew that the guys in theatre made the best dates.  Fun and frolic without the pressure. The boy who gave me my first kiss, is gay.  My first big crush was gay.  My best friend’s first serious boyfriend is gay and now her prom date for life, even her husband agrees.  I was spoiled.  I learned how I should expect to be treated by a significant other by gay men - they listened, planned perfect dates, and were comfortable to be with.  I wish I could go back and tell those young men, how much they meant to me and they didn't have to pretend with me.

Later I learned that several of the guys who tortured my friends also turned out to be gay.  In the hope that bullying the obvious gay kid would shield anyone from knowing that they also preferred boys.  I have such mixed feelings for those boys, today, I just pray that they have accepted themselves and no longer perpetuate the hatred.

I wish I could say that my classmates outgrew their homophobia, but I can’t.  My friend told me that at one of the class reunions, an old classmate that we knew, but never hung with, ended up asking to sit at her table.  During the discussions it came out, that his old school friends turned on him when he came out.   I still can’t wrap my mind around that- breaking a decades old friendship over the gender of a friend's bedroom partner. 

When I discovered many of my male friends were gay, I listened to stories told by other people and even had group discussions on is he or isn’t he.  I’m not proud of myself.  Some were outed, some delayed coming out until they were out of college.  I have learned the timing has to be up to the person.  My only exception to that is they shouldn’t get into a long term hetero relationship in order to hide the fact that they are gay. The devastation when that happens can last a lifetime.

I realized that being gay is just a part of their life, just as being heterosexual is just a part of my life.  Just as I don’t want people poking their noses into my bedroom, gay individuals don’t want or need anyone poking their nose into their bedrooms.  Discussions don’t have to always swing back to the fact that they are gay. 

As I am Auntie $%#!&, I worry about my nephew.  I know a handful of things that were said and done to him in high school, both before and after he came out.  I pray that his college experience was better, at least he was able to date.  Now that he is an adult and working I pray that he finds someone to settle down with.  Over the years as an aunt who loves him, I would bring up the same type of topics that I discussed with my own children, not from a desire to poke my nose in his business, but to make sure he had proper information for his health and safety. Every once in awhile, I get worried, like the time he went to Moscow and when he went to Egypt.  I told him to crawl back in the closet, because I did not want him to go to jail.  Perhaps, I was wrong, but not every country supports LGBTQ rights.

I worried about my husband’s relative in India.  Homosexuality was not a major issue until the 1800s when the British criminalized it.  Someone convicted of homosexual behavior could be jailed for life.  Although it was decriminalized in 2009, it was recriminalized in 2012, until the Supreme Court struck down the statute in 2018.  He was lucky, his parents were accepting of his sexual orientation.  Now that his parents are no more I worry about him.  Although we are not close relations we do like to sit together at family events. 

There are other people I care about. Though we don’t meet often as I live so far away, I hope that they know their orientation doesn’t matter to me.  I only wish them the same happiness that I wish everyone.  

For the community at large, when I hear someone say negative or wrong information around homosexuality, I try and tell them that people are people, friends are friends, and love is love. I tell them that being homosexual is not a choice.   I raised my children to know that friendship should not be based on orientation and to stand up for LGBTQ rights whenever necessary. 

I care for some people who are gay.  I care for some people who are straight.  What they do with their significant others is not my business.  However, should they need any help, I’m there to support them.

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