From: balistik@nevada.edu (Shawn R. Hicks)
Newsgroups: soc.motss
Subject: Re: Confused Heterosexual Seeks Clarification ...
Date: 22 Feb 1994 02:15:46 GMT
Organization: Queer Agenda:  Human Resources Dept

  writes:
>... on something I haven't really understood for quite some time.   And
>I would greatly appreciate it if any respondents treat this as such.
[...]
>Anyway, as I said, Tom and Paul were always causing me grief -- swiping
>my gear, teasing me, even making nuisance phone calls.  My dad speculated
>that they were gay.  Me, I just figured they were idiots.
>
>Fast forward ten years.  I bumped into a girl in my high school class.
>She reported that Tom is now working in a barber shop/beauty salon in
>Central New York, not far from Cornell University.  She also confirmed
>that Tom was indeed gay -- always had been.  He was just out of the
>closet now.
>
>Now, did this leave me homophobic?  No.  Confused?  Yes.  Because if
>Tom's orientation was his motive for harassing me, then what was
>the reasoning behind it?  I don't see the connection here.  It's
>counter-intuitive as well.  If anyone has any insights, I would
>greatly appreciate comment, even if it only leaves me more in the
>dark at the end of the day.


When I was a kid, I was short, skinny, and meek.  I got teased all
the time.  It got so bad that I hid at school one day, behind a
couch in our reading area.  The hole was very tiny and dark, but
I was slight, even for a 4th grader, and fit in real tight.  No one
could find me, and after the whole day had gone by, I knew that
no one even wanted to.

I didn't know what a fag was, but everyone else seemed to think I
was one.

By sixth grade I had no friends.  I didn't even try to make any;
why bother?  I played by myself at home, in the back yard, using
old junk as if it were objects in a fantastic world where I was
important, empowered, and needed.

My parents sent me to Catholic school for grades 7 and 8.  Even
though I had been in an excelerated, "gifted" student program
from grades 4-6, my grades at La Purisima Catholic in Lompoc,
 were average or less.  I had a strong voice and sang
in the childrens choir.  That was who I was for two years. 
That, and Fag, and Dumbo.  Dumbo upset me most because I knew
that they meant my ears.

In High School I took drama because it kept me away from all the
junk that had lost the fantasy of years before.  I was doing
better in school.  The Ornamental Horticulture teacher didn't
mind having a Fag with Big Ears on her FFA OH team; I had a
fast memory and we placed in our first contest with my help.

Still, I had no friends.  I went home to a family that had
given up on me, and saw me as a Fag too.

They all died soon after by a drunk driver.  He had a broken 
nose and went to my high school.  I remember that he used to
call me fag, too.

Then, when I was 22, I looked into the mirror and called myself
a fag.  Now I have friends, a place, and people to care about.
Oh, and wonderful ears.



Shawn