out in the mountains

Amazon Trail:
Fighting For Courage

en I begin to give in to
this fear I have of the
cunent political regime
in the U.S.. all I have to do is
remember what it was like in the
bad old days. If I consider shutting
up and building a great big closet
for myself. the bad feelings come
rushing back.

The fears pop up when
someone like [Attomey General
nominee] Alberto Gonzales promis-
es to defend in court the 1996 law
in which Congress said states don't
have to recognize gay marriages.
The man fell all over himself back-
tracking on human rights issues
like torture. yet denying rights to
gays was still legitimate cun'ency
to pay for an appointment to an
exalted legal office. The fears pop
up when I look clearly at what
exactly it is that Bush understands
to be one of his mandates: shoving
gays back to the bottom of the
political heap.

I remember when fear
briefly ruled me in college. when
Diana, a pretty woman with long
blonde hair and a fun-loving per-
sonality. took me under her wing.
Whatever her now ancient motives.
she decided to help me. It's hard to
resist a loving push. even when it's
a push away from one's nature.
And before gay liberation. even the

gayest of us questioned our natures.

I was I8. alone and
scared in a sea of heterosexual stu-
dents. This well-meaning upper-
classman worked on me to go on a
double date with her and the boy
she was pinned to. The boys
belonged to one of the milder fra-
ternities on campus. but their idea
of a good time was giving a dance
to which they would each bring a
girl and abandon her at a table with
other girls while they drank and
cavorted with their brothers. Now
and then a boy would collect his
girl, dance to a Beatles song like “I
Want to Hold Your Hand,” then
escon the girl back to her table,
bring her a drink and go back to his
buddies. I allowed Diana to dress
me up, make me up and match me
with the fraternity president. I sup-
pose she thought that two “brains"
would hit it off. I suppose she had-
n't figured out I was gay. I suppose
she didn’t know how very attracted
I was to her. -

Regardless of either of

 

our motives. I spent a couple of the
most humiliating nights of my life
posing as an accessory to a male
stranger who. for all his interest in
me. may well have been gay him-
self. Had I been a bit less gay. 2: lot
less defiant and not bored out of
my skull. who knows. I might have
gone through the Charade that het-
erosexuality would have been for
me. like so many lesbians did and
still do. unwilling to live as outlaws

 

I don't think it's possible.

I might as well slit in) \\ rists and
get it over with (i;t)'ttL‘ss is not
abottt sexual acts. It's a state of
mind that questions the status quo.
Poor Diana. your project was
doomed to failure: accommodation
is not an option for the queer soul.
though man)‘ try.

Bush and (jotuale. can
stand on gay backs to make them-
selves taller. they can pass laws to
disenfranchisc us and they can set
the tone for decades of backlash
against the gains we have made.

But I know that the I8-year old gay

kids today have escaped the kinds
of fears that make me consider
retiring from an out gay life. They
have inherited a freedom my peers
came late to. I can‘t imagine it. but
I see in their arrogance a pride they
didn't have to fight so hard to find.
These right wing politicians should
enjoy their day in the sun. because
it may be their last chance to do it.

So great is my fear of those
times and the anti-gay attitudes
that endure, so deep is my
memory of the consequences,
that I have considered the
option of invisibility.

in a country that refuses us the dig-
nity of acceptance. because my
social humiliation was just the tip
of the very treacherous iceberg of
stigmatization.

So great is my fear of
those times and the anti-gay atti-
tudes that endure. so deep is my
memory of the consequences of
living a gay life. that I have consid-
ered the option of invisibility. With
my silvered hair and aging face, I
no longer have to put on the clown
suit of college dating. I could just
be old. I could stop writing about
gay people. which for me is to stop
writing at all. I could disappear the
rainbow stickers. hide the gay book
collection. learn to hang out with
nice non-gay people. set foot in a
religious building now and then.
That would keep me and my loved
ones sale.

They can scare me. but not for
long. V

C opyriglzt 2005 Lee I._\'m‘h. L)‘Il('Il
is‘ the author of eleven lmokx
including The Swashbuekler and
the Morton River Valley Trilogy.
She lives on the Oregon CmI.i't. Her
we!) page is at /tI!p.'//leelym‘ho.
IripmI.cmn.