Tuesday, February 24, 2009

I Don't Like Labels


I don't wear clothes from Abercrombie & Fitch; I don't own Nikes or Adidas or whatever shoe company is now most popular for using your feet to promote their business. My shirts don't have slogans; my pants aren't commercials.

I don't like labels.

Carlos used to play in a band when we lived in Miami--the Flamingo Freedom Band. It was known as a gay band. They marched in Pride Parades and played at all sorts of events. You didn't have to be gay to be in the band, because that would be illegal, and wrong, but most of the folks in the band were of the homosexual persuasion.

One day, at a rehearsal--I would go while they practiced and listen and read and whatever--I heard one of the guys in the band call himself a gay trumpet player. I found this interesting. He was in a band, rehearsing, playing the trumpet, but he was a gay trumpet player. Carlos and I had a discussion about this on the way home. Carlos, you see, thought of himself a s a trumpet player who was gay.

It doesn't sound like much of a difference, but the way the guy in the band said it, makes it quite exclusionary. Back to them and us.
See, I don't think of myself as gay first. I'm a human being. A human being who is male. A human being who is male and gay. A human being who is male and gay with blue-green eyes. A human being who is male and gay who is six-foot-one. The list goes on.......

Still, you can see how that works. If I start to define myself as gay right off the bat, then I exclude myself from being human and male. And if I don't like being excluded, then how can I be the one doing the excluding? Of course, that doesn't mean that I'm not proud to be gay. But is proud the right word? Am I proud, really, or do I like being gay because it's part of who I am?

Am I proud of being a man? Of having blue-green eyes? Of being six-foot-one? Why must I be proud of the things innately me? Eye-color, height, gender, sexual orientation? Those are things that were decided for me a long time ago, in a town called in utero--we all come from there. So, how can I, or should I, be proud of things about myself I cannot change? Now, don't get me wrong. I wouldn't change being a human being who is male and gay with blue-green eyes who is six-foot-one. I wouldn't change any of that, even though I could change some aspects of me if I were so inclined--not the gay part or the human part....and maybe not the six-foot-one part.

I like being gay. I like who I am. I like being part of the gay community. I like the struggles of those who came before me, and the hope of those to come. But proud?

Proud I save for accomplishments, whether mine, or human, or male, or gay. I'm proud of the people fighting for gay rights, gay marriage, an end to hate. I'm proud that I am an openly gay male who doesn't feel fear or shame for admitting that to anyone. That was my accomplishment, my pride. Realizing that I'm just fine being gay.

But if you want to smack a label on me, start with human.

10 comments:

  1. Amen Brother! You said a mouthful. I agree. I'm me first gay isn't the defining trait. It is just a small part of who I am as a human being. I'm neither ashamed of that or prideful. It just is. And for labels, anything I buy, has them on the inside. I'm not going to be someone's walking advertisement. If that is what they want, they can pay me!

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  2. *This* is what forever deprived me of a perfect 4.0 in grad school! My insistence that students should be viewed as individuals first and not as this or that group. And happily our whole class was like that. We were a baaaad class. The teacher, a woman in her late 50s and with all the joys that brings physically to be kind, told us one night that she was exasperated with us. That she was discussing us with her spirit sisters in her sweat lodge... we. were. never. the. same.

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  3. PREACH IT!!!! I get into this with my husband all the time. He's "proud to be Black"...I say,"How come You can be proud to be Black and it's ok....if I'm proud to be White, I'm a racist. I had no control over the color of my skin! Why should I be PROUD of that?"

    Damn, I like you, Bob...all 6'1", blue-green eyes and gay I like You! The conversations we could have!

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  4. Great post Bob.

    I agree that pride should be reserved for those things which we have control over and feel pleasure at accomplishing.

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  5. I'm with you on this and with UltraDave- I am so many more things than gay. If anyone observed my lifestayel there isn't much of anything gay about it. But I don't fit the stereotype straight either- whatever that is. I don't buy "jut being myself" because I figure even if I am chameleon like- or being phony o fit into the social medium I'm in- I guess that is me too.I dont' see any point in insisting I'm gay when I'm in a straight gathering. It's not fear...frankly...it's just irrelevant. You're so right Bob...hate labels for others as well as myself.

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  6. Can't resist the other thing on my mind on this re:your comment on achievement rather than "Born with" things to be proud of.
    I am always arguing with admins and parents who say the child doesn't achieve because of low self esteem. That's just ROT. Most teachers praise or credit whatever the student achieves be it ever so small and encourage the student to attempt the next level of challenge.Low self esteem is about the lousiest excuse ever invented by psychologists. Kids themselves are savvy in it's uses and abuses- an achievement in itself.

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  7. You have blue-green eyes?? You just HAD to bring color into this, didn't ya... :-) great post, Bob! The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

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  8. Great post and again, it is frightening that we are soo much alike. I refuse to wear labels, I dont get paid to advertise someone elses shit. I had never tied it into my beliefs on how I feel about myself!

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  9. Interesting, thought-provoking post!

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