What if gay were a continuum? Barely perceptibly gay to gay-all-the-way. It would not matter. Those of us who are barely perceptibly gay are still gay, and we need to recognize equal rights not only for ourselves but for those who are gay-all-the-way.
Everyone is gay. It’s been my favourite line from Kurt Cobain since I heard it in my 20s. He presents the idea in a song from 1993 called All Apologies. I remember hearing it for the first time and thinking, ‘This guy is afraid of nothing’, and I have loved him ever since. Kurt Cobain, the ultimate outcast; I think he identified with those who felt marginalized or picked on or unable to be completely themselves in front of the world. I think he’d felt weird and different and somehow unaccepted for a long time before he knew he was an artist.
Then one day, he knew, and he could say it out loud: ‘I am an artist’. Or maybe he never said it. Regardless, there must have been a day when he finally felt he belonged – like he wasn’t so unacceptable after all. He could stop working as a custodian in his old high school and finally be who he was meant to be.
We would certainly be able to skip some steps if it were more acceptable to simply be ourselves. And wouldn’t it help, if others not only accepted who we are, but identified with it?
Not all of us identify as a little bit gay, but I bet most of us identify a little bit as an artist. Taking lessons in childhood in music or dance or drawing certainly helps. I think the fact that many people have done this already improves the odds they’re going to be somewhat equipped to see the world from an artist’s perspective. Even the most conservative among us, those who are averse to change and difference, can get on board with art because of these experiences.
So maybe people can identify with artists because they’ve tried it out. Maybe they’ve had a little ‘art’ experience. The same logic might be applied to our glands. Ever had a tingle for someone of the same sex? Ever had a thought? Guess what, my friend. You are a little bit gay.
Or maybe you have a crazy uncle or an aunt who’s an artist. ‘It runs in the family’, so they say. You can now get on board with these fun weirdos because not only do you know one, but you’re related.
Let’s reconsider the one-drop rule. Not long ago in human history, white racists who were afraid of losing their power classified and ranked humans based on whether they had a single drop of African blood in their ancestry. (Let’s not get into the ignorance of science here: by all credible accounts, we ALL come from Africa.) I sometimes think about white racists who’ve learned their blood is the same blood running through the veins of people whom they previously thought were somehow inferior. All of a sudden, it no longer makes sense for these racists to see themselves and their so-called race as special. You look white, but you are African, my friend. Why’d you think you were so special as a white person, anyway?
I say we turn the one-drop rule on its head. Let’s make it bring us together instead of dividing us. I say, if you’ve got one drop of gay in you, then guess what? You’re gay! Got an uncle who’s gay? You’re gay! Got a distant cousin? Gay! What a great world to live in, where everyone is gay.
What if gay were a continuum? Barely perceptibly gay to gay-all-the-way. It would not matter. Those of us who are barely perceptibly gay are still gay, and we need to recognize equal rights not only for ourselves but for those who are gay-all-the-way. Of course, we do. They are just like us, differing only by degree.
In fact, if we applied this logic to all differences, we might see how flawed our conduct has been all along. For we differ only by degrees, and in that, we are all alike. Everyone is gay and everyone is African. Then, all of a sudden, no one is any of these – we are all just who we are, and no one cares who you’re attracted to or what colour skin you’ve got. All of a sudden, I see you, and I see myself.
Some people are born left-handed. They say ten percent of the world is left-handed. Interestingly, ten percent of the world is also apparently gay. But I deal cards with my left hand, which I secretly think makes me cool. Some people swing a golf club left, others, a baseball bat. I bet that makes them feel cool, too. And there’s the complicated truth – we’re not willing to stand solidly behind Ned Flanders and his Leftorium even though we’re all kind of left-handed. In the same way, we have failed to stand solidly behind gay rights even though we’re all kind of gay.
Imagine if we all identified a bit more openly as our non-dominant selves. For example, I am a solid socialist, but I am also a bit of a capitalist. Is that so wrong? Nowhere in the rulebook of life does it say these labels – or any labels, in fact – must be mutually exclusive.
Amazing. This new outlook has made me embrace labels in a way I never have. I can be a feminist and a humanist at the same time – neither to the exclusion of the other. Honestly, I used to reject labels, not wanting to be labeled as anything. But if we can admit we’re all a little bit of everything, then maybe someday we can find our way free ourselves of labels altogether.
Right now, we hold onto labels to help us find our people and strengthen our sense of belonging in a world that sometimes tells us we don’t belong. But what if, someday, we could let the labels go because we can finally recognize we are all in this together?
Ukraine presents an excellent opportunity to more closely identify with people we perceive as different from ourselves. So far, we have failed to protect a country with democratic values and aspirations in the face of an imperialistic, autocratic aggressor. Why have we failed? Because it isn’t happening to us. But what if we identified a little more closely with Ukraine? What if, for example, an autocratic, imperialistic aggressor were threatening our country?
On the continuum of aggression, the Canadian experience with the US is not presently as violent as the Ukrainian experience with Russia. However, the transformation of the US presidency into a soft dictatorship has impacted us all, and I have felt more empathy for Ukraine as a result. I have felt empathy to the point where I want to print t-shirts: ‘We Are All Ukraine’. In fact, let’s line up the t-shirts: ‘We Are All Gay’ is next’. Wouldn’t it be great if we all identified even the littlest bit as people who have been treated unfairly. We might finally view equality the way it was meant to be viewed: as a state of being that requires us to either let go of all our labels or embrace them all as our own.
Whatever way you look at it, whether we’re all the same or all undefined, until it happens, we will always want to distinguish ourselves as better than the next guy. Supremacy. It rarely leads to peace.
Everyone is gay. Kurt Cobain was a vocal proponent of gay rights perhaps without even knowing the power of his words. He says out loud what so many of us have been afraid to say out loud, and he says it even better in another resonant line when he declares: ‘In the sun / In the sun, I feel as one’. If only we all felt the same. 