queer reality and queer imaginary

I read two articles that I thought contradicted each other in a quite amazing way, both of them about queer issues.

The first was a short, but celebratory, blurb about that gay storyline in 90210, and how the gay character is about to have a new boyfriend. Here is what the article says will soon happen:

The set-up for the hook-up: It’s Spring Break when the onetime BFFs bump into each other. As Tripp recounts Teddy’s prep school rep as quite the ladykiller, things take a very interesting turn when Teddy comes out to his presumably straight pal. One unexpected lip-lock leads to another… and then thatleads to a surprising reveal.

The second isn't an article, but a blog, where people submit pictures of themselves between the ages of 4 and 14, demonstrating to the photographed subject a moment when s/he can see him or herself and knows s/he was queer at that age. The blog is called "Born this Way". Here is a sample posting:

Britton, age 5 Richmond, VA (1983)

This is me wearing my Grandmother's wig and giving a lot of sass.
I did try to butch it up a little with the NASCAR shirt, though I think the Daisy Dukes might be a dead giveaway.

I probably would have been embarrassed about this photo 10 years ago, but now I think it is hilarious.

I was the original Golden Girl.

The reason I found these two posts so interesting is because they are SO far apart in terms of how gays view themselves. There are those, gay and straight, who like to imagine that there is no difference between gays and straights--that there is no "queer culture". These are the people who will constantly refer to themselves as "straight acting". There is an entire industry devoted to perpetuating this idea, and I refer to it as being "self-loathing". In this category, I would include most pornography, abercombie and fitch, and 90210. In this mindset, straight people are better, and gays are judged on a sliding scale of how passable they are in the straight world--the "straighter" one acts, the better he/she is.

Look at the storyline above. The gays in it aren't even really gay. They've never suffered persecution because of their sexuality, they've never missed out on anything--not dances, not proms, not athletics, because they've never been gay. In this fantasy world, sexuality is something that, like a light switch, hits them only post-pubescence and, when it does, they magically find other "new gays" who are also beautiful, athletic, "straight acting" and similarly un-baggaged by years of being bullied and teased. In fact, not only were these gays "not gay" before, but one of them was a "real ladykiller"! Did you get that...he wasn't just NOT gay before, but he was straight--so straight, in fact, that the girls loved him!

On the other side, you have reality. You have kids who grow up with sexual identities before they know what sexuality is. For them, they cannot "pass" in the straight world and before they even knew they were gay, the world knew they were gay. These kids don't wake up one day after being lady killers. They get picked on for not being good at kickball...they get teased in Junior High because their voices don't change as quickly or because they're more interested in school plays than in Pop-Warner football.

I think the first view, while not completely imaginary, is dangerous as it is pushed through hollywood, through marketing, through porn and other mediums, into young gay psyches, because it teaches young gay kids in group two to hate themselves. It's the equivalent of telling young black kids that the "whiter" they can be, the better they are. We have to teach our youth that they are good how they are, that they are worthwhile precisely BECAUSE of who they are, not despite it.

We've made great strides, but we're still in the Cosby phase of gay culture, where the only acceptable way to be "gay" is to be "straight". We need to move past this, and when we can, that is when we will have won, and equality will be within reach.