Overcoming internalised homophobia: The power of being Bent, not broken.
The first time I heard the word “bent” in a gay context was in the early nineties when I went to see the devastating 1979 play by Martin Sherman bearing that title. The play, which has seen productions worldwide ever since, is about the Nazi persecution of gay men during WWII. Some online research further reveals that bent is 1950s British/European slang for gay. Bent is also quite obviously “not straight.”
Thus, Shaun Williams’ Bent Couch Counselling is aptly named as a service for those of us privileged to be bent as opposed to straight. While being bent is indeed a privilege, as we shall explore further below, it also brings a lifetime of dealing with homophobia in all its manifestations. It is no wonder then, that we gay men are perhaps more in need of professional counselling and support.
That need, however, does NOT mean that we are BROKEN. It simply means that most of us can benefit from counselling that empowers us by focusing on all we have to offer ourselves, our families, our communities, and even our species as a whole. There is no changing us after all, so we might as well instead concentrate on discovering and recognizing our many “superpowers.”
This occurred to me while recently reading James Baldwin’s Letter To My Nephew On The One-Hundredth Anniversary Of The Emancipation where he wrote:
You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the white world calls a nigger. I tell you this because I love you, and please don’t ever forget it.
Powerful words indeed! Discrimination against gays is hardly comparable to racial discrimination, including its heinous history of slavery. Gays can, and do, sometimes hide who they are, to their benefit, although at great cost. Gays also often lack familial love and support that racial minorities may still lay claim to.
Nonetheless, Baldwin’s words resonated with me, and I immediately reread them as:
You can only be destroyed by believing that you really are what the straight world calls a FAGGOT.
The gay problem we have is our predictable tendency to believe and internalise the hatred, derision, and scorn we have seen visited upon our kind from childhood on. We learn we are not good enough: insufficiently masculine, domineering, athletic, etc. We come to believe we are “LESS THAN” because that is what we have been carefully taught directly and otherwise by family, friends, our churches, and our culture from as far back as we can remember. This belief can and does destroy too many of us whether manifested by drugs, alcohol, and cigarette abuse, or in myriad other self-destructive attitudes and behaviors up to, and including suicide. The wonder is that so many of us function at all, much less as well as we do.
Our journey to wholeness and authenticity is more challenging than most realise. It took me years after coming out to settle into myself. Clarity did not come until I wrote my stories for my children when I retired. Doing so gave me an entirely new perspective.
You can read those here: How could you not know you were gay?
Shaun, along with his talented partner, Dean Woodgate, created the private Facebook support group Gay Fathers Worldwide of which I am privileged to be a member. There, those of us who have survived straight marriages, exchange support and advice on all the great issues of our lives which in general revolve around surviving in an often unwelcoming straight world. Shaun never ever fails to offer up soothing reassuring balm to the suffering there and he seems to never use the same words twice. He is truly gifted, maybe as only a gay man can be.
A few days ago, a fellow member posted a five-year-old TED Talk “Homosexuality: It’s about survival – not sex” by James O’Keefe.
O’Keefe, a straight doctor with a gay son explains from a scientific Darwinian point of view how homosexuality is important to the survival of our families and our species. I have seen the studies he references before, but he wove them all together in an impressive positive affirming uplifting way I had never heard. If only such lessons were taught in schools! It is up to the US to make that happen.
I reflected on my own family life and saw how all benefited from my uniquely gay attributes from encouraging and enabling my siblings and settling disputes, to modelling kindness and empathy for my children and grandchildren. Sure straight guys do good family deeds, but a careful look at most of our families will reveal our unique contributions which are more likely to be collaborative and consensus-seeking rather than domineering, competitive, and controlling.
My husband Kory is an even better example. Even as a child, he was seen as “the responsible one” of the three by his parents. And he alone avoided the paralysing consequences of parental emotional and physical abuse. He has been an admirable loving stepfather and step-grandfather to our children and grandchildren. He helped care for our first grandchild so her mother could go to graduate school and even now regularly commutes to care for our newest grandson since both of his parents work and Kory felt the child’s early years were too critical to leave for daycare.
Having no children of his own, he also doted on his nieces and nephews. They lived elsewhere so, in addition to frequent visits, Kory sent monthly checks for years, all to their benefit. His nephew even lived with us for a year to attend college at our expense. Both of our families have benefited from our gay presence and contributions.
When I think of gay men, I see them as intelligent, empathetic, kind, gentle, and supportive, not to mention resourceful and endlessly creative. When I think of my lesbian family and friends, I see them as brilliant, assertive, strong, determined, methodical, and organised; so much so that I am convinced they could better lead business and government activities, both of which would benefit from their female collaborative consensus-building approach. Some might think I am leaning into stereotypes, but there ARE distinct differences and our stereotypes have more than a kernel of truth.
When I think of trans folk, I see their societal impact as freeing others from the excessive and detrimental demands of gender performance. Straight men are clearly constrained by the unending societal demand that they behave and present as strictly butch, emotionless, and masculine. All their pickup trucks with angry-eyed grills are nothing more than performative masculinity.
Straight women often feel that to be feminine they should be quiet, soft-spoken, well-mannered, smiling, and leave the big decisions to men. This too is often performative as are excessively feminine clothing, makeup, dress, and other behaviours.
Increasingly visible trans folk promise to eventually free us from these behavioural constraints to our societal and cultural benefit. Collectively, the LGBTQ+ rainbow will diminish the likelihood of catastrophic wars and increase social and economic justice. We can positively affect the survival, not only of individual families, but of whole societies, cultures, and even our entire species. Were it not for us, I am convinced the resulting cultural wasteland would be far less inhabitable and humanity’s progress far more limited.