The Tory Party

See: Gaydar, Lack thereof

Quick story.

I’m working out a post about racism (because no one has more intelligent things to say on the subject than I, a middle-class white girl with no education in the subject). And I was thinking about this story and wanted to share.

There’s some homosexism in the idea of “gaydar” — that there’s something about gay people that’s detectably different, and something EVEN DIFFERENTER than their sexual preference.

Their hair texture. Their shoelace color. Their use of coordinating conjunctions. I don’t know. Whatever a straight person can point to about thirty seconds after they find out someone’s gay.

(Of course, this is as it applies to heterosexual me navigating in the mostly-heterosexual world. I wager “gaydar” has a very different meaning, connotation, and application in, say, a metropolitan gay club invaded by straight college kids.)

Anyway. To the story.

(As an addict, but not to alcohol,) I went to an AA meeting with a friend who is gay. First time, little nervous. Very curious to see what a room full of alcoholics looks like. Surely they will all look and talk like WC Fields.

Nope! There are all kinds of people here — a more random assortment, I’d say, than I’ve seen in any other public gathering.

Women folk and men folk. Old folk and young folk, fat folk and skinny folk, homely folk and beautiful folk.

Professional dress and casual dress. Conservative types and hippie types. Rich types and working-class types.

I will say, generally, they all looked like they know what the back of hell looks like.

So we go through the opening 12-step rituals, and I think, dag, alcoholics look like everybody else.

Then.

About twenty minutes in.

They start talking personal.

Huh, I didn’t know he was gay.

Huh, I didn’t know she was gay.

Hey wait a minute! This is a gay AA meeting.

AH HA HA HA I AM DUMB!

Immediately I began to “detect” gayness. Oh yes, it’s so clear now… how could I have missed it…

No, no, no. What was really happening, and what was a rare privilege to see illustrated, was my subjective definition of what “gay” is descending on objective reality.

And once my vision fogged, I couldn’t un-fog it. But at least I could remember what the unfogged version was like.

And I hope I learned something about trying to tell one group of people from another by their outward appearance.

We’re all. Just. People.

But later at ALDI I tried speaking Spanish to an Indian couple, so maybe I learned nothing at all.