It has never occurred to me to check in with my family, to ask them, to poll them. They know, I’m sure they discuss it but I don’t see it as open for that kind of discussion.
When I came out it was a big dramatic thing that ended up with a high school relationship from best friends to lovers to mash up and then I almost tried to kill myself over it, then I freaked out and ran to the hospital and so you sit in a hospital room and a thousand doctors of the physical and psychological variety interview you for days and they surmised that my best friend and one school counselor were not enough people in my life for me to be talking to about my identity. My mother had been “warned” can you warn someone from a family therapist that I might not be entirely straight after our sessions when I was 13–14 after my parent's cataclysmic divorce.
After a week in the hospital, basically sitting there reading books and looking at the really screwed up folk I get home and my family tells me that I’m not allowed to be my sexuality, whatever I’m going through. I have to reset or there will be repercussions. And I was like Oh, ok. And I went to my room and started packing, this will then be the last day of our acquaintance. I was half way packed when my mother came in and restarted negotiations because they got in that moment that I was more important to me than they were.
I think my closest aunt may’ve asked a question or two but I told her to go buy a book. Unless we were openly discussing her sex life. But she just wanted to know. I just wanted to know when was the last time you were eaten out, how you let a husband beat you for a decade and then fuck you, how does your sexuality jive to that?
My father’s realized I think when he tried to get near this arena that I’d erected reasonable boundaries and landmines. I went wild and put a Chippendale's calendar on my walls for a couple of years and then I dated first from a phone line and then from online. I went to clubs. I went to an LGBT Center for youth in Manhattan then went off to college and did workshops, made the newspaper, wrote lots of articles and stories, gay, straight, lesbian, trans. I think he realized that it wasn’t anything different or more importantly up for inspection.
A few years after undergrad I worked from the corporate world to LGBT non-profit world and when I asked could I consider maybe bringing a serious partner to the house from Thanksgiving I was met with my stepfather might find the fact that we weren’t married offensive in a Christian household. I told my mother and invited her to share this with him too, to go fuck themselves. They’d both been alcoholics, drug addicts, morally bankrupt, living in sin for a decade, wasted millions and assumed that I would want to bring a partner home for the holidays, as my stepfather’s daughter was bringing her husband when I couldn’t get legally married then. So I don’t have a legal right so I’m the sinner. I told them that they were cut off and it took about 6 months before I spoke to them again. They’d gone all PFlag by then but I felt it was a deep sleight against what my legal rights were and the fact that I’d been out for over a decade by then to sort of try and ostracize me with that.
Those boundaries have made it as normal as discussing anyone else’s relationships. Are you seeing anyone, is politely asked of me sometimes. But a lot of my family is dead, almost two decades after coming out so I expect the remainder discuss it. But I’m extremely different than my family. I’m also extremely different in what I allow and tolerate from other people and I’ve been out from work to social life to jail to travel to everywhere in those 20 years. It’s never occurred to me to be anything else or to be disclosed about the details. I don’t lay myself open for inspection in that way that I notice and cringe and think is the negative fuel of a lot of LGBT people into shame, disappointment, pain.
Ironically I started doing this LGBT work and workshops to thousands, online, on TV so I’m OUT. Like on the street sometimes folk know me and come up and talk to me about their issues from a TV show they saw. Those venues have pushed me further than even my coworkers from the agencies I think to feel comfortable because I’m just me and there’s outness but there’s not permissiveness about it unless it’s for work or there’s a quid pro quo, an exchanging dialogue going on. I’m not up for analysis. I do recognize how that’s weird to the general engagement of LGBT people, I’m not obtuse.
I’m just sovereign unto myself so I really don’t consider you or anyone else as privy to my inner self unless we’re sharing. privately or I’m doing so for work, or bluntly, fucking.
What do I think of myself when I self-analyze the above attitude?
I’ve had less shame, guilt, fear over my lifetime about my sexuality. That teenage if I can’t have love then I want to die—-ooops, wait, that’s not what I meant incident was really the last time I've had that co mingling of shame, guilt, fear, pain about myself and loving the same or opposite sex. If you want to go, go. I even introduced my HS ex to a girl he said he fancied. I’m like if not you, get going because you’re standing in the way of someone better for me. (I’m often thinking this on bad dates and when other people think they’re breaking up with or letting me down easily. It’s funny.)
I don’t care about it sometimes in ways that make me feel disingenuous when I’m doing very specific LGBT work.
I don’t think it’s that interesting. About me, about you.
It causes difficulties in an odd way in relationships that I think have to do with race, social class, maturity, age. Most gay, MSM, same gender loving men are going through stages, there are actually 6 stages of issues, the Cass Model around identity. Guys have been, like I want to be with you be close to you, love that about you but for a relationship I need a reflective shame-based partner, I need the fear, the guilt, the secretiveness. I’ve just stared at them.
I disagree with several points of the Cass Model, it’s below and in good faith outline my disagreement but I still think it’s a good base outline, but I agree with the Stages itself. Maybe in a way my own prodigiousness and my introvertedness and my intrapersonal high aptitude allowed me to work through my stuff faster. I think in my LGBT work it allows me, particularly being of color, to present and represent an ideal. That was never my intention but to be able to honestly say, hey you don’t have to crucify yourself over this, I don’t.
I have also studied A Course in Miracles for two decades and when first picked it up, it reflected some of my beliefs about spirituality, existence, the Universe so I don’t identify with my body, in the same way, I think you have to in some stages of LGBT identity stuff or trans stuff. I had a trans friend who was really upset at the fact that her being trans mattered very little to me because she was deeply steeped in being trans. And I’m like I don’t believe the body exists so what you do with your body is one, your choice and two, to me like redecorating your house.
Am I suppose to have an existential co-crisis with you over changing the drapes? She thought this was a deep denial of my wanting to be trans and I was like no, one can feel, and express feminine energy and spirituality and soul expression without wanting to physically change the flesh. And if she wanted her trans freedom she had to allow my non-trans freedom. Amazingly enough, but I’ve found this with other LGBT folks as well, she couldn’t. It’s like be oppressed, feel the pain and oppression and in pain with us or you’re an alien!
Lastly, as a complete left field over analysis of myself and my family using Clare Graves’ Spiral Dynamics. Most of my family, with the exception of my parents, were/are Level 3 and Level 4s—-focused in tribalism and authoritarian structures.
My parents were 5–6s so they, as generations can, pushed me a level further in consciousness and even a bit in social class, to 7—a more holistic vision of myself, humanity, the world. When I compare myself to my cousins, despite education, I come back to my parents being “ahead”, further along, odd for African Americans, than their parents so I got accelerated in some ways different than the rest and eventually even different than my parents.
I have found fragments of a “tribe” a family that I’ve knitted together, mostly older people than myself by 20+ years, the natural issue: they die out in a shorter span of time in our engagement. But I’m rarely completely comfortable with the pain or the let’s do something to be distracted from the pain or how our family perceives us, groupings in LGBT groups.
Cass Identity Model
Stage
State
Explanation
Stage 1
Identity Confusion
In the first stage, Identity Confusion, the person is amazed to think of themselves as a gay person. "Could I be gay?" This stage begins with the person's first awareness of gay or lesbian thoughts, feelings, and attractions. The people typically feel confused and experience turmoil.
To the question "Who am I?” the answers can be acceptance, psychological self-denial and repression, or rejection.
Possible responses can be: to avoid information about lesbians and gays; inhibited behavior; self-denial of homosexuality ("experimenting", "an accident", "just drunk", "just looking"). Males may keep emotional involvement separated from sexual contact; females may have deep relationships that are non-sexual, though strongly emotional.
The possible needs can be: the person may explore internal positive and negative judgments. Will be allowed to be uncertain regarding sexual identity. May find support in knowing that sexual behavior occurs along a spectrum. May receive permission and encouragement to explore sexual identity as a normal experience (like career identity and social identity).
Stage 2
Identity Comparison.
In this stage, the person accepts the possibility of being gay or lesbian and examines the wider implications of that tentative commitment. "Maybe this does apply to me." The self-alienation becomes isolation. The task is to deal with the social alienation.
Possible responses can be: the person may begin to grieve for losses and the things they give up by embracing their sexual orientation (marriage, children). They may compartmentalize their own sexuality—accept the lesbian/gay definition of behavior but maintain "heterosexual" identity. Tells oneself, "It's only temporary"; "I'm just in love with this particular woman/man"; etc.
The possible needs can be:
·
will be very important that the person develops own definitions;
·
l need information about sexual identity, lesbian, gay community resources, encouragement to talk about loss of heterosexual life expectations;
may be permitted to keep some "heterosexual" identity (as "not an all or none" issue).
Stage 3
Identity Tolerance
The person comes to the understanding they are "not the only one". The person acknowledges they are likely gay or lesbian and seeks out other gay and lesbian people to combat feelings of isolation. Increased commitment to being lesbian or gay. The task is to decrease social alienation by seeking out lesbians and gays.
Possible responses can be: beginning to have the language to talk and think about the issue. Recognition that being lesbian or gay does not preclude other options. Accentuate difference between self and heterosexuals. Seek out lesbian and gay culture (positive contact leads to more positive sense of self, negative contact leads to the devaluation of the culture, stops growth). The person may try out variety of stereotypical roles.
The possible needs can be: to be supported in exploring own shame feelings derived from heterosexism, as well as internalized homophobia. Receive support in finding positive lesbian, gay community connections. It is particularly important for the person to know community resources.
Stage 4
Identity Acceptance
The Identity Acceptance stage means the person accepts themselves. "I will be okay." The person attaches a positive connotation to their gay or lesbian identity and accepts rather than tolerates it. There is continuing and increased contact with the gay and lesbian culture. The task is to deal with inner tension of no longer subscribing to society's norm, attempt to bring congruence between private and public view of self.
Possible responses can be: accepts gay or lesbian self-identification. May compartmentalize "gay life". Maintain less and less contact with heterosexual community. Attempt to "fit in" and "not make waves" within the gay and lesbian community. Begin some selective disclosures of sexual identity. More social coming out; more comfortable being seen with groups of men or women that are identified as "gay". More realistic evaluation of situation.
The possible needs can be: continue exploring grief and loss of heterosexual life expectation, continue exploring internalized homophobia (learned shame from heterosexist society). Find support in making decisions about where, when, and to whom to disclose.
Stage 5
Identity Pride
In the identity pride stage, while sometimes the coming out of the closet arrives, and the main thinking is "I've got to let people know who I am!". The person divides the world into heterosexuals and homosexuals and is immersed in gay and lesbian culture while minimizing contact with heterosexuals. Us-them quality to political/social viewpoint. The task is to deal with the incongruent views of heterosexuals.
Possible responses include: splits world into "gay" (good) and "straight" (bad)—experiences disclosure crises with heterosexuals as they are less willing to "blend in"—identify gay culture as sole source of support, acquiring all gay friends, business connections, social connections. The possible needs can be: to receive support for exploring anger issues, to find support for exploring issues of heterosexism, to develop skills for coping with reactions and responses to disclosure to sexual identity, and to resist being defensive.
Stage 6
Identity Synthesis
The last stage in Cass' model is identity synthesis: the person integrates their sexual identity with all other aspects of self, and sexual orientation becomes only one aspect of self rather than the entire identity. The task is to integrate gay and lesbian identity so that instead of being the identity, it is an aspect of self.
Possible responses can be: continues to be angry at heterosexism, but with decreased intensity, or allows trust of others to increase and build. Gay and lesbian identity is integrated with all aspects of "self". The person feels "all right" to move out into the community and not simply define space according to sexual orientation
[1]The Cass Identity Model is one of the fundamental theories of gay and lesbian identity development, developed in 1979 by Vivienne Cass. This model was one of the first to treat gay people as "normal" in a heterosexist society and in a climate of homophobia instead of treating homosexuality itself as a problem. Cass described a process of six stages of gay and lesbian identity development. While these stages are sequential, some people might revisit stages at different points in their lives.
First, honestly, my problems and concerns with the Cass Model overall, is that it doesn't account for how cultural experiences of race, ethnicity, and sexuality vary in Asians, Native Peoples, Africans, African Americans and Latinos throughout the Diaspora and the world That being said, we're going to see it as not one size fits all but more as general GPS, this blanket covers thegeneral identities and stages of MSM, who fit under it, but not snugly, okay?
The problem in sexuality/identity work is that people of color have generally had race as their primary issue to examine identity through and not sexuality. We’re just coming into space where we can identify that our sexuality perspectives are broader and not just default use White structured and tested cultural indices like the Cass Model as the absolute. It will take time To put this into a context, I will tell you that in workshops for years many men and women of color have talked about their sexuality as broader than simply gay or lesbian; have experiences and feelings that are either singular or experimentation or leave themselves open to have more of them in the future. Yes, some of these fall into the misnomer of DL or Down Low behavior but what I think that really represents are people of color sexually experimenting, trying things out, having the right, agency and Congress to start using their bodies outside of a White dominated framework and coming up with a multitude of explanations and experiences that are broader than simply and LGBT scaffold. That includes self-nomination such as same gender loving (SGL).
This causes strife and problems when someone, a partner, has completely internalized the scaffolding of LGBT identity and tries to apply it to say someone who had a same-gender relationship as a teen, in jail, in their youth or older.
Does that mean there is no biological component for sexuality or that melanin makes folk confused?
We don’t know. The reason why we, science, I mean, do not know is that the interest in people of colors’ sexuality has been more prurient than curious and genuinely interested in surveying and listening to the lived experience of. The mythology of brown folk and sexuality overshadows true scholarship in this area for men and women who aren’t exclusively heterosexual to identify by.
Hence why I suggest you use something like the Cass Model for a sense, not a definitive definition of identity and sexuality because you or a partner may experience overlapping stages because of the influence of race and ethnicity in and from the dominant culture.
Secondly, a man or woman might not experience all of these stages in order. What someone is in their youth or their 30s might vary in later years, going back or forth along this continuum.
Smile, Kyle
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
KylePhoenixShow@Gmail.com
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