Travels in a Gay Nation: Portraits of LGBTQ Americans

Introduction

3 Introduction In David Moreton’s wonderful film Edge of Seventeen, an unexpected summer romance with another boy throws high school senior Eric Hunter into a tailspin. When the object of Eric’s affection—a blond big-man-on-campus type, with all the sensitivity of a bowling ball— returns to Ohio State (and another boyfriend), Eric is left to figure out how to get through high school, and life, with this new knowledge about himself. Played perfectly by Chris Stafford, Eric begins to shed the trappings of his white-bread upbringing and goes in search of his true self. It’s 1984. He starts wearing funky clothes. He finds the juvenile antics of his classmates tedious. One afternoon, he comes home sporting a shock of carrot orange hair. “It’s getting a little extreme,” his mother opines. That night after supper, Eric is alone on the sofa watching TV. From the tube, we hear a voice ask, “How did you start wearing makeup?” and a male voice begins to answer just as Eric’s dad comes in with two bowls of ice cream—a moment to bond with this son who is beginning to weird him out. “That is some hairdo,” he chuckles nervously before spooning into his dessert. When his attention goes to the screen, a puzzled look comes over his face. “What are you watching?” This is clearly not the kind of program that a regular guy from Sandusky tunes into. “Oh, some interview show,” Eric tells him with feigned nonchalance. The purpose of the scene is clear. We’re meant to see that Eric is moving away—one moment eagerly, one moment skittishly—from the Middle American dream his parents have laid out for him. But as I studied this scene more closely, I began to wonder why, specifically, screenwriter Todd Stephens decided to make the program that Eric watches a talk show. What are we being told here? Well, for one thing, in 1984 nascent gay and lesbian adolescents, especially those away from the big coastal cities, got information about their new queer world from whatever resources they could. (In an earlier scene, we see Eric furtively listening to an album by Bronski Beat, the slip jacket emblazoned with a pink triangle.) And what could be safer, less incriminating, than tuning in to “some interview show,” innocuous enough to be broadcast on network television? It’s just someone’s story, he might have told his father. I thought about Eric as I was reviewing what Gene Robinson, the first openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, told me the day I interviewed him: “We have come so far in this movement. It’s hard for young LGBT people to imagine a world without Will and Grace, without Ellen, without Greg Louganis and Martina Navratilova. Or to remember back to what a hero Harvey Milk was.” In a world without these superstars, Robinson turned to stories—in his case, biblical stories—to discover the version of his own queer narrative that made sense to him. “I kept recognizing myself as a gay man all through Scripture and learning, as all people on the margins have the opportunity to learn, that there is good news there.” Stories. Haven’t they always helped us to learn who we are, whoever we are? Stories both anchor us in reality and inspire our imaginations and dreams. They remind us where we have been and hint at where we are going. Stories allow us to discover the common humanity in all people. Other stories initiate us into the culture of our tribe: This is what it’s like to come from our people, to belong to our people. Stories give us vital information. They help us to make our own story stronger. They save lives. It’s not far-fetched to suggest that the interview Eric Hunter listens to, even under the skeptical gaze of his father, helps to save his life. Time and again, as I talked with folks during the two years of this project, I heard them tell me how important stories were in their own development as healthy, mature, vibrant persons. Books (from 4 Introduction 5 Introduction Nancy Garden’s young adult novel Annie on My Mind to James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room), magazines and newspapers, plays, poems, songs, hymns, movies, radio and TV shows, musicals. (How many readers of this book will smile...