What being gay means to me; People's News, March 6, 1979

I'm sitting here trying to write something on what it means to be gay. Hell, I'm no writer either. So, what does i t mean to be gay? It means wondering why this should ever happen to you. To me, it was growing up in Tiny-Town, USA with twenty in my class and being scared shitless someone would find out and make my life unbearable. To me, it meant never knowing anyone else who was gay and thinking I was evil. All I knew of gays were the locker room jokes told by others who were also scared shitless someone would know of their feelings but weren't honest enough to keep their mouth shut. It means being fired from jobs because the boss finds out. It means not getting hired because the boss decides that someone your age must be gay if they're not married, even though you lied when he asked if you were. It means watching boyhood friends fulfill their sexual needs and not even being able to figure out an honest way of fulfilling your own.

To me it has meant walking across the railroad bridge to find it fall away in the middle and a locomotive coming full charge. If you turn and try to flag it down, it's going to smash you to hell. If you jump, it's into an abyss of who knows what. Some have chosen the locomotive. Having never been too fond of being rundown by society's unthinking locomotive, I've chosen the abyss.

I fell for awhile, feeling lost, alone. Then, I found within myself an ability. The ability to walk, to run, to charge with my head held high. I am a man. I have the ability to care and to love. I am no different than those straight friends i thought I had. Only the object and the direction of that love is different. The ability to care and to love can never be evil. I am not evil.

So what does it mean to be gay? It means staying in small clusters of people who feel the same way, who are gay. It means being afraid your college classmates are going to find out and make your life unbearable and ruin your chances for a successful (?) career. It means subscribing to "Better Homes and Closets" sent in a plain brown envelope.

For me it means getting so damn mad I'd just like to start shooting assholes. But my Christian moral background won't let me do that. Instead, I keep coming out of the closet more and more until the Anita Bryant coalition stones me to death with oranges. I look at you my straight liberal Friends and say "thanks for the word service." I look at you my gay closeted friends and say, "Thanks for the boycott. She just saved those few to throw at me."

What does it mean to be gay? To me it means being mad as hell. Mad that I don't have the same rights as my straight liberal friends. It's being mad as hell at a potentially great country which votes away my rights and freedoms. It's being mad as hell at the religious do-gooders who insist I change the way I was created before I can enter "their kingdom." It means being mad as hell at my gay friends who can't even come out far enough to educate their straight friends as to what it means to be human and gay.

What does it mean to be gay? It means that I am a human being who happens to be physically attracted to other human beings of the same gender. I'm worth something. I have something to offer. I am able to feel hurt, pain and love. But, they are trying to push me back into the closet.

In Seattle and Portland when they tried to lock the closet, everyone asked, "Who's next?" If that train can smash my rights to hell, who is next as it plunges toward oblivion? Women have been struggling for awhile. Will they start to rescind some of your gains? What about the gains Black people have made? They're already rescinding ecological gains.

So my straight liberal and gay closeted friends, the turning point for all of us may be at hand. The paranoid, bigoted Bible-quoters are already at their texts justifying their insecurity. If I thought there was some backing on the train, I'd get on board myself. Together maybe we could get the train stopped, backed up and on a saner track before that unthinking machine smashes us all to hell.

D. David Soloman

The People's News was a publication of the progressive community in Indiana County, Pennsylvania. D. David Soloman was the Pen-Name I used during this time in most of my writings and activism. (O.M.)

My First Cigar (written in High School; 1963)

Have you ever heard the old saying "curiosity killed a cat?" Well, some people say that satisfaction brought it back to life again. Speaking as a real cool cat, that wasn't so very cool for awhile, the later saying is positively not true. Here is the story behind this unforgettable experience.

It happened about two years ago when I was visiting with some of my cousins out in the Black Hills. Out there, you are no one until you smoke. I decided to stay away from those charcoal burners. But, just the same, there was that inward desire to find out just what it would be like to light-up, sit-back and inhale. Also, all around me, my cousins were smoking and kept saying, "Ah, come on. Why don't you try one?" However, I managed to stay away from those instant fog machines for a few more days. But, still, there was that inner desire and my cousins.


Finally, I gave in to my curiosity and decided to show those girls that I could do anything they could do and do it better. So I went out and bought the biggest cigar you have ever seen. On the way home one of the girls pulled out a pack of Winston's and said, "Anyone want a smoke?"

I puffed out my chest with pride and said, "No, thank you. I'll smoke my own." And you should have seen the expression that came across those girls' faces when I pulled out my extra long White Owl. That expression was to be equalled only by the expression on my face after I took my first puff of that much too long cigar.

I don't know if it was stupidity or foolish pride. But, I was determined to finish that cigar. Well, I kept on smoking that cigar and you've heard of being on cloud nine? Man, like, where I was there were no clouds, because I was way out and the only cloud that was with me was a strange type of fog that had settled around me.

About that time, my mind went into a tailspin. I put my ailerons down and I went into orbit. At least, that's where I figured I was, because all around me were planets, stars and then, once in awhile, there were red and green lights. Later they told me that the green was my complexion and the red must have been when I started the seat covers on fire.