By Rodger D’Andreas-Wahl

Contributor

I grew up in a small Texas town, a place where men were defined by their love for football, hunting, womanizing and beer drinking.

It wasn’t a safe place to come out as gay in the 1970s when I was coming into awareness of my sexuality. I saw no queer role models in my small town or on the few television channels we received. And the words I heard people use to refer to folks who felt the ways I was feeling didn’t feel good to me – words like sissy and queer. Words that stung when boys slurred them at me, angry that I didn’t know which way to run with the football, or upset at themselves because they secretly wanted to make out with me on country roads in their pickup trucks after football games.

I was outed when I was 18 years old. I was lucky. My parents were educators, and they responded compassionately. As I came out to others over the next several years, a recurrent theme stood out: “If you’re going to be gay, don’t make a big deal of it. Don’t announce it! And don’t march in any gay parades wearing short shorts and twirling a baton!” The message didn’t feel good to me, but it was partially intended to ensure my safety– It was Texas in the 1980s.

Fast forward three decades. I’m 51 years old. I’ve since walked in many gay pride parades, shirtless and in (shorter) shorts. There’s been no baton twirling, but only because I lack coordination. And I do announce my sexuality– I do make a big deal of it.

I believe it’s essential that I do so, that I have an obligation to be out– As an aging queer man, a bicultural queer with white passing privilege, a queer feminist, a queer with economic privilege, and a sex-positive queer in an intergenerational romantic relationship.

I am out because the intersections of my identities are beautiful and meaningful.

While my queerness precludes me from living up to societal standards of hegemonic masculinity, my queerness offers liberatory possibilities for expressing multiple masculinities.  As an aging queer man, I am pressured to remain youthful, fit and sexy to maintain social capital in mainstream gay communities– or I can move into queer kink or bear subcultures with less rigid body politics.

I am out as a bicultural queer with white passing privilege because my Native American and Latino ancestries are often dismissed until I intentionally call attention to them. I am out as a queer feminist because, in my experience, these two communities fail to work toward common goals, instead choosing to perpetuate longstanding conflicts steeped in misunderstanding.

I acknowledge my economic privilege because I grew up without it. I recognize that queer communities disproportionately live in poverty, despite misconceptions about our wealth. I am out as a sex-positive queer because the sex-negative narratives that have been ingrained in younger LGBTQ generations concern me, particularly around the stigmatization of poly sexuality and HIV. I am out about my queer intergenerational romantic relationship because I believe that love comes in many forms when we give ourselves permission to step outside our comfort zone and approach life openly and honestly.

My journey over the past five decades from the small Texas town of my childhood to working and teaching at CSUSM has been one toward honesty and authenticity. And at its core, that’s what being out is about– living authentically.