What Makes Us Gay?
S1: Hello and welcome to outward for the month of September. I’m Brian Lauter editor of outward. And I’m happy to announce that we are finally officially in god damn decorative gourd season bitches so get festive.
S2: Okay. I’m Christina cutter a g a staff writer at Slate and host of the ways Slate’s podcast about women and gender and I’m currently calculating how much cleavage is too much cleavage for this family friendly women’s soccer game. I’m going to this weekend input and we have a very special guest host with us this month.
S3: Roman alarm Hi Roman Hi how are you.
S4: I’m want alarm. I’m a novelist. I’m one of the Care and Feeding homeless for Slate. Such a great column. And it might be decorative gourd season for you but to me it’s back to school season so dealing with the moment you are also a parent.
S5: Yes that is true. So not so festive in your house. Well actually pretty festive. I always wept with joy when the kids. Yeah I’m sure that’s exciting.
S2: Congrats to them and yeah. Thank you.
S6: Yeah. Some quiet time. Oh that’s wonderful. So with the change of seasons we thought we’d freshen up our format a little bit. It occurred to us looking back over the year that the podcast has existed now that there are only so many big themes in the world. If we had used I think all of them or almost all of them. So we decided to move the format of the show to looking at big stories and queer life that are happening sort of around when we record and sort of in the discourse each month and talk about those and then see what bigger discussions we can pull out of them. So it’s pretty simple. Hope y’all all like it. This month we’re going to think through the big report from August about research into gay genes and then we’ll tackle the news that McCrea game previously a big proponent of conversion therapy now disavows the practice and has affirmed his identity as a gay man.
S7: Yeah so I guess we kind of do have a theme which is looking at how people determine if they’re gay. It’s true. I believe that people become gay but before we get into that discussion we’re gonna kick things off with our September prides and provocations remain as our new third one.
S4: Yeah I am sort of a temperamentally provoked person. I wanted to write it. I wanted to begin on a positive note so I’m going to talk about pride. And this year my family vacation. We spent 12 days on Fire Island tonight just a little enclave not far from New York City and Cherry Grove. We were in Cherry Grove and it is sort of like historically more of a lesbian community but it’s pretty mixed. And you know there’s this old joke about somebody saying to a gay person on the street like there should be an island for you guys and the response being well there is a moment. But the truth is that that island for gay people is actually Fire Island and I am a novelist. I don’t have a job I send my kids to public school in brownstone Brooklyn. Like I have a very comfortable out life and so I never think of myself as needing a place to be among my people. And it was funny to be there and realize how powerful it can be to actually be surrounded by gayness and it was especially affecting to me this time to see so many elderly gay people. That was one of my favorite things about this trip because we were there over the weekdays when the party crowd is kind of on the weekends and then over the weekends you see a lot of older people who have owned homes out there for a long time and there’s something great about seeing just the previous generation of gay and lesbians still out there having their get away from it. Oh yeah. Had you been there before. I have we’ve been going there for gosh since before we had kids but it’s quite a different experience now to go there with Michelle and so you know and it’s just such a it’s such a beautiful place it’s so relaxed it’s so nonjudgmental. And it’s so diverse in this strange way it’s just all different kinds of bodies all different kinds of people are mixing and it’s sort of idyllic you know and you go to the grocery store that’s run by this Sikh couple from Long Island and spend eleven dollars on a package of hotdogs and it’s just like what could be better. What could be better as a vacation and I think it’s very powerful for my kids to see that also to see that there are so many varieties of family we live in one specific you know variation of family but we’re not the only people who are defining what family is for ourselves. And I think it’s affecting to see that.
S3: Yeah that’s wonderful yeah. Brian what about you.
S6: Well I have a similar one actually. So I just got back I guess two weeks ago now from New Orleans. I had gone and Christina you were there too for a lesbian and gay LGBT journalism conference but it also happened to be Southern Decadence which is a big annual sort of Mardi Gras style party for queer people in New Orleans that I’ve never heard.
S7: It was a total coincidence truly for new journalists can well.
S8: There the scheduling may have been thoughtful on their part on the organizations but I truly didn’t know about it when I like you know scheduled the trip and then found out later that they were at the same time which was great but sort of similar pride there to your mind.
S5: I had never been to a thing like this where queer people you know we have our bars and our clubs and our sort of traditional establishments that we get to congregate and in New Orleans during this time it’s just a huge street event. So people are at those places but they’re also just out everywhere and they’re just so many queer people I think it’s like three or four hundred thousand something like that where people come in to neurons for this. It’s nuts and you know it has all the beauty of people partying and being sexy together and sort of having that kind of thing but also being defiant. I encountered at one part of Bourbon Street at a certain point a group of anti-gay like religious folks who were protesting decadence and you know Westboro Baptist style like screaming with signs and all that and our family was out there you know twerking in front of them and making out in front of them and doing all that stuff which was really gorgeous. So Southern Decadence amazing I highly recommend. And I really hope it becomes a part of my annual life because it was it was really beautiful especially in the south to see something like that. Awesome. Christina What about you.
S9: I am both proud and provoked this month but the same thing I can hold two things in my head at once.
S10: So last night at the time we’re recording this last night there was the third Democratic presidential debate which I watched and covered for Slate.
S9: You’re a brave woman.
S3: It was a lot but I enjoyed it and one bit that really stood out to me was at the end where the moderators kind of gave the candidates lean to just spill a little Deets about themselves you know what was a personal setback or a professional setback you encountered in your life and Pete village the only gay person on the stage talked about coming out and doing so you know after serving in the military during don’t ask don’t tell serving as mayor in a state where Mike Pence you know arguably the most prominent anti-gay person in America was governor and it was somewhat moving to me as a queer person to see a gay person on the stage talking about coming out when you know just a little more than a decade ago.
S11: I remember in 2007 there was a presidential forum on LGBTQ issues during the Democratic primary that year and two people didn’t even go. Joe Biden and Chris Dodd didn’t even show up to the forum. Only two people on the stage even said that they would support equal marriage and they were Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel who were sort of like the joke candidates or like the longshot candidates to now. There’s not only is there no one on the stage who would even dare come out against any LGBTQ rights but there’s an actual gay man I’m talking about the calculations he had to make as a closeted guy in the military and politics. It was incredible.
S3: And what provoked you about the great question. So he didn’t say the word gay. If you were just sort of half listening at home you wouldn’t even necessarily know what he was talking about. You know and if especially if you didn’t already know he was gay it was just about like acknowledging who I was and like mentioned Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. It’s a small thing because it’s not like he’s hiding that he’s gay obviously like you know he’s very much an out candidate. But you got the sense that these were pre written statements because it was a very open ended question it wasn’t like you know they had sprung something completely out of left field at the candidates and they had to think on their feet. The question was you know what was a personal or maybe professional setback in your life which is you know they could pretty much pull any anecdote from their stump speech. So in this instance it was a little strange.
S11: The reason why I was proud and provoked was it felt like we were simultaneously breaking new ground for queer people on the national stage and also transported back a generation to where you could talk about being gay as long as you didn’t outright say gay like the word.
S4: That is the putative candidacy in a nutshell I think. Yeah yeah. So I’m sitting with both feelings right.
S12: Hold space for that.
S13: I think that’s fine but I’m very glad that it happened and I thought it was great that he took that as a moment to talk about it when you know he certainly could have talked about anything else in his life.
S10: So on that note Brian gonna want to take us into our first topic.
S6: Yes I do. Kristina so last month the journal Science published the largest ever genomic study designed to explore the origins of human sexual orientation. It looked at the genetic data and self reported sexual histories of about half a million people and provided the most substantial evidence yet that while there is not a single gay gene there does seem to be some fairly weak genetic basis for same sex behavior spread over a few spots in the human genome. And this news precipitated a flurry of coverage and discussion about where queerness comes from of course. So we’re going to talk about the implications of all of that today. I will say we’re not going to get into like the scientific weeds of the study because that’s not good for podcasting.
S14: But if you want to read more about it and I think it’s really interesting I suggest you read evolutionary biologist and fellow gay Jeremy UTAS piece and outward called a new age of gay genomics is here. Are we ready for the consequences.
S15: And we’ll definitely put that on the show page. So to start us off I feel like you know we all probably have our own internal believe for mythology about where our queer ness comes from some mix of you know whether it’s nature or nurture centralism instruction as I’m like there all these words forever. But I think we all kind of walk around with a sense of that for ourselves. So I’d love to hear from you guys like how you characterize yours in the past and then what this news did to shift that or change it or if at all.
S16: I mean speaking for myself I rarely think of any aspect of my life as being determined by genes although obviously many of them are you know the fact that you write with your right hand or the fact that you are a certain height or whatever but it’s just so removed from my self concept.
S17: And so it’s striking to read even of course there are many people who do this for a living and think about this for a living and science to me is like ancient Greek or something you know meaningless and not only did they look at the reporting around this study I looked at the Broad Institute they have a sort of part of their website where several people at the institute talk about the study and the methodology and when I read about sort of scientific methodology again it’s just sort of mindblowing to me the way that they conducted this study drawing on reporting from 23 in media and this sort of database of all white people all Western European people and the UK.
S16: And so it’s just the way that we extrapolate what we accept as fact from these various particular sets of circumstances that’s how science is done. And it’s weird for people who are not scientists I think to confront that and to think about oh this is how science is done and this is how we end up with vaccines. You know all a whole slate of other advances in society.
S3: So again it just feels very removed from even though obviously it’s not yeah for me I’ve always felt that my queer identity is so much more than just like biological sexual attraction which when I think about a genetic or biological basis for sexuality I think of it in terms of physicality. So what do you find attractive. Who do you want to have sex with. And for me it’s so much more than that and sexual attraction and interest is just one part of it. You know I think in a society that was totally gender equal like perhaps I would have been more like on the pansexual spectrum especially considering that I’ve been attracted to like very feminine men and very masculine women like the gender and representation and attraction to me is so non binary that to think about a gene turning on or off you know telling me who I’d like to sleep with.
S11: It doesn’t really square with the way I conceive of my sexuality especially because sexuality isn’t just about sex and in terms of identity.
S7: I mean it’s about power and relationships and social reality. It’s a lifestyle which I know I just sort of segment it. Sure. Like for me it is. Even if you don’t hang out with other queer people which for me a lot of it is about like the society that I find myself in in the communities I surround myself with. What about you Brian.
S8: So I’ve thought a lot about this because it’s kind of part of my job to think a lot about it I’m writing about it in my book and it’s just it’s in there for me a little bit more and I think I’ve come to this weird like in-between place between sort of a social view constructionist view if you like of like where identity comes from Christina you were just talking about like how much of a gay ness or queerness is is sort of about where we live and who we hang out with and like our politics and like all of that stuff which can’t be a genetic riot even some of these the terms that we use to describe ourselves can’t be found genetically. You know you’re never gonna find pan sexuality probably is not something you would find in genes. It’s something that is a as much a political commitment as it isn’t anything else or a statement rather. However I also watch home videos of myself as like a three year old and I look like a big queen like clearly there’s something there like something something there’s something deeper than just something that you encounter culturally later in life. I think there has to be something there about attraction probably for sure and like what you know smells and pheromones and all that stuff that you find like arousing and a very basic way but also there’s something there’s something about the about gender expression to that that I don’t think we’ve quite found yet but that feels true to me. I mean I just you know I see videos of myself and I also see kids you know around around the city walking among their parents I’m like Yep that’s a guy like you going to see it are you.
S5: I assume that you know I could be wrong but like that is that it does strike me as being something that exists.
S3: And then when you think about that if you you know take that kid 10 years down the line you know in another world the very feminine kid who isn’t being bullied or being told that they’re gay or whatever like could grow up to be a very feminine straight man. Totally. Probably not. Not very often in this world but in another one with different social influences possibly.
S16: I mean the study’s own finding that genetic effects likely account for about 32 percent of whether someone will have same sex sex is so specific that it seems to answer something. But it actually doesn’t. Because what you know what accounts for that other 68 percent is that whether you went to Smith College. I mean it doesn’t really. It’s not. It’s like you’re saying Brian.
S17: So much of this stuff we counter with our anecdotal observations about ourselves or about you know other people in our lives and yeah it is just it’s the kind of thing that I feel a genetic study or scientific study can never really get up. It’s too big or you know maybe a century from now science will have an answer about all of this stuff.
S5: I think that’s a good actually a good segway into what I wanted to ask about NOx which was you know to the study’s credit.
S18: It does differentiate between sexual behavior and identity. The authors make a point of saying we’re not talking about you know gay lesbian LGBT we’re talking about like whether a person says they have had same sex sex in their life and how that correlates but the so the authors do that.
S8: But like our own sort of born this way ideology or discourse that’s been so prominent among the community for a couple of decades now at least doesn’t do a good job of that.
S19: And we clearly want there to be a gay gene or a lot of us do.
S8: It seems like that’s a desire that a lot of people have. So I was curious if you all have thoughts about why that is. Why do we some of us seek certainty an origin story for ourselves. What’s the appeal.
S3: I mean like the obvious answer to that is that it would you know one would hope force some people like the people we’ll talk about in our next segment to realize like I can’t change this person. They clearly are you know quote unquote born this way if it’s biologically based. That means maybe God did it. And if God makes people that way who are we to say that God is wrong. But I also think there might be some comfort in knowing for sure especially for people for whom you know being gay has been a struggle or or who maybe don’t feel at home in LGBTQ spaces but still want to be or are gay. I identify as gay like maybe it could be some comfort to say like OK I definitely know that this is who I am or it’s not who I am.
S16: They want a diagnosis right. But even that even that 32 percent figure doesn’t you know it just doesn’t account for all of these slippery cases where you know if you have had same sex sex you can identify as a whole host of things right. I mean we all went to college you know like yeah I’m drunk you know. I know that from experience. And that it just it just affirms I think that human sexuality is so complicated and so hard to reduce to. I’m not talking about binary we’re talking about a much larger system than binary and it’s still there are still not slots to fit every person or every case. Right. Right.
S3: It made me think of this question that the Washington Blade which is our gay newspaper here. They do a series called query where they ask an LGBTQ person 20 boilerplate questions about their lives. And up until this April for the past probably decade that they’ve been doing it. One of the questions was if science discovered a way to change sexual orientation what would you do. And you know people some of the answers were something like I would protest it or like I would question why they science wanted to do that or you know I would stay gay. I’ve struggled so hard to be accepted and now it’s made me into this great person today. One person answered I would ask for it in pill form because there are a number of straight people I’d like to give it to. So if you find if you’re able to find a genetic basis for sexual orientation or you know even if you’re able to identify these genetic factors that could contribute to your ability to be gay or something you know it also opens the possibility of straight people accessing genetic editing to turn themselves more likely to be gay. A thought of this book that came out in January called How to date men when you hate men which is kind of a strain of heterosexual feminism that I both sympathize with and detest. But I do wonder whether there are any women who might have been political lesbians back in the day when that was more of a thing would want to try to just genetically open themselves up to being gay or you know and possibly there are some men who would want to do that too. But I can see less of a market for that.
S11: But yeah there’s that’s I think the the worst case scenario to a study like this or to future studies which of course there will be future studies is then people extrapolating that or taking that information into some sort of conversion like biological conversion therapy treatment.
S16: Well yeah. There was a dissent quoted in The Times reporting and I read it was done as a blog post by a fellow at the Broad Institute which conducted the study.
S17: And this man just a video wrote apologetic risk score for non heterosexual behavior could easily be used to hurt queer people regardless of its limited or lack of predictive value. As scientists we should not be making it available for miss you. So I think that there was like an ethical component where people within the institute conducted this research were concerned about what you’re talking about which is not the ability for straight people to turn themselves gay. But in fact the universe you know. Right.
S8: Yeah. No I mean I’m glad you brought that up because I are a writer as well that wrote the piece for outward that I mentioned earlier brought this up to that that you know even though this the results of this study shared again like a pretty weak correlation that it would be entirely possible to develop a bad test but test nonetheless for embryonic screening from it.
S18: And he actually worries that someone will try to do this in the marketplace and that parents who don’t want gay kids queer kids would begin using the screen to screen their fetuses are crazy because I think we can all agree that having a gay kid is like best case scenario.
S19: We’ll see. Well you’re a parent. So I actually wanted to ask you like as a parent like how do you react to that notion.
S17: Because you know that’s just I don’t even think you have to be a parent to feel sort of act out by that weird Gattaca way of thinking about you know the the panoply of the human race is just like it’s a beautiful thing and tinkering with it to enforce some arbitrary standard of you know tall is better than shorter you know thin is better than fat is very distressing. And even though I think what the study is showing is that that’s most unlikely to happen it is still an ethical concern. I mean clearly this the person I quoted before or the person who wrote the slate reporting these are people who know they’re their geneticist and they understand the implications of the research that’s being done and it’s worrisome. And I’m glad that we have ethicist grappling with this stuff.
S5: I feel like I was I was about to ask you guys if you want. You don’t want further research in this vein but the sense I’m getting is now or that or that you’re not super interested in it and that would you want to take this would you. You
S3: know if you did 23 and me because now you can do that right these tests you can say do I have these sort of genetic factors.
S15: I feel a lot of tension actually around this because I am like super pro science generally. I like believe in the power of science to like make the world a better place and to explain it. You know I’m watching watch live on PBS. It’s like I’m like I’m and I’m into science and like I want science to happen and basic science science just for curiosity sake as well not just like you know useful mark to the capitalist market kind of science. But in this case I find myself not wanting it to continue. I just really feel defensive is an interesting word.
S6: Uncomfortable fearful.
S5: Just like it’s not not a good idea.
S16: Guys could we just stop it reminded me of a similar controversy that happened around advancements in cochlear implants and a belief among deaf deaf people certain certain parts of the deaf community that deafness is a culture or that it’s not a disability to be fixed but that it is sort of a way of approaching life and curing it. I mean making air quotes is not of interest to them. And I think it’s a similar ethical challenge and I don’t think the science is suggesting anything curative. I mean it’s it’s still a long way off from there. But I think that’s what we are all concerned about.
S5: Well that’s what we think about all this but we would love to hear what our listeners think about this very complex topic.
S13: So please e-mail us at outward podcast at Slate dot com All right our next topic for this month is McCray game.
S3: He’s a gay man who founded and ran one of the country’s most prominent conversion therapy organizations hope for wholeness formerly truth ministry. He he ran it for 20 years. And late last month the Charleston Post and Courier ran a big feature on him. So McCray taught people that if you gave into your queer desires you were going to hell. He says multiple clients of his attempted suicide. And he says he was never quote unquote cured of being gay. He was first sent to conversion therapy by his parents before starting his own organization. But he says he never believed you could be quote unquote cured. He always felt attractions to men. He says he struggled with porn but he believed and he taught that you should never act on those queer desires. So he got married he had two kids he and his wife are still together by the way. But he was fired from Hope for wholeness in 2017. And he came out after that. Now he’s fully embracing his gay identity. He has disavowed the entire institution of conversion therapy because it causes so much harm. He’s wearing a tank top in his Facebook picture his profile image is surrounded by a rainbow border. He’s posting topless selfie videos after his workouts. He’s flirting with men in his Facebook comments. It seems like he’s really you know doing pretty well. He seems like he’s really found a way to now embrace his gay identity in a cultural way. In addition to a sexual way. So that’s great. But I will say it’s always a challenge for me in situations like these where I know he himself has gone through so much emotional pain and struggle but he’s also caused so much pain so I am very emotionally conflicted every time I read a story like this.
S7: And this is far from the only story like this. You know several people who have led conversion therapy practices have come out and said You know what that didn’t work. I did a lot of harm. And guess what I’m still gay. How do you guys react when you read about this kind of thing. Well I just want to slight the Onion’s reporting on.
S4: Which the headline for which was apologetic conversion therapy founder offers to electrocute past patients back into being gay. I think what secular treatment of humor and darkness sort of says it all.
S17: I think I listened to an interview with McCray game that Christina had recommended to me and it made me feel very very sad made me feel deeply sad. And I think it is a sad story a tragic story and I’m glad that he’s come out and I I as somebody who is not like ever been affected by the evils of conversion therapy or the sort of monolithic church in this country I’m lucky to be able to say that. And I think there are many many gay and lesbian people in this country who will feel differently. And I do not blame them.
S15: Yeah I would like to be able to feel only sad because I think that’s the most Christ gracious graceful approach to something like this. I mean he’s what a what a ha to have lived his life. Put yourself through that kind of bizarre from my point of view torture.
S14: However as someone who grew up in this group in South Carolina actually where he was based and around not in the evangelical church but definitely around the church the sort of big American church like the way you just put it I have anger too. I have a hard time forgiving or sort of overlooking that all the pain that Christina just described because it’s real and it it it it doesn’t. You know you can ask for forgiveness you can you can sort of wish to atone.
S12: But you know lives have been lost according to him and and untold emotional pain has been on to people therapy bills or expense like if nothing else like it’s just it’s serious. And I don’t know I would. Let’s put it this way I would have a hard time seeing him walk into my local gay bar in his new tank top and feel like that was chill. I’ll put it that way. Yeah yeah.
S3: I was thinking about the question of whether I would or whether we should welcome people like this into our queer communities with open arms. I mean on the one hand trauma and you never know how trauma is going to affect someone on the other hand it it also makes me angry to see him saying things like you know most LGBTQ people have been ridiculously kind to me. You know sometimes I get angry messages when I’m on my gay dating app but for the most part people are really nice. I get so angry like and I know I’m not proud of this. I don’t think it’s the right response but I’m almost like you don’t deserve to wear that boy brief bathing suit. You know like in the culture a little time give these communities a little time from when you decided OK. Now I’m gay too when you expect to be fully welcomed into the community and and you know it’s funny that I know I keep mentioning all these like outward ways that he’s telegraphing his gay identity and I was trying to unpack like why does that make me so mad. And I think it’s because it’s there. You know people are are beaten up for wearing those kinds of things in public lives by people who are empowered by what he has been doing for the past 20 years. You know they see this man who says I’m gay and I just choose not to act on it. And anyone could do the same. And who’s married and has kids with his wife and they will look at their own kids or other people in their community. And you know people who are out and proud and wearing their earrings and having their rainbow Facebook profile pictures and saying well if if this guy could do it McCray game for 20 years why can’t you.
S16: I mean I think if nothing else this show sort of gives the lie to the larger evangelical project and such a damning way he himself describes gay and lesbian people as the lepers of the world. You know Jesus did not say like take the lepers on like electrocute them until they were cured. That is not that was not Jesus’s teaching. You know I feel for him as an individual because you can’t help but feel that he was enacting something much larger much bigger than him he was it was distilled down into his personal mission or his personal ministry but it was being conducted by the force like the sort of like really craven American political forces that you know say oh we should we will. This will be the issue in the culture war and we will empower a small set of people to take over the church. I mean it’s just the irony is so not like this is the exact inverse of what Jesus said and we’ll let them do that for the sake of advancing a very specific political agenda. And so it’s so sad and it’s so you know Christine I share your sense that I would. You know it’s sort of like maddening to see him embrace all of these things that really cause real harm to real people. But and to be able to get away with it and celebrate it. But he just it feels like the problem is not really him.
S5: Mm hmm. Yeah you’re right. That’s so impressive. You know I really I really I’m really I’m serious I really am sitting here feeling challenged by that because I think I think it is it is easy to anger at something like this is pretty easy.
S15: But but seeing it the way you just described as sort of a structural problem that he is that he’s just an acting as is I think true and and hard.
S5: I mean speaking to Christina just your your point about like why the the signifiers were so upsetting to you. I’ll just add to that quickly. They like the other thing that makes me that makes that hard to swallow is that that means he was like paying attention to those signifiers while he was doing that. It’s like you don’t you don’t just know what the cute whatever swimsuit he said was. He’s he’s been like he was he was like somehow observing queer culture gay culture even while he was doing this. And so that that is that is tough.
S15: But but again what a weird crazy place to live you know mentally for him. So I’m I’m gonna try to adopt Ramon that’s like benevolence because I think it’s I think it’s healthier.
S3: I want to mention one other strain of conversation I saw around this news which was a lot of people including a lot of straight people saying things like well there’s another one or like. Of course you know. Is anyone surprised. Which I totally get like yeah. Obviously somebody who’s the head of a gay conversion therapy organization. It used to quote unquote identify as gay or whatever like that of course is not a surprise when they come out. But it also feeds into something that I’ve seen even around people like Mike Pence where people will be like Oh I bet he’s closeted like you know only only a gay person could be so homophobic or like this is evidence of some sort of repressed desire that he has. And I find that extremely objectionable too and I almost feel myself starting to get protective or like it’s not until like 10 people say oh fence fence about people people who then do come out as gay. So there was another. I forget who it was. Another big name religious leader recently came out as gay. You know after having preached against gay people for decades and decades again a common story. But it wasn’t until I saw straight people saying like you know here’s here’s another one of these that I started feeling like well hold on a second like this. It’s homophobia is not gay people’s problem. Yeah we certainly there’s certainly plenty of internalized homophobia. Gay people can be complicit in homophobia and in fact homophobia clearly. But I don’t want to get to a place where we’re saying there’s a connection between LGBT identity and causing LGBT people harm. Well it like a reason scribes this weird like.
S5: Armchair psychoanalytic thing about like gay ness or queerness somehow being tied up with repression or like like like an on salutary like psychic you know structure or something. That’s a bizarre sentence. That was a great read.
S12: You know what I mean like there’s something essentially like pathological like on some level about queer ness and so it produces people like this like that’s I think that’s like a strange subtext there.
S15: Even as the people that your district folks that you’re talking about are ostensibly like supportive of the existence of queer people it’s like weirdly taking part in this old like Freudian thing from from that we’ve we’ve abandoned so that is that is strange.
S16: Yeah yeah. You know and I think that McCray game himself would have said even you know earlier before before he came out that you know it’s hairsplitting. But what they’re talking about really is not choosing not to act on what’s termed gay impulse. So basically what they’re saying is that you can be gay you know as determined by God or Gene whatever and you can choose otherwise. And coming out essentially what he’s saying is that he’s choosing otherwise. He’s choosing to get laid effectively. And you know that is. So that makes the whole thing kind of weirdly sordid like it like it just reinforces that it’s about sex and not about all of this other stuff that’s baked into it. And I share your sense Christine that it’s really irritating to hear this described as sort of a repressive instinct as though you can’t just be a jerk who hates gay people for no reason. Yeah.
S3: And also because the the the repressed part isn’t coming from within. It’s coming from. External forces. And so in this podcast that you mentioned Roman McCrea went on the podcast of a friend of his a minister named Charlie Ventrell I will say it was a pretty calm conversation considering that you know that Charlie you know just sort of says outright like I do think that gay acting on gay desires is a sin. But you know like let’s hear each other. And he’s also said it would be good if this conversion therapy actually worked because there are so many people distraught over this that they killed themselves over it. So his perspective is that the cure for LGBTQ people hating themselves isn’t in the faith tradition or the culture that made them hate themselves but in changing the nature of those LGBTQ people. And for me that’s the hardest part of this because it tells me that as long as there is homophobia in families and in communities and in our sort of national rhetoric there will be a market for something like conversion therapy or for taking you know some sort of a study on gay genes and trying to apply that to changing somebody’s nature even though McCrae says you know he doesn’t think that being gay is necessarily biological but he also believes that it’s not something you can change through therapy or even should change through therapy. He thinks that now but it’s just as opening in the marketplace that is waiting to be filled. And there will be LGBTQ people who want to fill it and and paid to to have this sort of therapy as long as they are being oppressed.
S16: And you know from forces outside themselves I have to say I think that they’re into that interview with Charlie Vance all was really interesting. And one of the most. It was very reason it was very calm and one of the most striking things to me was that Denzel himself talked about the leaders of the church and I’m using church in a really broad sense here quote obsess over homosexuality. And that just shows us that as you’re saying Christine that this is like a marketplace question. This is the people with power have determined this to be a problem because they can monetize it and they can harness indignation a sort of sense of moral panic around this to accomplish other things that’s precisely what you see around. Pro-life conversations in this country. It’s being harnessed by political forces. And that’s. And there are real human costs inside of that. And that’s why I guess I heard that and just felt so sorry for this man because it was his feeling that he was just this tiny player inside a much bigger fight listeners.
S3: We love to hear what you think about this story. You can e-mail us at outward podcast at Slate dot com. And you know would you slide into the Dems of a former conversion therapy practitioner. We’d love to hear it.
S6: OK. So that’s about it for this month. But before we go it’s time for our usual updates to the gay agenda. Christina what do you have for us.
S10: I’m recommending an article in Atlas Obscura by Raina Gattuso. It’s called the founder of America’s earliest lesbian bar was deported for obscenity. That’s the headline. And it’s a good summary of the article. There’s just so much great rich worldbuilding and history in this piece. It starts out as just a really interesting history of this woman Eve Adams who was the proprietor of Eve Adams tearoom in the West Village in New York. It opened in 1925 it was a hangout for queers and particularly women and also for Jewish intellectuals who were shunned from other establishments at the time.
S9: There was a sign outside apparently that said men are admitted but not welcome. Kind of a joke but probably a little bit serious.
S3: So Eve just seems like this incredible book. There are some great photos in the piece. She hung out with a nice NIN and Emma Goldman. She hosted people at this bar. She published lesbian short stories and then she ended up getting arrested in a sting operation by an undercover NYPD officer.
S11: A woman who it sounds like kind of seduced Adams. And then when she got to Adam’s bedroom took this copy of a lesbian story collection and used it as evidence to arrest and deport Eve Adams. And it’s a terrible ending to the story. She was eventually killed at Auschwitz. But it’s the story of this beautiful life and also cruelty beyond measure. And it made me think a lot about how the homophobia and transphobia is intersecting with the human rights violations currently being committed at the U.S. border. You know trans people being held in gender inappropriate detention facilities being denied health care Surviving Rape ice separating HIV positive parents from their children. And many of these people are fleeing persecution back home too. So I loved this piece because it felt very current to me and also just was a very clear eyed view of a woman who I had never heard of before but is incredibly interesting to me. And I’m really excited to learn more about her.
S9: Whereas the biopic Sarah it sounds like and who would I cast in question.
S3: Again the title of it is the founder of America’s earliest lesbian bar was deported for obscenity in Atlas Obscura.
S5: That sounds fantastic Christina. Thank you Ramon.
S17: This fall the National Book Foundation that is going to give its 2019 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to the writer Edmund White and the previous recipients of this very significant award include John Ashbury Maxine Hong Kingston Stephen King Judy Blume and hearing this I was really reminded that Edmund White was a huge figure to me when I was a younger person. I read his novel A Boy’s Own story furtively at the age of 16 or 17 and I haven’t read it in the years since people talk about it as kind of a gay Catcher In The Rye which I think doesn’t really speak to the level of White’s writing. It’s a beautiful elegant writer. He has had a huge and very prolific career he wrote a biography of John A. And I know many gay writers of my generation consider him a mentor. And so this fall I’m going to reread a Boy’s Own story which I have not read for 24 years and just preparing for this. Just glancing back at it I realized that the book was published in 1982 which is when grid now known as AIDS was first identified and there’s something very striking about that to me that white chronicled his own generation of gay men. I think he’s in his 70s just before the ensuing generation was really decimated. And we don’t have a lot of texts like this and it’s striking to see the author of one really be welcomed into the firmament of American literary history. So I think it’s very exciting and I’m excited for him and I’m excited to revisit that book.
S5: Yeah yeah sounds excellent. Super well-deserved. Brian we have. Well you guys have like serious times more serious too. No it’s good. So last night I went to a concert of the wonderful queer artist MCA.
S19: Do we know Mick throwback Oh yeah. No.
S20: Well it’s a throwback because he’s actually kind of been away for a while.
S19: People might remember the lollipop he loved today yesterday.
S5: There was there was there were there were some bops back then. God I feel like in my college so that’s kind of what I think is in a lot of people’s heads.
S20: I mean he has he has been sort of away from recording and touring for a while. This is the first tour I believe in six years something like that. So he’s back and he’s got a new album called My name is Michael Holbrook that’s coming out in October. There’s some singles out now one called ice cream that’s wonderful but I doesn’t really know he has a ice cream song and a lollipop song.
S8: Yeah. Yeah. Also lots of song about colors that the show is structured around colors which was lovely. If people aren’t familiar with hammer if you haven’t listened in a while go check it out. Get your Spotify up or whatever and listen he’s got the spirit of Freddie Mercury inside of him it’s like insane to watch this person who just has this kind of fame muscularity down that like that I attribute to Freddie or to like an Elton John or someone like that but it’s new it’s fresh in him. It’s beautiful. He has a composer’s sort of musical sensibility. He’s done orchestral albums and it really made the music really stands up to that. And he’s also adorable. I’m a little bit in love with this beautiful floppy hair by the end of the concert he was like soaking wet which was great. Listen to the music listen to the old music listen to the new music as it comes out and the show it’s called the Tony Love Tour if it comes near you. Definitely go. I am serious that this is certainly the best like queer concert I’ve ever been to and also the best concert I’ve ever been in. Really. He holds a room man. It’s like it’s nuts. So get there because amazing.
S3: You’ve convinced me. That’s our show. Thank you so much for listening. Please keep sending us your feedback and your topic ideas. You can reach us at outward podcast at Slate dot com or via Facebook and Twitter at Slate outward. Also if there’s ever any advice you need about anything in your queer life. Send it our way we might read your question on the show remand. Thank you so much for joining us. Oh thank you for having me. What a pleasure. Thank you also to Melissa Kaplan who provided production assistance for this episode. Our producer is Daniel Schrader. Love you Daniel.
S21: June Thomas the senior managing producer of Slate podcast is what made us gay.
S9: If you like outward please subscribe in your podcast app tell your friends about it right and review the show so others can find it.
S21: We’ll be back in your feeds on October 16th. Fireman. Bye. Bye bye and see it Christina. Stay gay. Everyone.
