Lavender Starship/Page &/May 10, 1972

Gay Self-hatred

& Straight-identification

by Patrick Miller

When I use a word,' Bumpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, It seans just what I choose it to Bean. Jeither more or less. '

"The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words sean so any different things.'

The question is,' said Sumpty Dumpty, Who is to be aster. is all.

is, and the concepts be-

Zen, etc., etc., bave haunted the gay liberation soveseat from its inception. Ise accepace, by the vast majority of gay people, of the concepts indicated by these words has prevented the gay 1iberation movement from developing any kind of internal cohesiveness. It is still unfortunately too true that many gay people even those in the "Vanguard" of the liberation soveseat do not really like other gay people all that much. The reasons for this self-hatred are instructive, and not a little alarming.

It is clear that this dislike of other gay people is actually, as I have said, a form of self-hatred. It is an attempt to externalize that self-batred by directing it at others. And so those qualities which are attacked and despised in others, are precisely those qualities perceived the self which the indivital is atrali ashaned to ack avledge.

Society, at atsegs to gespe Tate the heteroserial deal, bas feveloped the concepts (and the

Notice that I say the concepts vere developed-created, made-up. bey bear no relation to any kind of reality, Ubat Society has done is to take the realities of aleness

and femaleness (i.e., genitally male and female) and to attempt to make a correlation between sets of bebavioral characteristics and between having certain sex organs. In other vards so the "straight" assumption goes if someone has a pents and testicles, the only "proper" bebavforal characteristics for that person to display are aggressiveness, use of logic, strength, etc., etc. Stetlerly, if someone has a vagine and breasts, the proper" set of bebavioral characteristics are passivity, use of intuition and emotion, belplessness, etc., etc. This is an absolutely false and distorted description of reality. There are no inberent, imate behavioral characteristics which go with being male

female. That is so important that it should be repeated. There are so inherent, innate behavioral characteristics which go with being sale or female. There are ranges of bman behavioral characteristics: from passive to active, from intuitive to logical, etc. But it is foolist to identify one end of such a behavior spectrum with being genitally male or female. The tems

asculinity" and "femininity" are thus freads; lies put on us by the straight society's power structure

in an attempt to preserve the nuclear family unit (and by extension, to preserve all of straight society's povers and vested interests).

All of which brings us back to the question we first started with: gay self-hatred and straight identification. The basic reason for say self-hatred is the acceptance by gays of straight Society's definition of reality. "The question is who is to be aster." For any gey people the question of who is to be the master never comes up. They accept straight Society's assumption of power without ever thinking that they might ought! to have power over their own lives, to be their Ova casters. And so they thoughtlessly accept the fraudulent concepts of asculinity" and "femininity-concepts which have no validity even for non-gay people! And so we see the sad phenomene of gay people oppressing other gays sneering at "tired old queens, speaking with contempt of "effeminate fags" or "butch dykes," desperately trying to

live up to a fraudulent straight concept of sexual behavior.

It should be obvious from what we have said that "gay liberation" is ained at a good deal more than relaws; more than having the police peal of sodasy laws, cross-dressing stop their harassment of gay people with vagrancy and loitering laws; more even then being "accepted" ar "tolerated" by straight society gay liberation is aimed at making gay people their own masters, legally, politically, socially, culturally, in every vay. But we can only become our own esters by refusing to accept society's definitions: by refusing to accept society's definition of homosexuality as sick or abnormal, by refusing to accept society's definition of "masculinity" and "femininity" as rigid types of behavior proper only to men or women. There is no masculine" behavior pro-

per to men, or "feminine" behavior

proper to women. There is only buwan bebavior which is proper for every-

one.

So the next time someone anyone, gay or non-gaysneers at a man for being "effeminate" or a woman for being masculine," don't be trapped into slavery by accepting straight society's definitions of reality. Define yourself and your behavior for yourself! Be your own master!

The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, who is to be master. That is all.

Yeah!

COUNSELING

by Sandy Bloch

Gay Counseling is a rather new ares. From the point of being a counselor without any actual for training, I would like to state opinions as far as counsel for

cut for the last four months. My first realization that I had possibilities as a counselor case when y first case was thrust upon me. The actual fact that I had been called by a person who needed counseling and considered our phone number as an alternative to either a priest or a psychologist shows the need for a counseling of this type. The person who called did not need religious or psychological counseling; he needed a person to talk to who was not going to tell him that he is sick. He knew where to go for that type of counseling. What he did want to hear he only could have heard from a Gay person with a well-adjusted attitude toward being Gay. I have zet with several counselors that are now doing Gay counseling and some of them are even planning to go into it as an occupation. The people I am speaking of are not only Gay but they are even trained in the area of counseling. But, Gay counseling per/se is an atypical type of counseling, it is not strictly psychological nor is it strictly religious. It is also not strictly practical. It involves being able to put yourself in the place of the person being counseled. and in coming up with a practical solution to that person's problem or to resolve the conflicts from the level that has created those problems,

With this in mind, it follows that there has been little done to formal. ly train a person to do this type of counseling. It is important to note that all of the above requirements that have been mentioned can be net by a surprisingly large number of people. The only limitations that can actually be set are these: 1) that the counselor be well adjusted to being Gay. 2) that the counselor be sufficiently exper-

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