what you feel-sometimes technical, usually derogatory, seldom cheerful, seldom "gay." Phase two-coming out to others-usually happens first with other gays. In bars, in gay unions, maybe in baths and tearooms (but the more anonymous the situation the less it's a coming out). The coming-out process can extend to one's straight friends, too. But it usually stops there; seldom does one come out to casual friends, or to people who might never be friends.

Yet, these people, who form the vast majority of those one sees, are usually the ones that need to know most. They need to know that gays are students, teachers, pre-laws, pre-meds, engineering majors, ad infinitum. How are they supposed to get beyond the stereotypes of television and the movies if we, as gays, remain closeted to them?

Every speaking engagement is a process of coming out. And of staying outbecause it's easy to remain anonymous, unseen, protected by our gay and straight friends (who are precisely the ones wha don't need to rethink their values; would they be our friends if they did?)

Sometimes, though not often, a speaking engagement brings someone else out-someone in the audience, someone who's been wondering, someone who's been waiting for another person to say the right words. Someone who's never seen another gay person who admits publicly to being gay, together (sometimes), and happy (relatively), and a person. Words on the page don't matter much. Dogma and intellectualizing get in the way. People are what matter.

That's what scares me-the responsi bility that speaking to others involves; to relate to them as people, as individuals, and not as a group with a static attitude; to be open to where they're coming from; to express my feelings, my values, and my reactions, without alienating them. After all, even curiosity -questions like, "But... what do you do?"-can be justified. And they can be answered (technically or graphically) while at the same time one makes the point, which I think is important, that it's not what you do but what you feel that matters.

It frightens me also that gay people seem sometimes to be their own exploiters. It's not unusual, as members of an oppressed group, to be stingy with our compassion, with our ability to under-

stand others on a more-than-intellectual level. We have our rap; people should hear it; and it doesn't matter where they're coming from, what their values are. So we antagonize, we frighten, we alienate.

And we alienate the closeted gay in the audience. Or the closeted bi. Or the person who just doesn't know. We fulfill all the stereotypes of sexual chauvinismintolerance, onesidedness, hostility. They see being gay as being branded, and they don't like the look of the label.

Stereotypes exist because we don't discard them

Only when we stop looking at people as types and as categories and start relating to them as individuals—even when they're in a crowd-can we show that sexuality is not a brand but a state of mind. One makes of it what one wantsfrom an attitude to a label, from closeted to open to political to chauvinist. If you're branded by people you don't know as being gay, does it matter? If you don't interact with them, if you never see themexcept as anonymous faces, perhaps, but not as people-does their opinion matter?

If it does-if you see the label as a positive value-can you interact with them, as individuals, in genuine communication, not in a chauvinist shouting match of anything-you-can-do-l-can-do-better?

Relating to people as individuals means restructuring our attitudes towards other gays, too. It means relating to the new per.. son at the social meeting not as a "new face" (or "new meat,"), but as someone who has probably just gone through an enormous struggle-it takes years sometimes just to walk through the door-and who is possibly confused, probably lonely, and

almost certainly terrified. Coming on with a heavy rap, and a heavy cruise, is not relating to this person as a person. It is not an attitude of understanding or compassion. It is, if you will pardon the expression, acting like the kind of person that gives gays a bad name,

A friend and I recently set up a group designed for closeted and confused gays and bisexuals-for those who don't understand their sexuality, whatever label they put to it, wherever they fall in the continuum of straight to gay. Along with the few new people who showed up-only two, but does the number matter?-came one of the more notorious cruisers of GPU, appar. ently under the impression that a rap group was a great way for him to trick with new people (new bodies, that iscertainly not new people).

The action is not typical, granted. But neither is the attitude unusual. We react to new people-especially if they're young and attractive-with particular interest. If they're young, good-looking and frightened, a heavy cruise generally sends them away in panic after their first visit. And if they're not young and good-looking, they're ignored, and they, too, leave after a single visit-not in panic, necessarily, but often in despair. If other gays don't care, how could the straights possibly have any compassion? Stereotypes exist because we don't discard them. The wrong words endure because we don't have the courage to say the right ones-not shouting them, necessarily, but saying them firmly, quietly, with conviction.

Coming out is not something you do and have done with. Coming out is a process that continues daily. It entails risk. It means responsibility. And it requires courage, for the most political act is not marching and shouting but simply being open-to everyone, not to a select few. To be assertive, but not antagonistic; firm, but not threatening; honest, but not hostile. No one can say that it's easy. But it's necessary-or at least it is for me. I'm not about to go back into the closet. I want to stay out and staying out means coming out over and over and over again.

So to my parents, to my friends, to my colleagues, to my ex-lover: I understand your concern, I appreciate your fears, I need your support. I'm glad you care. And I'm doing another speaking engagement a week from Thursday..

VECTOR 41