Professor Bob Nowlan
SPEECH, UWEC NATIONAL COMING OUT RALLY, 10/11/02
BOB NOWLAN
I am proud to be here as an openly gay faculty member
working at this University. I am also thankful to all of you who
have come here today to demonstrate your pride in yourselves and in your lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgender family and friends, co-workers and fellow
citizens-and especially in all the lgbt people who contribute-as students,
faculty, and staff-to making this University all that it is.
At the same time, I believe we still have much work to
do in order to make this University the kind of place that treats those of
us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender as fully equal to those
of us who are straight. To illustrate what I mean I want to refer
in this talk to an illuminating contribution on this topic from clinical psychologist
Dr. Dorothy Riddle of Tucson, Arizona. Dr. Riddle has developed a “homophobia
scale” that challenges the prevailing idea that all we glbt people seek,
and all we need, is “tolerance” and “acceptance.”
On the scale she has devised, Dr. Riddle lists four “homophobic
levels of attitude” followed by four “positive levels of attitude.”
Let’s begin with the former. First, we have “repulsion” where
homosexuality is perceived as a “crime against nature,” and gay and lesbian
people are regarded as “sick, crazy, immoral, sinful, and wicked.”
From this perspective, “anything is justified to change them,” including prison,
hospitalization, negative behavior therapy, and electroshock therapy.
Lest we become too smug about those who maintain this attitude, imagining
this remains the mindset only of relatively “primitive” people who live and
work “far away” from us here, at this enlightened institution of higher learning,
I will just indicate here that I, and colleagues with whom I work, still to
this day regularly encounter this kind of response from a number of students-and
occasionally from other members of the faculty and staff here at UWEC-in openly
representing and addressing glbt issues, especially in a serious, sustained
way, virtually every single semester. Let me just cite a couple
of examples, culled from many, many more I could mention: UWEC students have
told me, directly in the midst of class discussion, that 1.) people like
me are responsible for killing hundreds of thousands of “innocent” people
around the world by foisting AIDS upon them as a result of our supposedly
insatiable lust for continuous, perverted sex, and 2.) people like me should
be put to death, as The Bible supposedly demands, because our very
existence constitutes a sinful “abomination.”
Turning to the second of Riddle’s “homophobic levels
of attitude,” we next encounter “pity” or, as Riddle also describes it, “heterosexual
chauvinism.” From this perspective, heterosexuality is perceived as
“more mature and certainly to be preferred,” while “any possibility of ‘becoming
straight’ should be reinforced, and those who seem to be born ‘that way’ should
be pitied-‘the poor dears’.” Again, this attitude has not been
uncommon on this campus. For example, I have had students write
papers in my classes indicating that they felt “very sorry for gay people
because they are doomed to lead sad, lonely lives” and others have suggested
in conversation with me that they belong to local religious organizations
which engage in so-called “reparative therapy” designed to help “deeply disturbed
and troubled people” such as myself.
Third on Riddle’s homophobia scale is “tolerance.”
Why does Riddle identify “tolerance” as homophobic? Well, I think it’s
not really that hard to see why once you think carefully about it: after to
tolerate something merely means you can put up with it, you can stand it,
you can live with it, not that you regard it in any particularly positive
way-and it also readily suggests that those doing the tolerating occupy a
seemingly unimpeachable position of superiority versus those they deign to
tolerate. Just think about what sense it would make to ask if
glbt people should “tolerate” straight people. In short, this
kind of attitude can be quite condescending as well as quite distancing (many
gay people I have known, after first telling their parents or other relatives
that they were gay, have found that these other people thought that simply
responding along the lines of ‘it’s OK, let’s not mention it again’ should
prove satisfying). As Riddle suggests, from this vantage point
homosexuality often is treated as “just a phase” that some people go through,
yet also one that hopefully, at least in most cases, people “grow out of.”
Merely tolerating us suggests we “are less mature” than straights and should
in effect “be treated with the [same] protectiveness and indulgence one uses
with a child.” What’s more, those who merely “tolerate” us often tend
to question granting us positions of authority because they either consciously
or unconsciously regard us as people who are either fixated in or still working
through some kind of purely adolescent set of hang-ups--or perhaps a more
deep-rooted neurosis. Again, this kind of position is also still
quite common here at UWEC. For instance, more than once a student
of mine has written on her or his informational questionnaire at the beginning
of the semester that “I am glad that you personally are proud that you are
gay but I hope you telling us this fact about yourself on the first day of
class is the very last time we have to hear anything about it for the rest
of the semester.” Others have suggested that “UWEC students just
don’t feel comfortable dealing openly with issues of homosexuality” so people
like us should “keep this to ourselves.” At the same time, plenty more
students in my classes, and in those of other colleagues, have at times indicated
they “personally don’t have any problem with gay people,” but they just don’t
want to have to read, write, talk, watch films, or in any way engage in work
for class that has anything to do with people like us, especially with anything
that clearly marks us out as gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.
In short, as long as we hide in our closets and act publicly around everyone
else as if we were straight, then all is fine.
Moving on, Riddle’s fourth homophobic level of attitude
is “acceptance.” As Riddle indicates, to stop with saying one
“accepts” glbt people “still implies there is something to accept.”
It also implies, yet again, that the position of the “acceptor” is virtually
naturally superior, and that the acceptor’s heterosexuality is unquestionably
not only predominant but also normative. As Riddle indicates,
the accepting position often takes the form of statements such as “you’re
not a lesbian to me, you’re a person!” or “what you do in bed is your own
business” or “that’s fine with me as long as you don’t flaunt it!.”
Again, frequently people on this campus rush to indicate they “accept” glbt
people but do so in a way that clearly implies they in effect want to dismiss
our gayness, lesbianism, bisexuality, and transgenderism, treating this as
something that doesn’t need-and in fact should not-be talked about, like some
kind of unfortunate, minor, yet embarrassing handicap (or even a mere unsightly
“blemish”) that is best ignored. Many times people I have met
here have rushed to tell me that my gayness is just a small part of whom
I am and because of that fact they have no trouble relating to me, or to
the rest of me, it seems-i.e, to the supposedly non-gay-part of whom I am.
However, sexuality is far more significantly a part of
whom we all than many people in this culture are wont to admit.
Sexuality refers not simply to a narrowly discrete range of purely private,
entirely physical behaviors and physiological inclinations, but rather to
the full range of ways in which we experience, make sense of, respond to,
express, and communicate sensual desire, pleasure, and affection in intimate
form with other people as part of the communities and the societies within
which we live out our lives; sexuality interconnects and overlaps with, as
well as interdeterminately impacts, virtually every aspect of our existence
as social beings, including, in particular, our social relations of friendship,
romance, and love. What’s more, we don’t all exist, by any means,
simply as rigidly, singularly homosexual or heterosexual, but instead move,
over the course of our lives, across changing positions within a complex series
(or matrix) of interlinked continua, continua that extend beyond that of
heterosexual-bisexual-homosexual to also include heterosocial-heteroerotic-heterosexual,
homosocial-homoerotic-homosexual, masculine-feminine, and straight-queer.
In addition, if you think gender is a relatively inconsequential
matter, try to imagine living your life as a transgendered person, someone
who does not experience one’s self as fitting within the prevailing gender
binaristic categories of masculine-male-man and feminine-female-woman.
Every day of our lives we make public decisions and conform to social conventions-from
choice of rest rooms to boxes on all kinds of official forms to many, many
more besides-that require us to indicate to the rest of our social world whether
or not we are men or women, and virtually nowhere do transgender people encounter
ready recognition that other possibilities might well exist and in fact stand
as equally natural, valid, and legitimate to these two predominant options.
If we carefully think about it, I believe we should be able quite readily
to see that none of us fit entirely easily within simple gender binaristic
categories yet this binarism functions as one of the most pervasive and relentless
mechanisms policing the possibilities for whom each of us can be-and of whom
each of us can seek to become.
Beyond the four homophobic levels of attitude, however,
Dr. Riddle describes four positive levels of attitude, and I will close my
talk today by elaborating upon these, as well as challenging us all to work
to develop and act in these kinds of way in relation to each other.
First, we have “support” where those who maintain this kind of position actively
“work to safeguard the rights of lesbians and gays.” Even if somewhat
“uncomfortable” with aspects of gay and lesbian sociality or sexuality, straight
supporters are “aware” of the prevailing “homophobic climate” and especially
of how “irrationally unfair” the effects of this climate so frequently are
for those of us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender.
Second, beyond “support,” we encounter “admiration,”
where people acknowledge that being gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender
in our society-especially being publicly open about it-“takes strength.”
As Dr. Riddle indicates, “people at this level are willing to truly examine
their homophobic attitudes, values, and behaviors.”
Third, we move to “appreciation,” and this means actively
demonstrating that one truly values “the diversity of people” and sees gays,
lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people “as a valid part of that diversity.”
People operating at this level, Dr. Riddle contends, “are willing to combat
homophobia in themselves and others.”
Fourth, and finally, we encounter what Dr. Riddle describes
as “nurturance,” which I would prefer to identify as “a mutual, coequal, and
co-determinant kind of nurturance” just to make sure it does not suggest any
degree of condescension on the part of “straight nurturers” vis-a-vis “glbt
nurturees.” People operating at this level assume that gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and transgender people “are indispensable in our society” and they
in fact view gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgendered people “with genuine
affection and delight.” Straight people operating at this level
are genuinely willing, and in fact quite enthusiastic, about acting together
with us as true “allies and advocates.”
I want us to reach the point where the vast majority
of straight people on this campus are in fact excited and interesting in
knowing and working together with us not despite the fact that we are gay,
lesbian, bisexual, and transgender, but in fact because of this-and at the
same time where they are genuinely willing, even eager, to express real interest
and real enthusiasm for learning about glbt history, politics, and culture,
respecting our struggles and celebrating our contributions to what we all
share in common.
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Last Updated: October 14, 2002