SPEECH, NATIONAL COMING OUT DAY RALLY–UWEC, OCTOBER 11, 2005

BOB NOWLAN


    I want to begin by thanking Spectrum for inviting me to speak here this evening, for the sixth straight year.  I am happy to do so.   


    I’ve approached the topic of coming out from many angles over the years, in many speeches and written texts, so it becomes something of a challenge to find a new take after awhile.  However, in reflecting on what I might say this year, I realized I’ve never, in any one of my previous speeches at these rallies, focused on what might well be the most obvious angle for me.  What is that?  Well, as many people here likely well know, on the first day of each semester in each and every class I teach here I come out as a gay man to my students–and I’ve done this ever since I first started here in the fall of 1997.  I thought I’d take a little time now to comment on what I say to my students on these occasions–and why I do this, as I do it.


    As I indicate to my students, I maintain four reasons for sharing this point of information about myself, and, especially right away, on the first day of class, in every class, at the start of every semester.  


    The first reason is that I believe in being open, candid, and forthright with my students.  I hope in trusting them to be honest about whom I am and what I am about that they will come to trust me to be likewise honest about whom they are and what they are about–and, in fact, often, although not always, this does turn out to be the case.  For me, gayness is not simply reducible to a mere homosexual orientation.  From a gay liberationist vantage point, which is my background, “gay” refers to a public social identity, whereas “homosexual” refers to a private sexual practice.  As a public social identity, my gayness affects my moral, ethical, aesthetic, political, and spiritual values, principles, ideals, and commitments, not simply with whom I choose to have sex.  I don’t therefore want to pretend to be something I am not about something so important to whom I am.   


    As I proceed to elaborate, from this point forward, what I primarily identify with as “being gay” therefore has relatively little to do with popular television representations of what gayness is like such as we find on Will and Grace and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.  Many students tend to appreciate it when I then next mention that, although friends of mine through the years have told me I have a talent for interior design and can maintain a fashionable appearance, my students shouldn’t expect that I’ll be able or willing to help straight guys in my classes with make-overs to please their girlfriends, unlike what the so-called “Fab 5" do on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.   I can’t claim to match their talents in these areas.   


    I do have a more serious point in mind here, however, in alluding to these kinds of popular television images of gays, which do in fact still supply many students with their most familiar impression of what gay people are like, and that is simply this: there is no such thing as “THE gay lifestyle.”  It makes as little sense to talk about “THE gay lifestyle” as it does to talk about “THE straight lifestyle.”  Gay people are just as diverse as straight people.  Use of the phrase “the gay lifestyle” annoys me because it implies gays have “lifestyles” whereas straights have “lives.”  Recently, I picked up a postcard containing a spoof image of the publicity campaign for a ‘50s horror flick: “They worked at their jobs! They shopped for their groceries! They even went to the movies!  They lived . . . The Homosexual Lifestyle! . . . See . . . them do their laundry!  Hear . . . them order from the local take-out!  Feel . . . your spine tingle as they watch TV!”  Appropriately, at the bottom of this postcard, the designers have inserted “PG: Please Get Over It.”


    But let’s return to the next three reasons why I am open, right away, and always, with all my students about the fact that I am gay.  The second reason follows from the sad reality that gay people have been–and still often continue to be–oppressed, no matter how much more visible and how much more widely tolerated and accepted gay people, at least relatively privileged gay people, are today than was the case only a few short years ago.  Because of this fact, most gay people, at least most poor and working class gays, are still hesitant, if  not indeed fearful, of being widely publicly out, and that goes for gays here at UWEC, and in Eau Claire, as well as elsewhere.  In fact, as I share with my students, although a considerable number of gay people have worked as faculty here at UWEC over the years, I was the first openly gay faculty member in the history of UWEC when I came here in the fall of 1997, as well as the first person ever to teach a course at this university focused directly in the areas of glbtq studies, in 1999.  And I am still one of the few gay faculty or staff to be open about his gayness with his students here at UWEC–as well as still one of the few faculty to teach courses expressly focused on gay-lesbian-bisexual-transgender-and-queer-issues.     


    At the same time, although there are many–likely well over five hundred–gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning students enrolled here at UWEC, in my nine year’s teaching here, even as an openly gay faculty member myself, and as one who does teach gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender topics in his classes, only twelve students I’ve taught have so far felt comfortable sharing with their fellow students in my classes that they themselves were gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender.  Unfortunately, many gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender students do not yet find UWEC, or Eau Claire, entirely welcoming and supportive, especially those just coming to terms with these kinds of identities, or those in the process of questioning how they conceive, define, manifest, and practice their gender and sexual identities, which happens to many students as undergraduates to this day.  


    Because so many others here at UWEC cannot yet be open about who they are, I think it is important for me to be forthright about whom I am–in the interest of helping contribute to the creation of a climate which will make it possible for these others eventually not to have to hide who they are about something so important.  


    The third reason I tell my students about my own gayness is that this is one of the major reasons I was hired here, and one of my principal responsibilities at this institution: to serve as an expert in the areas of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer studies, and to pursue this work in my scholarship, in my teaching, and in my contributions to campus and community service.  Students should know these are, and have been for a good number of years now, substantial fields of serious intellectual–and cultural–work.  It would make no sense for me to try to hide who I was, where I come from, and what I am about, given the fact that this is what I am supposed to be and do here.  Some students, and some parents and community members, have been upset to have to encounter gay people, such as me, or gay issues, such as those represented by me, at UWEC, yet gay people are upset to have to encounter their heterosexism and homophobia; the point of an institution dedicated to higher learning should not be to refuse to take up anything that might in any way be offensive or controversial to anyone (to support this position would in fact offend many people and would in and of itself be quite controversial) but rather to confront these topics, to discuss them, to debate them openly and freely, welcoming the widest possible range of positions and perspectives in the course of this exchange.   


    After all, according to contemporary critical theories, and, for that matter, virtually all serious scholarship in the area since the invention of modern sexology in the mid-nineteenth century, “sexuality” is not simply a narrow range of  discrete, private, physical acts but rather a broad range of intimate and affectional social relations, discursive articulations of these social relations, and institutional regimes governing and regulating these social relations–all of which, moreover, exert manifest and extensive impacts upon, and effects throughout, everyday social life.  As such, sexuality is pervasive and ubiquitous; it is public, it is social, it is topical, and it is highly significant–plus it is intricately interrelated with all other areas of  human social existence.  Second, and following upon the previous point, it becomes virtually impossible, if not absurd, to attempt to exclude references to and discussions of sexuality from courses of higher education, as to do so would mean, minimally, that all instructors and all students would refrain from any direct reference or indirect allusion to husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, children, or parents–whether past, present, or prospective future–as all of these are both indexes and constituents of “sexual relations”–and the same with dating and loving, in virtually any form and in any kind, for the same reasons.  It is common enough, from a heterosexist perspective, to believe that one keeps one’s (hetero)sexuality purely private and never imposes it upon any other, but if one ever even publicly mentions one’s spouse, one’s spouse equivalent, or one’s children; if one ever includes signs, such as pictures, of any of these people that suggest or indicate their relationship to one’s self in one’s office or otherwise at one’s workplace; and if one ever even comments while at work in such a way so as to suggest that an intimate and affectional attraction of any kind to any member of the opposite sex might ever even be conceivably possible for one’s self at any place and in any time–then this person is making his or her sexuality public, not keeping it hidden, and acting as if sharing information about it and making references and connections to it were an entirely natural, normal, and acceptable thing to do.  Likewise, if sexuality is to be excluded from the classroom, all direct reference or indirect allusion to any of these kinds of relations in the texts and topics under consideration in the courses students take would have to be banned as well, meaning that, in English as well as most other fields, we would have quite obviously very little left to discuss.    


    Finally, though, the fourth and last reason I mention my gayness to my students right away on the first day of all of classes is so that any of them who might find it difficult to take classes with an openly gay faculty member, one who is truly very proud of this dimension of whom he is, can reconsider doing so.  Most UWEC students have been welcoming, accepting, and supportive, but a good number have not, although I give them every opportunity to find someplace else to go if they cannot deal with taking a class from me.  As I indicate to my students, if anyone is uncomfortable working with me, because I am an out, and proud, gay man, I am doing them a favor by making it clear this is who I am right at the beginning of the semester, so they can decide right away if they can’t deal with this.  Still, however, it is striking how frequently students end up staying in my classes who are adamantly opposed to any tolerance for or acceptance of glbt people, and who, in a number of cases, maintain the belief that homosexuality is not only a great sin but also one of the greatest evils in the world today.  Some of them obviously have been recruited to do this, to take my courses, and some of them independently, on their own, perceive taking a class with me as a useful occasion for them actually to pursue their religious calling–and to test their religious faith.  For some, I am obviously an agent of the Devil, and it is their religious duty, as they see it, not to avoid confronting me but rather to seize upon the opportunity to do so.  Well, that’s fine with me if that’s what they want, but, sad to say, yet not surprisingly, these kinds of students almost always end up spending a lot of time simply feeling uncomfortable, and “offended.”  They seem to imagine that I will not challenge and critique their assertion of homophobic and heterosexist positions.  But of course I do so because I find those positions–positions which denounce glbt people, and our life-practices, as sinful, sick, criminal, etc,–to be themselves immoral, unethical, and completely counter to–even, yes, offensive to–my own philosophical, political, spiritual, and religious values.  From my own perspective, as I make clear to my students, gayness is in no way whatsoever ‘wrong’, let alone at all ‘sinful’.  I am in absolutely no way ashamed about it, and I in no way approach this as something which I merely ‘have to accept’ because ‘I had no choice over it’.  I am glad to be gay, and I would gladly choose to be gay if this was simply a matter of individual choice.  I think it’s more complicated than this but at the same time I do believe that sexuality and gender identity are far more complex phenomena than simply the emanations of biological predetermination–we all, in short, exist, and move, throughout our lives, across multiple, interlinked gender and sexual continua.  We tend to be relatively fixed in place because of external–social, cultural, political, and ideological–restrictions, proscriptions, and prohibitions.  As I see it, though, to return to my main point here, being gay is a very good way to be.  For me, as I indicate on my office door, being “proud to be gay” means “believing in a world of love, compassion, and mutual respect–a world free from fear, discrimination and prejudice.”  And, as I further indicate, on my office wall, I believe it is useful to conceive of “queer” positively as well–to mean “bold or daring, brave, original, unrestrained by existing ideas or conventions, uninhibited.”  I definitely would like to see more–at least more openly–gay, queer, lesbian, transgender, and bisexual people right here at UWEC.  I am confident this would serve to make this a richer, more dynamic, more humane, and more progressive place–for all of us.  So, in conclusion, congratulations to all of you here today for your pride in yourselves and each other, which you demonstrate in coming out–as gay, as lesbian, as bisexual, as transgender, as queer, and as straight ally and supporter.  We are all interconnected, and we are all interdependent; this does mean that no one can ever be truly, fully free while others remain oppressed, and especially while others are oppressed in order to provide you with your relative privilege over them.  Embrace the other inside yourself as well as the other outside of you that you meet and interact with every day–at least that you can and will meet if you keep your eyes, your mind, and your heart open.  If you are truly open to this other, if we are truly open to each other, this can, and will, make you–it will make all of us–mutually all the stronger, all the more vital, all the more fully and truly human.