James
I am fairly young (33) and grew up in a conservative family. I did not know about people who are gay. I just assumed that everyone was the same. I am not gay myself, and I have had several girlfriends. After I got involved with People First, one of my friends told me she was gay. She had always been real supportive of me in my personal and professional life. It took a lot for her to trust me enough to tell me. I was not shocked. I didn’t understand at first what it was but I started asking questions. I tried to figure out why she told me, and she said it was because People First was making waves and she was afraid that we would get attacked through her. She didn’t want us to be shocked if that happened, so she told me and my brother about herself so we could be prepared.
Later on, I used to worry about her. I was worried that people might hurt her or attack her. I told Bonnie about my worries, and she told me to tell her how I felt. A couple of weeks later, I did. She said I didn’t have to be worried about her. She said, “I am okay,” and that reassured me. At the same time, I got to know other gay people. They didn’t know I knew they were gay, but I figured it out. I remember one time when one couple and I were getting ready to go out to eat, and I said, “I just want you guys to know that I support you and love you guys.” They were really touched, and they told me later that they still talk about that and it makes them feel good.
I am not sure when I learned that Bonnie was gay. I think it was at my first SABE meeting. SABE had been meeting for about 2 1/2 years by then but it was my first meeting. SABE and People First of Connecticut were putting on a regional conference together, and it was about relationships. Bonnie and another advisor and a People First of Connecticut member did a workshop about being gay. One of the SABE board members got upset when he found out they were gay. He told me, “We should kick them out as advisors because they are gay.” I told him, “They are our friends and they support us, and as a national organization we should be welcoming to all people. People are prejudiced against us and we know how that feels. So why would you want to do that to them?” Some of the other board members told him the same thing. Most of us felt like he didn’t understand, that he was prejudiced because of ignorance, not because he was a bad person. He must have thought about what we said, because he became friends with both of them.
As I got more involved in self-advocacy in Oklahoma, I became more sensitive about this issue, and saw how people are ignorant and prejudiced toward people who are gay. Once there was a panel on the ADA, and it included people with different disabilities, and one was a gay man with HIV/AIDS. After the panel was over, people ignored him. I was the only one who shook his hand and talked to him. In 1995 I became a VISTA volunteer for Oklahoma People First. In that job, I also saw the way gay people are treated, and how ignorant and prejudiced people can be. One time someone (not a self-advocate) said, “I will never see another Tom Hanks movie again,” because he played a person who was gay and had HIV/AIDS. I said to her, “Why are you so accepting of me, as a person with a disability? Why are you so prejudiced against people who are gay and have AIDS?” She said, “Because you were born that way.” I said, “I have friends who are gay and I don’t appreciate that.” She asked me who they were and I said I wouldn’t tell her because people like her might hurt them. Then she got quiet and left.
I started going to the Catholic church when I was 11 years old. My dad’s family was Catholic. In Tulsa, the Catholic church became really important to me. I met some really good friends there, and I did a lot with the church. But I started questioning the church’s attitude about homosexuality. During that period they were talking about boycotting Disney products and selling Disney stock. At the time I did not understand why, but then I heard on the news that Disney was offering insurance and other benefits to same-sex partners. Our diocese was debating whether or not to sell, and they decided to sell. That really disturbed me because the church had always said, “Love one another as yourself,” and I felt they should practice what they preach. It seemed hypocritical. The church members were talking about people who were gay or have AIDS. I was afraid to speak up. I thought they might condemn me. I had one friend in the church that I could talk to about that issue. I would talk to her a lot about it, and she would listen. I was testing the waters to see who I could turn to and I picked her. I found out I could trust her, and I talked more about it.
When I moved to New Orleans in 1997, I decided not to go to the Catholic church. Their attitude really hurt me, and I couldn’t get over my feelings about it. I didn’t go to any church for almost two years. A while later, I moved to Baton Rouge but kept the same job. I was talking to Bonnie at the TASH conference in Seattle. I told her I was really at a crossroads regarding religion, and she told me she was concerned because she knew how much it had meant to me to be in a church. I asked her if she knew of any churches that are accepting, and she mentioned the Unitarian church. When I got home, I asked my co-worker if she knew where there was a Unitarian church in Baton Rouge. She said she goes to the Unitarian church, and she invited me to go with her and her family. It is a really neat, accepting church. There is a lot of laughter, it’s not always serious, and I like that. Now I am looking for groups at the church that I could join, like the Social Justice Committee. We think they need to know more about people with disabilities and other groups.
In New Orleans, I made other friends who are gay. I told one friend, who was also a colleague, that I would never use that against her if we had a disagreement. She had hinted that she was gay one time when I was in the hospital, and mentioned that her lover and she were worried about me. I mentioned her lover’s name, which she hadn’t mentioned, and she said, “Yes.” So then we could talk about it together. It hurts sometimes, because people will attack my friends about being gay–maybe they might just think they are gay, but they don’t know for sure, and so they will make ignorant remarks. I just tell them they shouldn’t be prejudiced about people who are gay. I don’t admit that my friend is gay, I just talk about the prejudice. I want to protect my gay friends because they have trusted me with that information.
I have a lot of memories of times I have shared with my gay friends. I was really touched once when one of my gay friends invited me and my brother, who also has disabilities, to a Christmas party where almost everyone was gay. It was a great party, really fun. We did a mystery-type thing, and we went house to house to solve the mystery. It was my last Christmas party with them because I was getting ready to move to Louisiana for my new job. I remember another time when I was in Washington DC with Bonnie. We had some friend time, and we tried to figure out what to do for fun. I told her I could do movies in Oklahoma, so let’s do something different. We decided to go to an interactive play called “Shear Madness” at the Kennedy Center. I really got into it. We were supposed to solve a murder mystery by paying attention to the clues they gave. One of the characters was a hairdresser who was gay. During the show, I asked Bonnie whether that offended her. He was a stereotype in how he acted and talked. I don’t think she had any problem with it. I was glad, because I was having so much fun.
In my mind, people are people. No matter what race you are, no matter whether you have disabilities or are gay. One of my friends here, who is white, just married a woman who is black. He is the Assistant Secretary of the Office of Citizens with Developmental Disabilities. One day he beeped me, and I thought someone wanted me for official business, but he told me that he and his fiancée had discussed it and wanted me to be the best man for their wedding. I felt really good about that. We are good colleagues and now we are becoming good friends. He was always there for me from the time I moved here. In the early days of this project, I was struggling and he listened and helped me decide how to make things better. He supported me when I wanted to move to Baton Rouge, and it is working out really well.
I feel hurt when I realize that people have to hide their identity, because sometimes I feel the same way. People with disabilities hide ourselves, too, sometimes. For example, when I am on the computer in a chat room, I never say that I have a disability. I want people to react to me the same as they do to anyone else. If I said I had a disability, I am afraid that some people would feel uncomfortable or wouldn’t know how to deal with it. I remember one time I told someone in a chat room that I have a disability, and he thought I was lying. He accused me of just saying that so the ladies in the chat room would feel sorry for me.
When I meet people in person, I think that they usually know that I have a disability, and I don’t try to hide it. I am proud of who I am, and people seem to be comfortable with me and my disability. I would want people who are gay to feel like that, too, and that they are welcome. But this weekend, I saw a terrible television show that condemned gay people and made fun of them, in a religion service. It made me angry to see that, and I didn’t understand. If the church teaches us to love one another, how can they make fun of and tease people who are gay?
I first met Herb Lovett at the TASH conference in San Francisco in 1995. We had a chance to talk, and I realized that he was a neat person. I thought it was great that he was finding positive ways of helping people with disabilities so they wouldn’t have to depend so much on drugs. We saw each other once a year at the conferences, and I also saw him two weeks before he passed away, in New Orleans. He was doing a training session for state employees, but I was invited to it, too. That’s when we got to know each other better, because we went out to dinner and had a real chance to talk. I didn’t know that he was gay. I first learned about that after he passed away. I wish he would have had confidence in me to tell me that, because I wouldn’t have changed my opinion of him.
At the 1998 TASH conference, Herb’s partner, Michael Dowling, accepted an award for Herb. He talked about their lives together and about how hard it had been for Herb to let people know he was gay and had been with Michael for so many years. I think he said Herb finally did that at a training he did several years ago. I went to the memorial we had for Herb on the evening of the day Michael talked. It was very powerful. I especially remember Michael talking about how disappointed Herb was to find out that his parents had voted against a gay rights referendum in Maine. It made me think of my own parents, because they aren’t real supportive of what I am doing in Louisiana. I help people with disabilities learn to speak up for themselves, but they don’t seem to want to see my world. I think they are ashamed of me and my brother Joe, who also has disabilities. When I heard the story about Herb’s parents, I thought they were ashamed of that part of him. Then later, after he died, they realized that their shame had hurt him.
Sometimes I don’t understand why my aunt is so supportive of Joe and me, but my parents aren’t. My aunt is my real mother’s sister. My mother died when I was 17. My aunt went to the Young Leaders’ Conference put on by the President’s Committee on Mental Retardation two years in a row. The first time she was there to see me get an award, and the second time to see me chair the conference and to see Joe get an award. I paid her way the first time, and she came as my guest. She paid her own way the second time. I was afraid to ask my parents to come, because I thought they would say “No, we are too busy.” I wish my parents were as supportive as my aunt is. It hurts when that support and understanding aren’t there from the people who mean so much to you. I know how Herb felt.
Bonnie
I have been an advisor for Self Advocates Becoming Empowered since before it had a name, and have been involved with the movement since 1975. I came out as a lesbian in 1985, after many years as a straight woman. I was 43 years old at the time, and had many friends with disabilities. One of my first decisions, after coming out, had to do with whether I should try to hide my new identity from friends with disabilities. I assumed that they might reject me or at least disapprove, and that would have been very hard to bear. I did tell people with disabilities, and others found out through the grapevine. For the most part, people with disabilities have been accepting. All of those I consider my friends accept me as I am, whether I am with a man, a woman, or no one, though some have had to think about it a great deal because they had been taught to reject and condemn gay people.
Making the decision to be “out” was good for me. It also taught me a great deal. I learned that being in the closet is difficult mentally and emotionally. I learned that if someone was my friend, he or she usually appreciated my confidence in them, and that we became closer if I disclosed things about my life just as they did about theirs. And I found out that because most people with disabilities have many, many interactions with non-heterosexual people (and with people who are racially different from them), they have many opportunities to come to terms with how they feel about differences other than those along the ability spectrum.
I was single for four and a half years, but recently began seeing a man. It was much easier for me to tell my friends with disabilities about this than many of my gay and lesbian friends (and certainly easier than talking about it in the TASH Newsletter!). One of the most difficult things was having to rethink my assumptions about what “group” I belong to. I knew intellectually that all categories are socially constructed, but having lived as a member of two categories (straight and lesbian), I have felt the effects of self-labelling as well as labelling by other people, and I felt that I belonged with the queer (or gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender) community. Luckily for me, the queer community is increasingly including people who identify as bisexual as well as transgendered people.
Coming out helped me to understand discrimination from the inside out. I had already experienced personal discrimination as a mother of a child with a disability, but this was different. I realized quickly that I was equally as eager to have my friends with disabilities accept me as they were for my friendship, and was very glad that they did. I have found that they think deeply about the issue and want to share their thinking with others. James approached me about this article, for example, and after he and I agreed to write it, two of our other friends on the SABE Board also wanted to write. I have also found that I deeply respect the process my friends with disabilities have used to come to their conclusions. As James said, “People are prejudiced against us and we know how that feels. So why would you want to do that to them?”