Living through social change
I spent several wonderful days with my friend Paul’s family and friends as he celebrated his 80th birthday. There was plenty of good food, great outdoor exercise, and a brewery tour tossed in for good measure. There were several opportunities for vigorous conversations with various combinations of opinionated, tolerant people who listened well and were respectfully willing to explore differing points of view.
After the dinner party with traditional rich chocolate cake and mounds of ice cream was over and the guests had gone home, Paul and I were discussing how nice it was to have youngsters, teens and adults together having a good time. The conversation drifted to how well the married lesbian couple, his wife’s close friends, fit into the group. Unlike historically stereotyped lesbians, they were indistinguishable from everyone else.
Continuing in the vein of socially accepted patterns of love and commitment, I confessed my ignorance about some terms that were relatively new to me, like “transgender” and “transsexual.” He knew a little more than I, but not much more.
The long plane ride home gave me time to brood over my ignorance. I’ve seen thousands of babies born. Their sex is casually assigned as either male or female. I’ve seen a few babies and children with mixed and uncertain genitalia. I knew that complex genetic and environmental factors determine how we develop physically, physiologically and psychologically. During puberty genetic factors and the chemicals they produce determine secondary sex characteristics. I’ve seen some people with curious body shapes, contours, voices and patterns of hair distribution.
But there’s a lot about today’s love and sex I didn’t understand. My curiosity took over. Here are some things I’ve learned.
Regardless of external, physical characteristics, as we mature we develop a personal sense of gender identity, whether we “feel” more or less male or female. A transgender male feels like a female trapped in a male body, and visa versa.
Sexual orientation is the gender of our enduring emotional, spiritual and physical attraction. Many, perhaps the majority of gender-identified males are attracted sexually solely to females; the same goes for females’ attraction to males. A significant number of gender-identified females are attracted sexually solely to females; the same goes for males’ attraction to males. And regardless of their sexual orientation, an unknowable number of both sexes are capable of being attracted to and forging emotional, spiritual, physical and sexual bonds with both genders.
Bisexual activist Robyn Ochs describes humans today as living in a complex world that cannot accommodate sharp definitions like race, male and female. The spiritual and psychological bases of attraction between humans and their feelings of liking, loving and sexual desire cannot be accounted for. With our rapidly developing understanding of genetics, biology and physiology, little wonder our understanding of love and sex among the sexes is confused.
Our confusion is ultimately traceable to a naïve time, in the middle of 19th Century England, when there were lingering sentiments toward the British after the American Revolution. Straight laced Victorian social mores held sway over personal freedoms and public policy. The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, formed in the US in 1873, focused primarily on demon rum, but also imported England’s mores regarding non-marital sexual behavior. With its focus on temperance and moderation, the WCTU’s social influence is still considerable. It remains steadfastly opposed to marriage for same-sex partners.
Our confusion has brought persecution, suffering and personal angst to millions of Americans. The singularly most spectacular perpetrator was J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972). Director of the FBI from 1924 until he died, Mr. Hoover is credited with professionalizing American law enforcement. He became an icon in the 1930s by attacking violent crimes committed by gangsters. In the 1940s and 50s he led efforts to combat Nazi and Communist espionage.
Gaining power, the FBI turned sinister in the 1960s and 70s by using controversial and illegal investigative methods, including burglaries, wiretaps and planted evidence to harass law-abiding political dissenters and activists. It even kept secret files on uncontroversial political leaders to possibly intimidate them. Fearing backlash, President Nixon reportedly decided against firing Mr. Hoover.
Mr. Hoover had the FBI collect personal information on others to protect his widely known but unacknowledged secret that he was homosexual. His long time partner was the FBI’s second in command. His personal life must have been a nightmare of unremitting torment. By the end of his career he had rained unimaginable anguish and suffering to millions of his fellow citizens and damaged our social fabric.
Communities are strengthened by celebrating, not quashing their inherent diversity. The lesbian couple’s love and connectedness with others strengthens their progressive community. It’s heartwarming to be alive and learn new things in the midst of positive social change.
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