OutLoud

by Sally Sheklow

NO UNDERPANTS

Now that we have your attention, class…

Dykes who came out as long ago as I did have hit “mental-pause.” We’re at that age when we need our photo albums and T-shirt collections from women’s music festivals, pride marches, and k.d. lang concerts to remember when we had which girlfriend and how rebellious we were running around in That Haircut. We may forget why we just walked into this room, but we all remember coming out.

To this day, folks continue to come out, thank God(dess). Young people are discovering their sexual orientation and getting out of the closet quicker and more gracefully than ever before. But even though more high schoolers and college kids are out and proud—and sport wilder hairstyles—they still look to those of us who the National Organization for Women once labeled The Lavender Menace.

Young queers get perspective from us lesbians who lived through Anita Bryant’s campaign to Save Our Children. Gay people have always known it’s up to us to save our children. That’s why we reach out to young people—and I’m not just talking about the miniature softball glove you’re bringing to that dyke baby shower. The new crop of teens and young adults coming to terms with who they are needs cross-generation allies.

It’s not like homophobia died. No matter how out and proud gay kids might be, their families still kick them out, classmates shun them, and teachers don’t understand. “That’s so gay” is still the big insult on campus (that’s so bigoted!). Even in today’s hip and stylin’ scene, blatant, lip-locking lesbos like the cute Russian duo t.A.T.u. has to play coy with the press. That’s why we still need lesbian, gay, bi, trans, intersex, queer, and questioning guest panels in high school and college classrooms.

When I was a ’70s college student, our women’s health class brought in gay people as guest speakers. The week before, we had seen a woman lift her skirt (hairy legs and no underpants!), insert a speculum, and show us her cervix. That was a great opening act, so to speak.

The next week a woman and two men came into our class, sat in front of us impressionable young things, and talked about what it was like to be gay. That was the first lesbian-I-knew-was-a-lesbian I ever saw, unless you count Miss Hathaway, who I always suspected would have been happier skinny-dipping in the cee-ment pond with Ellie Mae.

But a real live flesh-and-blood woman in a for-credit college classroom said, “My name is Harriet and I’m a lesbian.” She was no suicidal pulp fiction character or deviant prison matron in some shady film noir. Harriet was calm, and happy, and, well, gay. That experience was a major turning point in my life. Not that the panel was recruiting. But sitting across from a honest-to-goodness lesbian who was fine with her identity inspired me to explore that aspect of myself. Maybe it would be OK for me to be one.

Now I’m a college instructor—which I think is hysterical because I feel like I still am the Youth of America. But it’s my turn to invite LGBTIQ panelists to tell their stories in the classes I teach. I am amazed at how many of my college students are as ill informed as I was back before I took that fateful cervix and sexuality revealing class. Until I have the LGBTIQ panel come in.

It’s fun to bring in my own friends for that much-needed historical perspective, which many people my age can actually remember. I also like to bring in teens and young adults who, as we knew when we were budding homos and homettes ourselves, have a lot to teach everyone.

Last week my guest panel comprised four bright-eyed high schoolers from the local LGBTIQ Student Alliance, all gelled, pierced, and blasted (their jeans, not their brain cells). They sat there in front of my class and talked about what it’s like to be young and queer today.

The class got to hear firsthand how hard it can be to come out, even—or especially—these days. They grasped what a big deal it is for gay kids to be themselves and speak out in their schools. The LGBTIQ youth panelists also got some of my students to question themselves, to wonder whether they might be “that way,” too. Shock and awe.

My students were cool, though. They showed respect and didn’t freak out, even if sitting in the room with a bunch of queers may have been scarier than handling maggots on Fear Factor. In fact, they were so open-minded that next week my invited guest panelist will be a hairy-legged speculum-wielding woman with no underpants.

Sally Sheklow teaches at Portland State University and performs with WYMPROV!, Oregon's award-winning all-lesbian comedy improv troupe.

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