“Faggot!” The voice echoed in the church-like rafters of a mostly-deserted Clackamas Town Center in Portland Oregon. It was a Tuesday morning in the summer of 1985, and having recently graduated from high school, I was hurrying through the mall. I stopped and made the rookie mistake of looking up to see the commotion. “Yeah, YOU f—–t! Nice pants!” A few chuckles emanated from a small group of high school punks—maybe five or six of them—all gathered in the open atrium area, apparently addressing me.
I looked down at my clothes, which is why I remember in intimate detail what I was wearing that day. It was pretty much what any preppie would be wearing back then: white button-down Oxford shirt untucked, my brother’s faded denim jacket, a pair of plaid flannel pants, and matching Espadrilles. My hair was shaved on the sides, and I think I might still have had a rattail at the time. I wasn’t really trying to stand out. Not that it should matter. But I made the mistake of hearing them. Of letting them call me out. I might have said something under my breath. But I made eye contact for a split-second too long, and it was that tiny transgression which unleashed the tsunami.
They started coming toward me—all of them—so I turned and hurried on my way. I could still hear them behind me, trying to catch up to me. They weren’t laughing now, but sounded furious, all of them jumping in, like a group of hungry seagulls on a beach gathered around a crab they had surrounded. I heard that word again and again, even shouted now, as well as some other homophobic slurs. I didn’t dare look back, but I could hear them gaining on me, so I said to myself, “Get the f— out of here, Dan!”
I began to run flat out, as fast as I could through the mall, with them in hot pursuit. I remember that my sandals kept slipping on the smooth terrazzo floor, and thinking, “If I go down right now, I’m history.” To this day, I can’t figure out why no one was around. I headed for Meier & Frank, a large department store in Oregon at the time, also one of the exits from the mall. I figured that someone would be at the perfume counter out front, handing out samples like always, or at some cash register ringing up a sale. Of course, no luck.
I couldn’t hear them anymore, so I guess they must have stopped at the entrance to the store. Just to be safe, I hid behind the counter in the shoe department. Again, no one was around. As I write this account today, almost forty years later, my blood pressure feels almost as it did then. Feels like a bad dream, right? Like a scene from some 80s movie? It wasn’t. It has been my whole life.
I’m not lying. This really happened. I’m not copying the story of Matthew Shepard, a college student at the University of Wyoming in 1998 who was kidnapped by three men in their 20s, pistol-whipped and tortured, and then tied to a split-rail fence where they left him to die, even though that happened more than 10 years later. Evidence suggests that his sexual orientation was part of their motive. But whenever I hear the word “f—–t” today, I am aware how easily Matthew Shephard could have been me.
Just to be clear, I understand what that words means. It means the same thing as all those other slurs. It means that you are somehow different, and therefore, you have IT coming to you, however they decide to define IT. Moreover, my entire life, people have assumed that I’m gay, and so I have suffered the kind of abuse, exclusion, and outright discrimination that gay people routinely experience. I’m an accidental imposter because I’m also different. What have I experienced? Let me whittle down the list to just a few.
How about in high school, when the guy with the locker next to mine used to make out with his girlfriend up against MY locker between classes, while I looked on and waited to get my stuff. The one time I politely asked if they could move so I could open my locker, his Neanderthal friend roared, “What are you looking at, f—–t! I guess you want some of this too?!” So every few days between classes, I was treated to the spectacle while I silently stood by, chagrined, and waited for him to finish. My last name starts with the letters “Ra” and his was the only name that started with “Q” (how ironic is that?) so I was treated to these episodes every so often for the rest of my high school career.
Or how about just after college, when I met my best friend for a drink at a bar in Hollywood. He was already seated at the counter having a beer when I joined him. We were having a quiet conversation—not drunk or disorderly in any way—as the bartender eyed us suspiciously. When my friend asked him for another beer, he leaned over and whispered under-his-breath, “You two had better leave.” We were both stunned. What had we done? So my friend asked for some clarification, when he roared “Leave! Now!” We were shaking our heads as we stood outside on the sidewalk, trying to figure it out. Maybe even worse, I remember wondering what I had possibly done wrong that would cause someone to act like that towards me. It was the same kind of maddening, unmerited shame. All over again.
Several years later, I was in the record industry at Virgin Records, where everything became much more subtle. When I got engaged to my wife, an executive-friend jokingly volunteered, “We all just assumed that you were gay.” I’m not sure who he meant by “we,” but I’m guessing it was all the guys who would sit around in one another’s offices and talk about their sexual exploits with women. (Honestly, I count my lucky stars that I was mostly excluded from that “club.”) They were nice enough to me though. There was also a large gay and lesbian community in the office—some of whom were my friends—and I suppose they all just assumed that I was straight, although I never asked any of them. It seemed like it just didn’t matter, which was refreshing. Wow! A community where I could be different, and not be made to feel ashamed. That was attractive.
For the last thirty or so years—ever since my record industry days—I have been part of a book club. There has always been a welcome diversity of gender and ethnicity in this group, and so it was refreshing recently to welcome someone new, someone who had transitioned. I’ve never actually met someone who is trans, and so the first thing that I did that day was to go over and sit by her, to find out who she was and how she heard about us. As an aside, I’ve never asked what pronouns she prefers, because frankly, I always prefer to lead with second-person pronouns, as in “How are you? How do you like this book? How long have you and your partner been together?” I would rather speak to someone than speak about them to someone else.
The long and short of it is, I want to get to know someone who ISN’T just like me. No kidding. That includes my friend in the “book club.” Listen, I’m not trans. To be honest, I don’t fully understand it. (Not that it matters whether I do.) But the thing is, I WANT to understand. I want to hear this person’s story. I want to know what they think about life and all sorts of other things. Why? Because I’m curious about people who are different. I want to see life through their perspective and learn something. For example, I want to know the kind of courage it takes to choose a restroom and walk into it, even though you know that in one of them you might be scorned, and in the other you might be beaten to death by a group of terrified homophobes—like Matthew Shepard was.
I would like to have that kind of courage in my own life, not because I’m not gay and closeted—because I’m not—but because I have obsessive-compulsive disorder. I would like to be able to live without fear and shame, the kind of emotions that have kept me from talking about being chased through a mall by a group of punks forty years ago.
What kind of world would it be like if differences were universally celebrated, instead of being penalized? If children were taught that there is strength in diversity and actually a qualitative and quantitative advantage in individuality? It would mean that no problem would be too big for us, because the variety of perspectives on a problem could lead us to think differently about the solution.
For example, I can’t imagine that a true capitalist would not want their organization to contain a variety of perspectives on a problem or a product in order to truly corner the market. Am I wrong? Wouldn’t that be a good thing? But instead of talking about it—instead of getting it in the open and letting it breathe—now local governments in the United States want to shut down DEI programs and shut down educators from talking about it. Am I being too simplistic here? Maybe I’m not showing the other side of the issue? Now you know how I have felt my entire life.
I entitled this essay, “The Word that Every Young Boy Learned to Fear,” and recently, I talked about this article with my son. He had never heard of the word “f—-t” which was surprising to me. Perhaps it has gone the way of Voldemort—the name which shall not be named. So I asked him what insulting word people in his school use to label someone who is different. He said he wouldn’t know. And for that, I am both overjoyed and just a little bit sad—happy that he hasn’t had to experience this kind of bullying; sad because maybe he has just kept his head down, stayed out of sight, and smothered what is otherwise wonderful and unique in himself. And that would be a shame.
So what name is used today? Only time and context will tell. But make no mistake: those who are different will continue to be targeted in this way by those who are afraid, by those who want to make them feel like bullying is something they deserve.
