Do you know your inner drag queen? You’d better get to know her. It is a spiritual imperative for gay folks, somewhat along the lines of “know yourself.” Mine is a Midwestern suburban housewife named Mitzi who makes Laura Petrie look like a slacker. (Yeah, who could have guessed, I mean, from looking at my picture?) The good thing about knowing this about myself is that it allows me to live it fully but responsibly. I get to be really organized about my household; it lets me excel with those qualities that I might otherwise have taught myself to suppress. And that makes me a fuller person, more rounded and more spiritually grounded. And that is a recipe for spiritual health.
“You can run but you can’t hide” is a common expression in American culture. It is a way of reminding us that we carry our fears inside us, and that we cannot escape them unless we are willing to face them. You might not have a drag queen inside you, but I bet there’s someone in there fighting to get out. The nature of the beast for LGBT people is that because we are ostracized for who we are, we tend to react by suppressing parts of our personalities that we suspect might be less acceptable to the general public. The main problem with that, of course, is that we really cannot know for sure which part of us is the one to suppress. It turns into a sort of spiritual Russian roulette as we suppress piece after piece of our natural selves until all that is left is mush. And that is not the recipe for spiritual health.
Of course, we fear that within us that we think is the most gay because we fear it is going to be that gay thing that separates us from the rest of society. The problem is, instead of embracing who we are, we turn our backs on our gay selves and that sets up the whole metaphorical crisis. You can run and run and run, and you will get pretty worn out, but you still will be gay. It is better, of course, to embrace being gay and to be proud of being gay. That is what gay pride is supposed to be about — learning to value the same-sex way of life as a positive way of life.
Remember that well-rounded people of all kinds incorporate all sorts of gender models in their personalities. This is one reason married straight men often are thought to be “tamed,” because they often have gotten in touch with that inside themselves that has feminine roots. So it is important for all of us, especially for those of us who are gay, to be fully in touch with all of our personality traits. We should embrace every part of who we are, and we should do it with pride, living into ourselves fully, joyfully and for the benefit of society.
Of course, it also is good for the rest of society for us to embrace our gay selves with pride. Society needs gay people. And it needs gay people who are whole and healthy and proud of who they are. It is part of our social role to live fully into our whole selves.
Now, I don’t see drag queens very often and, when I do, I always think to myself, “Whatever possesses them to do that?” But then I see how happy it makes them, and that makes me realize how important it is to be grounded in all parts of ourselves. Maybe this is why Halloween is such an important holiday for LGBT folks — it allows us, once a year, to dress up like that other person, the one on the inside.
The Rev. Richard P. Smiraglia is Convenor of Episcopal Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Outreach (www.ecglo.orgwww.xyz.com). He is on staff at The Church of the Holy Trinity, 1904 Walnut St. He can be reached at [email protected].