I often joke that I’m a professional gay. I have this-here LGBT column, I’ve written a book on communicating about LGBT issues and I’m a host on the longest continually running LGBT-themed radio show in the country. I’m totally out, obviously, and presumably just as proud.
Except that I still get kind of embarrassed to tell straight people about it. I’m quick to point out that I’d really like to stretch out a bit and write about other things that are important to me, like the history of free speech or the Beatles. So when I tell people, “I’m a professional gay,” I’m saying it with a smile, a bit of irony and absolutely no gravitas. I’m meaning, “I’m much more than a lesbian, really I am. Please don’t think I’m one of those people who can’t get past it.”
Now I’m ashamed of being ashamed.
As I sat down to write this week’s column, I detoured into flagellating myself for being a hypocrite and a bad, bad lesbian. I gave up and tuned into a “Law and Order: SVU” rerun instead. It was a ghastly episode about pathologically somber, bland-attired, tortured lesbians.
I shouldn’t be surprised. These are some seriously ingrained old tropes. While “SVU” researchers did dig out the apparently real existence of a small lesbian subgroup called “aggressives,” they missed the boat when it came to portraying your more typical lesbian: lesbians who are concerned about our state of affairs in society and whose lives aren’t completely ruled by this feeling.
This was the medicine I needed. I’m not ashamed of being gay at all. Nor am I ashamed of anything I’ve written about it, except the occasional typo. I’m just always aware of this entrenched idea that lesbians have massive chips on our shoulders, and therefore that our sexuality defines us.
I confused the fact that my identity is comprised of lots of parts — being a lesbian, a word wonk, Beatles geek and a lawyer — with thinking I needed to downplay my fabulous lesbian self. I don’t downplay my word-wonkiness, as people don’t have messed-up stereotypes about how word wonks only ever care about Scrabble. I shouldn’t downplay any of it.
Sometimes, though, I admit that I feel ashamed about being a lawyer. Maybe it’s time for “The Good Wife” to start again.
Abby Dees is a civil-rights attorney-turned-author who has been in the LGBT-rights trenches for 25-plus years. She can be reached at www.queerquestionsstraighttalk.com.