A Different Kind of Queer Marriage

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As psychotherapist Bret Johnson explains in In the Family (July 1998), gays and lesbians often go through a second coming out, from lesbian or gay to bisexual—sometimes decades after their first coming out. "Back in the 1960s and 1970s, coming out meant making a break from heterosexuality," he writes. "But in the late 1990s, we are witnessing a break from gayness and lesbianism."

But, he adds, "the new wave of coming out almost looks like going back in. . . . It’s as if we’re seeing a challenge to the old, modernist way of thinking ‘This is who I am, period’ and a movement toward a postmodern version, ‘This is who I am right now.’ "

The queer community is a "huge pack," writes psychotherapist Marny Hall in In the Family (April 1999). "Our survival depends on belonging. We’re so worried about breaking up with the pack that many of us stay closeted about the variety of relationships we have."

Still, being a married bisexual person "does put you in a position of privilege," write Marshall Miller and Dorian Solot in Anything That Moves (No. 20, 1999). "Now what are you going to do about everybody else?" they ask. "How can you practice responsible ownership of that privilege?" They offer four ideas: Stay visible; fight for all relationships and families to be treated equally in your workplace; practice good marital status etiquette—be sensitive to the fact that not everyone else can get married; and see yourself as part of the family diversity movement.

Speaking for those who don’t want the old labels to lose their original meaning, Sky Gilbert, writing in THIS magazine (Jan./Feb. 2000), challenges queer people to hold onto our labels and not become homogenized—not leach the labels of their original, potent and political meaning: "The existence of a sexual continuum does not strip sexuality of its politics," he points out. It’s a good point. Matthew Shepard was murdered because he was a gay man; same-sex couples can’t be married; and it is still dangerous to be out in the military, among other places.

"Until a leather dyke and effeminate queen are delivering the nightly news, labels ought to be ubiquitous," writes Gilbert. "And queers should claim them, embrace them, and revel in the differences they signal."

Perhaps this needs to be balanced with what Bret Johnson notes about the new generation of queer people he works with in therapy: "They don’t want to fit into any boxes—not gay, straight, lesbian, or bisexual ones. They want to be free to come out as who they are, when they are ready to decide that, and then they want to be free to change their minds."

Discuss at the Stonewall conference in Café Utne: cafe.utne.com

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