Coulmn Fodder: The Gay Class

[eggwards]

Personal Note:I've been sitting on this for a week. I can't seem to get it right. It's all disjointed and I can't seem to get to a clear point, but I'm putting it out here hoping for some feedback. There's something here to be said, but I'm not doing it justice right now...

For many school starts this week or the next. Millions of students return to the classroom and college students work towards their degrees, or at least the next great party. Many of those students will stick to the basic courses, following a degree plan and working to get out to and get a job.

Others will find much more. College can be a great time of discovery and awakening, away from the family and exposed to different ways of thinking. Often there are courses, and professors that challenge and enlighten.

At the University of Michigan this fall professor David Haleprin will be gearing up for another semester teaching the provocatively titled class, How To Be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation.

The class explores what aspects of gay society are taught and learned as opposed to being innate. As we know, the gay community is diverse, but there are stereotypes. Camp, drag, muscle culture, style, fashion, and a love of show tunes are all attributed to being gay, but not everyone shares these traits. How do these stereotypes get created, and why do people perpetuate them? Why do gay men seem to flock to Cher, Madonna and Judy Garland?

The class allows students not only to learn about gay culture, but experience gay life through a required class project. There are also screenings of movies and shows that seem to form the backbone of gay reference points, both with gay messages, such as the Boys in The Band, and not, such as Mommie Dearest. The students will examine several gay culture references, looking at gay identity from the social practices and cultural identifications and learning how a separate culture has developed.

Folks, they are going to a gay bar.

One of the questions the class asks is how much of these references, and the images and practices of gay culture are a part of an individual's coming out and eventual identity. The class is also focused on how one not only identifies with gay culture, but also how one disassociates with the stereotype, saying "I'm gay, but I'm not like that". One might see Priscilla, Queen of The Desert and both identify with the character's plights, but never want to become a drag queen.

The question: Is there a textbook?

So here's a class that explores the gay subculture, and what it means to the identity of gays. Of course the class is tragically named. Rather than just calling the class "Gay Studies" or "Gay Culture", Prof. Haleprin wants publicity and interest in his class. Obviously, How To Be Gay is a provocative name, meant to stand out among all of the other classes. Then to add "An Initiation" further provokes those who believe it's a choice. The problem is, it attracts ire form those who choose not to understand.

Haleprin and the university are under fire by a group known as the American Family Association. As you probably already know, any group with the word "family" in it is pretty much not going to be rationally thinking about gay rights. The class has been under fire before by the same group. The group states that they don't want taxpayers money to go to such a class. This, of course is the nice, polite argument from the group.

The true fear is exposed by the Center for Reclaiming America, their website calls the class a "Homosexual Training Course." They and others were pleased when the course was cancelled a few years ago due to public pressure and lobbing of the Michigan Legislature to stop funding to the university for what they said was promoting illegal acts, under Michigan's sodomy laws.

Now, the class has re-appeared and the sodomy law has been overturned and the Christian Right is worried that Professor Haleprin is working hard to change all of the men at the U of M into happy homos. It's a bad time for straight-laced america when it seems that the whole country is going gay around them, and they are ready once again to stand up and scream about it.

But there are students on the U of M campus who are coming out, and a class like Haleprin's could be just the thing they need. There's also a level of understanding and tolerance that could be gained by having other students see what gay men go through to find themselves, and be able to see what shapes our worlds.

Unlike Christianity, recruiting someone to be gay isn't really possible, but there are touchstones, little experiences and references that are shared by so many of us in the community. They deserve to be looked at. The idea of Gay and Lesbian studies is still young, and there's still a lot of psychological and cultural work that needs to be done to bring understanding even to members of the community itself. It's going to take constant pressure from us to get courses like this on the curriculum, and and even harder fight to keep them there when there's constant pressure to kill them, for both funding and religious reasons.

Although the name of the class is apt, it's also inflammatory, and that's precisely why it's there, nothing shocks people more than being open and honest about a fear, no matter how unfounded it is. The class should be eye opening for some, life altering for others, and certainly applauded for exploring a formerly taboo subject.

Comments

[t8r.livejournal.com]

"Haleprin" sounds like a drug.

To me, "Gay Studies" is even more frivolous than "American Studies"; you know, where they try to make an academic discipline of Madonna, Andy Warhol, pet rocks, and pop songs?

/me goes off to read more Don Delillo

[fauxbear.livejournal.com]

Well written once again. As for critique: you seem to be divided between two issues. There is the first issue of the class and its content ("Folks, they are going to a gay bar."; "The question: Is there a textbook?") and there is the second issue of the importance of this class and attacks on its existence by a known antigay group. You could easily break this into two essays where one questions the validity of the course of study and it's plan (Is the professor qualified to conduct the course? Is he an ally or a foe? Is the content frivolous?) and the second an attack on the attackers. Both are very valid topics -- not that you require my validation.

But I also think, with a few more details and throwing your editorial support behind one side versus another, you have a good piece that ties the two topics together. If the class is a good thing only because the AFA wants it shut down, that's a problem. If, however, the course if chock full of useful information for the wide audience of students, then an attack upon it is something that the gay community must fight. However, if the course lacks any more depth than a review of current pop culture with no analysis and doesn't really explore the coming out experience with some measure of reality, perhaps the gay community should side with the AFA to have it canceled. Wouldn't that rock the boat?

Keep up the good work. Your essays are an entertaining read!

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

Seems like a clear enough post; you're thinking the issues through in your own way.

One point that occured to me: having heard from others who've taught similar courses, it's relatively rare that straights are interested in them, and those straights who ARE interested tend to be highly secure about their heterosexuality.

It's difficult to "recruit" people who don't already have their own reasons for showing up to such a class. With a few wonderful exceptions, those reasons are usually more a matter of "self-exploration" than of "wanting to be a good friend to gay people."

Queers tend to "recruit" ourselves much more than we GET "recruited."

The "family" people either don't understand this or don't want to.

Either they think you really CAN "make" someone queer (some of them DO seem to believe this, which may explain why they think you can "make" someone straight, too).

Or they realize you CAN'T make someone gay, and that a class like this is most likely to appeal to people who are already queer ... in which case their objection is not really about "recruitment," but about the possibility that we might wind up being our genuine selves with less prejudice and isolation. I think some of them DO fear this: they fear that we might be happy.

The other thing I want to say, of course, is that one place the gay community is vulnerable to the Right is in thinking concretely about bisexuality.

I've never felt that being bi was a "choice" I made, but it certainly can LOOK that way to outsiders. And how I *act* on my bisexuality will ALWAYS be a choice ... in much the same way that gay men and lesbians face daily choices about whether and how to act on being gay.

The Right is canny: they notice that some bisexuals can be pressured into "going straight" (just as some gay men and lesbians can be pressured into *passing* for straight in a different way), and they use this as a weapon against all queers.

As long as the gay and lesbian community doesn't have anything better to offer than an insistence that sexuality and sexual identity are NEVER a choice in ANY sense, the Right will be able to keep exploiting that loophole.

I haven't tracked Halperin's work in much detail, so I don't know whether he addresses this at all. Most people outside bi communities don't seem to think about it much. The exploitation of bisexuals against gay men and lesbians is most often described as a moral failing of individual bisexuals, rather than a common problem we can all work on. Those of us who don't like being used as a political football by either "side," particularly the Right, are still largely invisible, despite our best efforts.

[redcub.livejournal.com]

I can understand your fears and worries concerning this class, but I think you did a great job writing about it.

Are you only spectating, or do you plan to enroll and check it out?

[profundojoe.livejournal.com]

Mike, I'll check it out for you. I might even take it, just to report back. Might be good for the class to have a bear's point of view.

[aadroma.livejournal.com]

Yes, because we ALL know that all anyone has to do to become a homosexual is raise up a magic pen and yell, "HOMO POWER~! TRANSFORM!!!!!!" If it were really so easy to go back and forth ... :: glare ::

I don't think it's badly written at all, but there is the sudden jump from how incredulous a class like this existing is, to suddenly it being the victim of the Christians. A smoother segue or lessening the "can you BELIEVE this?!?!" tone of the former part of the essay might have worked better, but it is by NO MEANS a poorly-written essay.

[fuxupyo.livejournal.com]

Warning: Inexcusable ignorance contained herein.

I have to agree with John's comments that there seems to be enough for at least two pieces here.

However, I think your brain is trying to link them together. Nothing wrong with that; but it may need to be fleshed out a bit and made a little more cohesive.

If it's intended as an essay, the thesis needs to be clearer and has to affect the "angle" of each of your points. If it's intended to be an informational article, the editorial slant needs to be eliminated.

I strongly suspect that it's supposed to be neither of these things; but rather an op-ed or editorial. Unfortunately I know nothing about the structure or focus of these sorts of pieces except from reading them. So take my suggestions with a grain of salt.

From my reading of the article, you make several points (beyond simply stating facts) or conclusions. You also inspire the reader to ponder several questions. Among them:

1. Is the presentation of the subject of this class appropriate?
2. Haleprin has titled his class in such a way as to be deliberately provocative
3. Is a provocative title of a Gay studies class a "good thing" for gays? Is it conducive to promoting the gay agenda?
4. Radical conservatives are engaging in typical arrogant, irrational, destructive behavior by actively working against the inclusion of the class
5. Gay studies needs to be addressed more frequently and openly in academic environments

Thoughts on these conclusions and questions, going in order:

1. Is the presentation of the subject of this class appropriate?
This is probably an entire article all by itself. To even tender it as a question to the reader, you really need to present a lot more facts about the class's content. The whole thing about the class going to a gay bar is interesting, but unless you want this question to be the focus of the piece, I would leave this particular factoid out completely. The way you present it makes it sort of a red herring. Your assertion that it is some sort of "initiation" only exacerbates the problem, especially since you present no evidence that taking the class to a gay bar is anything more than a normal field trip. These sorts of field trips are extremely common in college courses, from a geology class going out to collect mineral samples to an ornithology class tromping into the forest to observe birds. I am unsure whether this is as common more "social studies" oriented classes; do women's studies majors take field trips to Ani Difranco concerts? I don't know. If not, the "studying gays like Jane Goodall studies monkeys" angle might be appropriate, but would require a lot more information and wouldn't work with the rest of the material you have written.

2. Haleprin has titled his class in such a way as to be deliberately provocative
This point is very well presented, in my opinion. There's exactly enough factual information provided and the conclusion is logical. However, if it doesn't serve to support your thesis, it has to go.

3. Is a provocative title of a Gay studies class a "good thing" for gays? Is it conducive to promoting the gay agenda?
Again, this could serve as the subject for an entire paper in itself. However, if it serves to support your thesis, I think a single concise paragraph on the subject would be very useful. I don't think you would be stepping on too many toes by explicitly asserting that most homosexuals are seeking the legitimization of their lifestyle. I think presenting the most salient points of a discussion on the usefulness of shock value versus the legitimacy problems it presents wouldn't be wasted verbiage here. However, if you choose to forgo an explicit acknowledgment of this question, I think you also need to leave out Point 2, unless you find (and use) another way to incorporate Point 2 into your theme (and there are many).

(continued in next post)

I forgot to include a subject (pt 2)

[fuxupyo.livejournal.com]

4. Radical conservatives are engaging in typical arrogant, irrational, destructive behaviour by actively working against the inclusion of the class
This point is almost gratuitous. It's akin to pointing out that the KKK has spoken out against affirmative action. I don't have any experience with the Center for Reclaiming America, but I do have lots of experience with the AFA. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the AFA is considered radical even by most conservatives. My father, a Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (almost as conservative as they come) pastor, gets the AFA Journal (published monthly) and pays no heed to their articles since most of them are about things like how everyone should be boycotting Disney because it's part of the Liberal Conspiracy to turn America into the next Gomorrah, and how anyone who buys Ben 'n Jerry's ice cream is helping erode the moral soil of Our Great Nation.

You actually come tantalizingly close to tying the information presented by the paragraphs addressing Point 4 in with a larger theme with the sentence, "The true fear is exposed by the Center for Reclaiming America, their website calls the class a 'Homosexual Training Course.'" I think that instead of focusing on the radical right's reaction specifically (that's always going to be anti-gay) you might do better to bring up the way that the radical right can influence the right-of-center crowd. This could be presented as a point regarding Question 3; that is, if the class is presented in an inflammatory way, the right-of-center are going to be far more willing to accept the radical right's interpretation. If, however, the class were named something akin to "Homosexual Studies," it might attract a few less "Look how gay I am!" types but would also be more palatable to moderate conservatives.

5. Gay studies needs to be addressed more frequently and openly in academic environments
This might seem like an odd thing to list as a possible point of contention, but the way it's presented in this paper makes it sound like less of a postulate and more of a conclusion. Indeed, it is a debatable point. The last number I heard for the gay/straight ratio was like 1:20 for men, 1:33 for women. Since even women's studies (in a sociological context) is still in its relative infancy and women make up roughly 52% of the world's population, perhaps we're expecting too much from the slow-to-catch-on academic community. It's a pretty lame argument but I'm sure that an intelligent person with a more homophobic bias would be able to come up with a much better one.

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So, to reiterate, I think all you're really missing is a touch of focus and cohesion. Oh wait, you already knew that. Um, given the direction of the work you've already done, I would focus on the legitimacy aspect. Gently swaying those moderate conservatives is, in my opinion, the absolute best thing that the gay community can do for itself right now. While the idea may be repugnant to many of us "enlightened" folk, the fact remains that they are in the majority, we are in the minority, and until we can find a way to appeal to their sense of logic or pragmatism or whatever it is that keeps us from being the misogynist homophobes that they are, the gap shall remain forever unbridged.

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Again, when reading these comments please keep in mind that the last writing class I took was Honors English in tenth grade, so even though I try to look authoritative on the subject I'm mostly just talking out of my pink puckering asshole experience as a reader, not a wordsmith. I did find the piece to be quite edifying and I hope you manage to polish it to your satisfaction.

Cheers