Ruth Ellis is fucking amazing.

So the other day in class we watched a documentary about Ruth Ellis, who was literally one of the pioneers and grandmothers of the gay and lesbian community. She died at age 101, but lived a full life until then, serving her LGBT community by providing a save haven from bigotry and prejudice wherever she could. She enjoyed life and never asked for much. She even allowed her partner of 35 years, Babe, to cheat on her and take her love for granted. This, however, never swayed Ruth from doing anything and everything she wanted while she was alive. She achieved a lot in her lifetime, more than most people who are ever lucky to reach that age.

I was so touched while watching the film because, honestly, I have never seen someone so happy to be alive. Especially someone who faced what she deemed to be "triple oppression." Ruth not only had to deal with civil rights, seeing as she how she was black, but she also dealt with the women's rights movement and even gay and lesbian rights when the stonewall riots occurred in the late 60's. Ruth saw it all and endured.

What I felt was also a nice touch to the documentary, was how that fact that Ruth was a lesbian was not the main focus. Yes, it was part of the key concept of how she was an open lesbian at her age and has been for pretty much a century, but it was just one small facet of her life that made up who she was. There was so much more to Ruth than her being a lesbian.

In Riki Wilchin’s, Queer Theory, Gender Theory, she discusses how today it is possible to claim to be gay, but it is still almost socially unacceptable to act gay. For women, the modern world will accept them to assume “men’s” jobs, but to look like a man is still a whole other concept that troubles people, regardless of how many gay people they claim to be best friends with, haha.

Honestly, being a gay man, I even get a bit uncomfortable around drag queens and/or transsexuals. I have no reason to be uncomfortable and I truly don’t understand why I experience anxiety when I am faced in such situations with these people. Could it be that the society I have grown up in taught me to react like this? Was it my country, and maybe even the world, that taught me to abide by the sex “God gave me?” I would be lying if I said that whenever I saw someone dressed in drag, that I didn’t stare. It is hard not to stare. I mean, it is so rare that when an occasion comes up where someone is brave enough to gender express themselves at the identity they associate with, which in this case is not he sex they were born with, I feel like I almost have to look. One part of me is thinking how embarrassed I am for staring as if this person was a novelty act, and another part of me is thinking, “You go girl (or boy)!”

Sorry, I got off on a tangent. Back to the topic at hand: acting gay. I suppose that even today, after such huge events as Stonewall, it is much more socially accepted to act gay, but we must also consider the “straight acting” craze. There is this huge obsession now with “acting straight” and making sure to look like you aren’t gay. Guys put out ads all over the place seeking, “straight acting” companions, as if that were something as easy as saying that your hair is brown.

I guess what I am trying to get at is, when did we have to step back in that closet? It seems like more and more people are open about their homosexuality nowadays, but this whole straight acting nonsense sounds as though we are taking a step backwards. And what does straight acting entail anyway? Can we really socially construct such a term to have concrete and universal meanings, or is it in the eye of the beholder? And honestly, I have met many straight men that act gayer than I do, and regardless of that they live fulfilled heterosexual lives.

Because of this “acting straight” shit, it is almost hard to identify what gender roles are to given to each member in a relationship (not saying that you had to assign such roles). Wilchin’s addresses this when she writes: “straight couples can locate all the feminine symbolic content of their relationship in the woman and the masculine symbolic content in the man. But gay couples do not have this option.” This made me think of how couples that consist of two men are often asked who is the woman and who is the man, right?! I mean, I fall fault to asking these questions to some of my gay friends. Truly, there is no woman at all, just two guys. What is really meant by that question? Does it primarily relate to sexual relations, as in who receives the anal intercourse, or does it also pertain to the social qualities of the relationship and who primarily assumes the feminine or masculine roles? Both of these options probably come into play, but having been in gay relationships, the roles tend to switch a lot. In fact, I would say that those gender roles probably switch a lot in heterosexual couples too. No one is always masculine or feminine regardless of sexual orientation. However, in heterosexual relationships the gender roles have already been decided by society, so it is easy to know what your responsibilities are, because, you know, all relationships should abide by what the status quo says. Note sarcasm.

Wow, I know I know, I am writing a lot. I just kind of want to purge everything that’s on my mind, so I’m sorry if some of this doesn’t make sense. There was one more thing that I found interesting in the Wilchin’s readings. I found it interesting how she wrote about how many lesbians broke off from the big activist groups and decided to try to help on a smaller scale. This reminded me a lot of how Ruth Ellis’s story and how she and Babe used to take in many gay youth that needed some help. Their home acting almost as a boarding house for gay teens who had no where else to go. This was illegal at the time too, because in the 50’s more than two gay people were not allowed to congregate legally under certain state’s laws! Basically Ruth really was taking a chance and standing up for what she believed in. She could have been arrested for allowing all of those gay people in her home, but she never paid mind to it and just attempted to live her life.

In short, what I think I got most out of this week’s readings was how no one is just a man or woman. Sexually, maybe, but emotionally we all have our moments of being masculine and feminine. Society wants to direct people to one side, but that is not always possible. And this “acting” like crap makes no sense to me. Just because someone says that they are “straight” acting doesn’t mean they are straight, so why do so many people place such a high pedestal on such a concept?

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