I recently posted about how a study of teenage schoolboys in Britain had found a positive sea-change in their attitudes towards gay people. A new generation was growing up with an absence of homophobia.
The study didn’t get a great deal of media attention and sometimes it can feel like it is solely bad, if not horrific, news about gay people and straight people which gets attention.
So to continue this theme of just how it might be ‘getting better,’ here’s another story about homophobia actually ending.
Please let me know if you know of any similar stories in the comments and let’s see if I can keep this series up!
The Story
In Homo’s Odyssey, William Lucas Walker tells of how he and his husband went on a traditional summer trek in the family car with the kids cross-country, from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon.
The transmission goes, they pull off road and call AAA for assistance.
This is in the middle of nowhere and “off I-5 in one of those [California] counties where [anti-gay marriage] Prop 8 passed with 98 percent of the vote.”
The mechanic who turns up looks like their worst nightmare: “a physical composite of every high school bully I ever suffered: a tattooed skinhead-type, complete with soul-deadening stare and missing front tooth.”
At first, with grunts and silence, those worst nightmares are confirmed. Then:
He stared at Kelly, then at me, then at our kids, finally speaking in the slow, guttural tones of a wife beater:
“These kids y’all’s?”
We answered that yes, they were. This man, whom I had now cast as the bastard love child of Ned Beatty and his horny hillbilly in the sequel to Deliverance, stared at us for what seemed a heart-thumping forever.
He goes off to get the chains to tow the car. This excites their youngest, James, who starts asking lots of questions and the man turns and says …
“His name’s James? I got a boy named James.”
Next…
This man whose menacing silence and sidelong glances had me rattled took off his work gloves and asked James to hold out his hands.
Walker then tells about how the man lets a very excited little boy help out with the job, the family piles in the tow-truck cab, they share stories of their different families, their marriages …
From there on out, this man I was so sure I had pegged continued to upend my preconceived notions. When he learned we live in Hollywood, he told us that as a teenager he’d been bused in from the suburbs, commuting 20 hours a week to attend the Hollywood High magnet program in theater arts. Theater arts?
“Yep, it was great. For P.E. we took dance. Spent English readin’ Shakespeare. Instead of shop, we built sets for musicals. I loved it.”
It’s a little snapshot, and a great story (not a shock as it’s coming from a writer for Frasier, Will & Grace and Roseanne). Here it is if you want to read the whole thing.
By Paul Canning/Care2/March 23, 2012
Next Week: The End of Homophobia - Part 3 … The Conclusion
The study didn’t get a great deal of media attention and sometimes it can feel like it is solely bad, if not horrific, news about gay people and straight people which gets attention.
So to continue this theme of just how it might be ‘getting better,’ here’s another story about homophobia actually ending.
Please let me know if you know of any similar stories in the comments and let’s see if I can keep this series up!
The Story
In Homo’s Odyssey, William Lucas Walker tells of how he and his husband went on a traditional summer trek in the family car with the kids cross-country, from Los Angeles to Portland, Oregon.
The transmission goes, they pull off road and call AAA for assistance.
This is in the middle of nowhere and “off I-5 in one of those [California] counties where [anti-gay marriage] Prop 8 passed with 98 percent of the vote.”
The mechanic who turns up looks like their worst nightmare: “a physical composite of every high school bully I ever suffered: a tattooed skinhead-type, complete with soul-deadening stare and missing front tooth.”
At first, with grunts and silence, those worst nightmares are confirmed. Then:
He stared at Kelly, then at me, then at our kids, finally speaking in the slow, guttural tones of a wife beater:
“These kids y’all’s?”
We answered that yes, they were. This man, whom I had now cast as the bastard love child of Ned Beatty and his horny hillbilly in the sequel to Deliverance, stared at us for what seemed a heart-thumping forever.
He goes off to get the chains to tow the car. This excites their youngest, James, who starts asking lots of questions and the man turns and says …
“His name’s James? I got a boy named James.”
Next…
This man whose menacing silence and sidelong glances had me rattled took off his work gloves and asked James to hold out his hands.
Walker then tells about how the man lets a very excited little boy help out with the job, the family piles in the tow-truck cab, they share stories of their different families, their marriages …
From there on out, this man I was so sure I had pegged continued to upend my preconceived notions. When he learned we live in Hollywood, he told us that as a teenager he’d been bused in from the suburbs, commuting 20 hours a week to attend the Hollywood High magnet program in theater arts. Theater arts?
“Yep, it was great. For P.E. we took dance. Spent English readin’ Shakespeare. Instead of shop, we built sets for musicals. I loved it.”
It’s a little snapshot, and a great story (not a shock as it’s coming from a writer for Frasier, Will & Grace and Roseanne). Here it is if you want to read the whole thing.
By Paul Canning/Care2/March 23, 2012
Next Week: The End of Homophobia - Part 3 … The Conclusion
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