'Do Gays Unsettle You?'

[SheilaT]

51. Oh, jeez, no.

I was an airline employee for ten years, which means that a lot of the men I worked with were gay. In the beginning (I started the job in 1969) they were mostly in the closet, but came out over time. Then AIDS took too many of them.

I can legitimately say that many of my best friends are gay.

I often say that I am a boring heterosexual female. In certain ways I'm very straight, to the point that an outside observer might assume I'd be opposed to all things gay. Nope. Not only do I have the above referenced friends, but I have a niece who is a lesbian. I've only had the pleasure of meeting her partner (now her wife) once, and even if I didn't already get it about gay rights, my niece would have set me straight (so to speak) on this topic.

Our sexuality is not a decision. I did not wake up one day and decide that men were my preferred sexual partners. It was always that way. In December I spent some time with my niece, and she said that from the time she was a little girl she preferred other girls. Of course! We are born the way we are.

As a bit of an aside, I will say that I don't completely get trans gender people ONLY in the sense that it's hard for me to imagine what that must feel like. I'm in a female body. I like my female body. I have no desire to be male, nor do I think that male bodies, or maleness is inherently superior. I do more or less understand how a woman could be attracted to other women, or men to other men. Thinking that my particular body doesn't match my sense of who I am is very far outside my experience. Which is NOT to say I don't think those feelings aren't valid. It is simply to say that I have to spend a lot more time grappling with what that's all about.