[CherylNYC]

I'm always really out at work, as I am everywhere else, but since I'm a freelancer that sometimes means coming out matter-of-factly, and on a daily basis, to anyone new. I haven't worked with some of the men in this group of macho grips and carpenters before, so It's possible that they haven't heard about the notorious biker-dyke scenic artist yet. (That would be me.) I have bumper stickers, etc, but I've found that those who are looking for information about a person are usually the only ones who notice things like that.

We left work a little early in the midst of an impressive blizzard last Thursday, and two of those dudes were stuck in a car that couldn't make it out of the unplowed parking lot, and wouldn't have a prayer of safely making it down the street. I told them I would drive them back to their neighborhood since it wasn't that far out of the way for me. My Lesbaru did just fine in the deep snow and ice. They joked about me 'saving' them, and we spent the rest of the relatively long, slow drive chatting. One of them is from a Honduran family, and the other is from a Haitian family. Both spoke about how much easier and cheaper it is to live in those places, and advised that I should consider retiring to either place where I could live like royalty on an income that would barely feed and house me in NYC. I said that I might be safe in Honduras, but that I couldn't be safe in Haiti. Since I'm white, I'm sure they were getting uncomfortable with their projections of what they were quite certain I was about to say next. I continued on by saying that the legal situation in Haiti, not to mention the cultural one, is very dangerous for gay people like me. ('Whew!', I heard them think to themselves.) I also told them it would be extremely unsafe for me to travel to Jamaica or Russia right now for the same reasons. They were genuinely surprised. And curious. Then the Haitian American told me that his family had a beloved neighbour in Haiti who was never harmed, and was accepted by all. Of course he never explicitly said he was gay, but they all knew, and it was ok. The closeted gay neighbor never publicly had a husband, etc. I took a deep breath and patiently explained that he was relatively safe because he lived a closeted life, and that 'don't ask-don't tell' sometimes gives cover to homophobes. I further explained that the gay neighbor likely has legitimate fears that if he were to be more explicit he would face backlash and rejection from people who now tolerate him, and that we gay people sometimes find out the hard way that we aren't really accepted after all when we do tell.

I was so proud of myself for being patient and calm. I didn't respond angrily towards them for their ignorance, which I used to do regularly. I was really ok being their source for education on a topic they seemed not to have considered before. So I was visible AND educational. No, I didn't give them a ride home because I was trying to prove that lesbians are cool, but now they both probably think that THIS lesbian is pretty cool.