Mike Glatze, Benjie Nycum & Scott MacPhee, Road Crew of Young Gay America
Young Gay America is a long-term research project / road trip adventure dedicated to improving the lives of LGBTQ youth. Young Gay America's Fifth Trip took Mike, Benjie, and Scott to the Heartland of America...
Driving across Texas, we think about the legendary reputation of this state. Nothing can parallel our experience here. Texas redeemed many things for us. Witnessing the crowds of men and women dressed in cowboy hats dancing with same sex partners in Dallas' Lone Star Saloon dispelled many prejudices and preconceived notions about the modern-day "cowboy". In our minds, before Texas, the cowboy hat was a quintessential symbol of insecure hetero male posing - worn by bullies in high school who beat up gay kids and bark orders at girlfriends, or by George W. Bush and his oil industrialist ilk. But suddenly we saw cowboy hats become a fun accessory again, worn by happy fags and dykes, displayed proudly in homage to the legendary ideals of brotherhood and sisterhood that swelter in the Texas air.
They say that when you come out of the closet (if you're a guy), you feel more masculine than ever before. If we believe masculinity is the ugly scowl on Donald Rumsfeld's face as he barks his way toward war at the expense of a million welfare mothers and breathable air, or George Bush's pathetic swagger across the White House lawn, then this would seem impossible.
But masculinity is so much more than that, and the gay men and women at the Lone Star showed us that masculinity doesn't have to be a fragile ground on which only big-mouthed straight men stand with clenched fists. Dancing arm in arm, those cowboy hat-wearing queers were far more confident about their sexuality and their bodies than our pathetic Napolean of a president could ever hope to be. There's few people alive less masculine than George W Bush. We'd pity the man if he wasn't so dangerous. Bush is your classic overcompensating heterosexual male, desperate to prove a manliness he's not even sure he has, and willing to go to any extremes to do so.
Now that we've been to Texas and redeemed our admittedly prejudiced view of cowboy accoutrements, we can say with proud conviction that big boy Bush doesn't deserve to wear a cowboy hat. He and all the other bullies who terrorize the rest of the world with threats and accusations because they're too wussy to reach out, just as easily as they turn a blind eye to homeland terrorists who threaten the lives of millions of gay kids are a disgrace to the legendary ideals that Texas, that this country, that humankind were founded upon. They're a disgrace to masculinity. They're the reason masculinity has become so synonymous with abuse and stupidity.
But at its heart, masculinity is confidence and love. It's something anyone can "wear", and it's something the gay men AND women in Texas displayed with such pride that we were nearly moved to tears. If they can reclaim this classic symbol of rugged manhood, let it be a reminder to us all to take back the voices, cowboy hats, morals, histories, ideals, dreams, Gods, heavens, and loves that are rightfully ours, even if others try to keep them from us.
Here's hoping the real cowboys win in the end.
posted by David Mariner -
12:23 PM -
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