liza and judy and elton, oh my.

i worry that i'm too queeny. though, outwardly, i'm a 5 on the 1-10 queeniness scale, in my head i'm the gay lovechild of elton john and queer as folk's emmett. i could blame it on growing up as the only queer i knew in ponca city, oklahoma, or i could blame it on being called a fag before i even knew what it meant. i've been told that when second graders call each other faggots they're just mimicking what they hear other people say; even so, as an eight year old being prank called by amy, her last words to me before she hung up the phone were "that's ok; you're probably a faggot anyway." i knew enough to know that being a faggot was bad. when my mother asked me what she'd said to me i told her that i couldn't understand her. "so they just could've been speaking russian, for all you know. is that it?" "yes," i told her, even at nine years old knowing that when she heard that her effeminate son's peers were calling him a faggot she'd figure something out. i didn't know what a faggot was, but i had an idea; and i knew that the longer that i kept my being one a secret, the better.

it's been 17 years since that prank call, but i still think about it now and then. is it because of these early tauntings that i still try to avoid catching glimpses of myself in mirrors that are across the room, knowing that the reflection i see--that of a rail-thin, limp-wristed man--will be incongruous with how i envision myself?

in a gay society--baltimore and washington especially--that worships manliness, to the point that those who aren't butch act it and those who don't act it wish they could, where do i fit in? try as i may to eschew this self-hatred, arguing that "i don't act like a girl; i act like a faggot," a voice in the back of my head tells me, like it or not, you are a queen. even those who love you, or claim to for a time, wish that you could be more like an abercrombie model and less of a mincing fairy. i look for signs of this behind the eyes of those who say it doesn't matter to them, and can't keep from wondering if it has something to do with the reason that i'm once again learning how to be single.

this entry stems from the fact that my friend tom is having a college friend visit this weekend. "you guys are not going to get along," he told me. when i asked him why, his answer was, "well, sean has a really hard time dealing with queeny guys." as i launched into my spiel about internalized homophobia and how even the butchest of gay guys still wants cock, i silently started to dread meeting him, not wanting to face this battle again but knowing i'd have to.