Coming out. Again.

I finally came out last week.
To my new hairstylist.
She's cut my hair four or five times now and I've talked about my grandkids, my sons, the neighborhood, movies, etc... but hadn't yet had occasion to mention "my partner."

When I did finally say that phrase along with BB's name, the conversation just kept on rolling. It was nothing. But it was something. I just know there was that barely perceptible nanosecond when the stylist's intellection of me changed. Not for better or worse necessarily, not in a judgemental way, but changed none-the-less. And no matter how many people I come out to, this is always a nanosecond I dread.

A gay person doesn't come out once, it's a continual thing. Especially if you're a gay person who has recently moved to a new community, like me. Moving means coming out to new people again and again and again.

For me there were also recently a lot of doctor's forms, many of which asked my marital status. Am I single, married, or divorced?  I could just check single, or divorced, but neither of those seem right. I've taken to just writing in a new category, Partnered, and circling it.


I don't know why I dread these moments of coming out. I'm not ashamed. Or afraid. It's just that one moment, that "Oh."

I just know I'm being re-categorized during that moment. I know I've just become an "other" instead of "one of us," even to those heterosexuals who think of themselves as gay friendly.

BB says it's getting easier and easier for her to come out. She thinks this is because people's attitudes are changing, and I agree. I'm glad to be living here and now. I'm not complaining. I'm just observing. And who knows, I could be wrong. Maybe that whole re-categorizing thing is only in my head - but I doubt it.

Betty Jean Lifton

I was sorry to hear that Betty Jean Lifton, the quintessential author of books about the psychology of adoption, passed away on November 19. A writer, psychologist, speaker, and advocate for adoption reform, her books were profoundly illuminating to me, and countless others like me.

She believed that all members of the adoption triangle - adoptees, birth parents, and adoptive parents - are traumatized by their losses to some degree.


An adoptee herself, BJ Lifton was one of the first voices to speak out out about the complications and complexities of adoption, and the closed adoption system, which she called, "a socially engineered arrangement that was designed to cut us off psychologically as well as legally from our genetic and cultural heritage."





Although I am not a product of the closed adoption system, I know what it's like to be cut off from genetic and cultural heritage. Reading Journey of the Adopted Self helped me understand myself in fundamentally important ways, and led me to form many of the views I have today about the adoption industry and the adoptee rights movement.

I'd say I'm going to miss Betty Jean Lifton, but she'll always be here in the books on my shelf - heavily highlighted and underlined. Her work was a wonderful gift to those of us who make the quest for wholeness.

For her NY Times obit click HERE

Get over it!

Since I began this blog I have pretty much avoided writing about controversial issues. I have expressed my views about some things, like sperm donation, clocks, and pomegranates, but I’ve avoided the topics that could really get me going. I try and not even think about certain topics because they tend to get me so worked up (and who needs that?) but...

There are a few things that have come to my attention lately that I just have to say something about. The first concerns a school in Mississippi that canceled its prom rather than let a lesbian student, Constance McMillen, and her girlfriend attend together.

Another is a recently proposed law in Florida that would disqualify movie productions from tax incentives if their movies have gay or lesbian characters. Seriously.

There’s been a lot of debate in recent years about gay rights and gay marriage, but how much progress can be made in a world where homosexuality is still so feared? We who live in more progressive communities tend to forget how backward so much of the planet is.

A lot of work still needs to be done on the basic issue of accepting gays and lesbians as simply a part of the natural order of things. And here’s what I have to say about that:

Dear world:
Some people are gay.
Get over it.

People for sale

I recently read an article about an increase in people willing to sell their sperm or eggs. This increase was attributed to the recession. Sperm sellers can get up to $100 and eggs go for as much as $5,000.
The article noted that sellers must undergo extensive medical and psychological screening, but what it didn't say, and what I find bothersome, is that fact that nobody seems to think there's anything wrong with this. This practice, which has slipped into modern society without much, if any, ethical debate, is essentially the selling of human life.

I don't think human eggs and sperm should be used in fertility treatments unless they've been donated for free. It's just not the kind of enterprise from which a profit should be made. And what really bugs me about this is that it's creating a crop of people who will one day feel cheated of their biological heritage.

I strongly believe that everyone born as a result of these procedures deserves to know the names of their donors, see their photographs, and be told their social and medical histories. Adoptees have fought long and hard for these rights which are finally being recognized and respected. I don't think we should create another segment of society denied the dignity of this basic human knowledge.