Dharma Rain - Stillpoint

Equality Day

A panel presentation by the Gay Tea group on January 27, 2008

[More about Gay Tea.]

Genko Rainwater

I want to start by saying “thank you.” Thank you to this sangha, who have been so wonderfully welcoming and affirming of all of us. When my partner and I joined several years ago we found a place where we could be completely comfortable and accepted as who we were. When someone came and asked us whether we thought there would be a need for a gay group, we both said no, there was no need.

And yet, once a group started, I saw the value in it. For the past few months I’ve been trying to get clear about what that value is and how to articulate it to you, and that’s what I’ll try to do in my part of this presentation.

What is Equality Day?

Equality Day was organized by the Community of Welcoming Congregations (CWC), of which Dharma Rain Zen Center is a member. Their mission statement is as follows:

“Our ministry dedicates itself to the full equality of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersexed and questioning people seeking spiritual homes. Through arms of education and advocacy, we reach out in support and affirmation acknowledging the image of our loving Creator in every person.”

The original idea for Equality Day came from Basic Rights Oregon, with the idea that if we were going to be facing anti-gay ballot measures in any given year, they would like to get church members involved with the various political campaigns. As it happens, we’re not facing any anti-gay ballot measures this year. Still, about 60 congregations in Oregon and southwest Washington are participating in Equality Day.

Last year, the Oregon state legislature passed two laws of interest to GLBT folks. The Oregon Equality Act remedied the discrimination that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Oregonians experienced at work, in housing and public accommodation (such as hotels and restaurants) and in other important areas. This law went into effect January 1, 2008. The Family Fairness Act created Domestic Partnerships. That law survived a federal court challenge, and went into effect February 4.

When I heard about the idea for Equality Day, I recognized it as a good focal point for doing this panel presentation, something we’ve been talking about in Gay Tea for a while. CWC is largely Christian, and they are calling this Equality Sabbath, language that doesn’t work for me. I recognize the political value of it, however, and of the use of Christian language in countering the religious underpinnings of anti-gay political activity. However, for me, the date is something of a convenience, an excuse for sharing something of our group with the sangha.

History

The group started 2½ years ago. The first year we met now and then, about every 6 weeks or so. We generally had no particular agenda. The idea was just to meet, to see each other, and have tea.

The second year we decided we wanted a group more focused on dharma. We limited the group to Dharma Rain members (at least in theory), developed a plan for the year choosing topics we wanted to discuss, and various members committed to lead discussions on topics of interest to them. We have discussed sexuality, abuse, authenticity, relationships, compassion, identity and the self, accepting people as they are even if they persecute us (advanced practice), and work (right livelihood, etc.)

At the end of last year we decided to open the group to any Buddhist practitioner or those interested in learning about Buddhism. This year the group has been more eclectic, and attendance varies from month to month.

Defining terms

Many people have trouble with the alphabet soup we use to describe ourselves (GLBTQQ, with sometimes an I or other letters in there).

  • Gay theoretically covers everything (like the term “men,”) but usually means gay male.
  • Lesbians complained that the term “gay” makes us invisible, so we became gay-lesbian.
  • Bisexuals didn’t fit either category, so we became the gay/lesbian/bisexual community.
  • Transgender people didn’t fit in any of those, so now we have the common acronym GLBT.
  • Queer covers all of it, being inclusive, though some folks don’t like it because it sounds pejorative. But many of us find that we have reclaimed the term.
  • Questioning acknowledges those on that path of exploring the possibility that they may be queer in some way. It is a process of coming out.

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Coming Out

When I was trying to find the common thread that connected all of us diverse people who participate in Gay Tea, I began to see that what we all share is having come out at some point. It is common for queer folks to share our coming out stories with each other, and we share our histories often in Gay Tea group. It’s always interesting.

There are two aspects of the experience that I’d like to talk about. The first is coming out to one’s self. This is a process of discovery, and it is often traumatic. We find that the constructed self is not valid and that we must re-examine the assumptions we have been living with. It is painful, but also liberating, allowing us to live more in harmony with our true nature. Buddhist terms for this process are transformation, having the bottom fall out of our bucket, deconstructing the self.

What we have to offer is that we’ve experienced this once, we know what that process can look like, we know that we can survive it and that it can result in a more liberated, authentic way to live our lives. What we appreciate in Buddhist teachings is that they give us a way to understand the process of transformation and integration.

In my case, there I was, going along quietly being a wife and mother, doing some community volunteer service work, getting interested in local politics, and bam! suddenly I turned into this weird deviant that no one wanted to have anything to do with. My carefully constructed self evaporated, and there I was trying to figure out what the world would look like now. I had to question all the rules and norms I grew up with. It was a good precursor to the work I’m doing now, letting go of old assumptions about who I am.

The second aspect is coming out to others. This is a process that never ends. I find myself often coming out to people who ask how I got involved in Buddhism, because I talk about my “partner, she.” Coming out to others is complicated by major elements of society who consider us immoral, unnatural, perverse, and sometimes even dangerous. Then, we all have to deal with our families. Even if they are supportive, it is always an issue, and can never just be ignored. When families are not supportive, it can be incredibly painful. What Buddhist teachings give us is a way to help us to see that who we are is not dependent on how others see us, that all such perceptions are impermanent. What we have to offer is a different perspective on our world, our society, based on a certain outsider status.

We challenge society’s assumptions in several ways. A primary way is around gender and gender roles. There is a prevailing assumption that there are two distinct genders, male and female, that everyone is one or the other, and you can always tell. Further, that each needs the other to be complete. There is a notion that each gender has certain characteristics and roles to fill in a well-ordered society.

We challenge these assumptions when we act outside these roles. We do that when we love someone of the “wrong” gender, when a woman acts in a way that is considered too “manly,” when a woman takes a “man’s” job, when a man swishes and dresses like a “woman.” In these and other ways we don’t fall in to the assigned roles, and this is often seen as threatening.

The people participating in the presentation are all active in the Gay Tea group, and spoke about queer issues from different perspectives based on our own experiences.

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Colin Wolf

The issue of identity is central to any discussion about GLBTQ equality. At this time in the human drama, heterosexual identity is held up as the epitome of human expression; alternatives are reviled, labeled inauthentic, or feared for their supposed negative impact on society. While many people explore issues of identity, the non-heterosexual, at one point or another, often deals head-on with what seems to be a simple question: Who am I?

I have asked myself that question multiple times in my life. The first was at the age of five, when a clear answer arose: I am a boy. The problem with this answer was that I was born female, externally. This challenge caused myriad difficulties once the well-meaning people in my life — parents, teachers, other children — realized that I was different from most. The overriding message was that there was something wrong with the way I behaved and looked. I was a girl, after all, so why didn’t I act like one? The external messages started to get louder than the internal voice that pleaded for recognition.

The pain that resulted from persistently applied cultural norms led me to sacrifice my internal sense of self and replace it with a mask of faked femininity. This dissonance became increasingly difficult to manage. The once lively, engaged tomboy became a disillusioned adolescent who used alcohol and drugs to escape an agonizing reality. The pattern of substance abuse continued until my early twenties, when I realized that my life was increasingly out of control. I quit using and became determined to finish my college degree.

As an undergraduate student, I was exposed to real-life gay people for the first time. Having been raised in a relatively conservative town, I never considered that I might be gay because I couldn’t reconcile the harsh cultural judgments with my internal sense of being a good person. It was only by coming into an inclusive and supportive environment that I realized that gay people could be happy.

As a result, I found myself faced with the question again: Who am I? My secret fantasies of sex with girls came rushing out of my subconscious mind. I instantly realized that I had never really been attracted to men, despite years of trying to form a straight relationship. I exuberantly came out as a lesbian a few short months later. For the first time in my life, I felt I was being myself.

The comfort that came from finally accepting a major part of my self enabled me to create a relatively satisfying life. I was in a relationship with the same woman for five years, but something lingered in my subconscious that prevented me from achieving true happiness.

At the age of 33, the voice of the boy returned in the context of a therapeutic relationship. I felt forced to answer the question yet again: Who am I? Could I be transgender? What does that mean? I had gained enough self-confidence over the years that I was able to hold these questions and shine the light inward to find the answers. The boy I had repressed more than two decades earlier stood between me and my future as a healthy, integrated adult.

Despite the marginalization and pathologizing that is directed at transgender and queer people, I knew that I had to reconcile my life with my innate identity. I had already changed my self so that I would fit — albeit, awkwardly — into culturally defined gender boxes, and I was miserable as a result. I walked in the world as a shell of a person. For me, gaining freedom meant transitioning from female to male.

Luckily, many others worked to forge the path of physical transformation. When I realized that I could “pass” as male and be seen as the person I felt myself to be, I launched into the process. Within months, I had a more congruent identity, and I was happier than I had ever been.

Living with a queer identity is challenging in this time and place. My new, more integrated sense of self was met by constant references in the popular culture to the hetero-normative standard. My anger at out-dated cultural norms bled into rage and self-righteousness. Family members and friends were subjected to verbal rants about the religious right and conservative social policy. I began to sense that I was standing in quicksand.

In early 2006, at the age of 36, my fear of being viewed and treated as a deviant or immoral person led me to another emotional crisis. I realized that my fight against the world was killing me. I knew that I was not “normal” and never would be. I felt powerless. Feeling as though I had been forced to my knees, I picked up the tools I had been exposed to in college through an Eastern Philosophies class. Once again, I was faced with the question: Who am I?

I started exploring Zen in more depth, as well as Advaita Vedanta. For several months, I awoke an hour early and practiced devotional chanting and zazen. Three months into this rather rigorous (to me) practice I had an opening experience. In an instant I felt as though all of the pain and suffering of my lifetime melted away. I knew that if I were hit by a bus that afternoon, everything would be okay. I floated on a cloud for weeks afterwards, smiling at everyone and everything that arose in my awareness.

My practice has ebbed and flowed since then; however, my life has changed profoundly. While very little is different in terms of relationships and career, both my perspective and my approach have undergone fundamental shifts. A deep understanding of the impermanence and interconnectedness of all of life emboldens me to walk (somewhat!) fearlessly in the world.

Though my story is unique, I believe it to be an example of some of the powerful truths I have learned through my Buddhist practice. First, do not be overly concerned with the finite world. Delusion abounds. Second, shine the light inward to find Truth. While we may benefit from the words offered by others on the path, the answers we seek only arise from within. Third, suffering is universal. It may seem that queer people suffer more than others; however, everyone experiences tremendous suffering at some point. Fourth, we each have our own karma to deal with, and our suffering is relative. Finally, cutting off the roots of suffering may require a lifetime of practice, but we gain clarity, equanimity and wisdom when we fully express our own nature. We find our true nature each time we sit down on the cushion.

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Ken Barker

We are familiar with a young prince. His parents loved him and cared for him. They wanted the very best for him. They protected him. They kept him from seeing suffering — aging, sickness, hunger. His parents protected him from reality for a long time. Eventually, the young prince saw what the real world was.

A long time ago, I was a young child. My parents loved me and cared for me. They wanted the very best for me. They protected me. Even the society I grew up in protected me from reality.

Slowly I began to see that no one around me would admit the real world. To them all little girls liked little boys and all little boys liked little girls. For me there was a different reality.

Relatives and friends of the family were quick to ask, “You have a girlfriend?” “No.” I kept waiting for the obvious next question, “You have a boyfriend?” That question never came. If these people didn’t know more than the boy-girls reality, then I decided they must be crazy. I figured that if they didn’t understand my reality, there must be a lot of other things they didn’t know.

I began figuring out things for myself. I developed the habit of asking myself, “Why?” “What is the cause, the reason?” — of everything.
There was no one I could talk to about all this. As I grew in strength, I grew apart from my family. There was nothing to share with them. I used to look up at the big sweep of the Milky Way (back when we could see the Milky Way) and ask myself, “Which planet up there do I belong on?” I knew that somehow I got delivered to the wrong world.

I tell you these things — some of my childhood sufferings — not for your sympathy. Not even so you’ll understand some of what I went through. Certainly not to compare my suffering to yours. None of these reasons.

I share these things so that you may ease the childhood of someone else. Almost a hundred percent of gay children grow up in heterosexual households. You have the opportunity to let children know reality. There are little boys growing up. Some of them will grow up to be a man who loves another man. There are little girls growing up. Some of them will grow up to be a woman who loves another woman. That’s reality too. Parents can’t alter the fact by hiding reality from their children. There is nothing that parents do to cause any child’s expression of self or of sexuality. These are broader realities than most are willing to admit.

The parents of the prince who became the Buddha couldn’t protect him. Eventually he found the reality of his life and he faced it.

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Jeff Stookey

Ken’s reaction to growing up gay was, “I’m okay, society is crazy.” My reaction was just the opposite. I came away feeling that society was okay and I was not. Something was wrong with me. This is probably a more common reaction among gay people.

This reaction was reinforced by my Christian up-bringing which taught me (1) that homosexuality is wrong, (2) that humanity is fallen, and (3) that the flesh is bad.

By contrast I find Buddhism wonderfully affirming. There is no condemnation of homosexuality in any Buddhist teachings that I have studied. There is the teaching that abuse or misuse of sex is wrong, but nothing about homosexuality, per se. Perhaps this is one reason that many gay people are drawn to Buddhism.

The other great affirming aspect of Buddhism for me is the teaching that everyone has Buddha nature. Maybe we have to work to uncover it, rid ourselves of obscurations, but basically deep down we are all perfect already. I think of this as the Mr. Rogers model: You’re okay just the way you are. One can see the appeal it has for those who grew up feeling that there is something wrong with them.

So the value of Gay Tea, for me, is that it provides a forum for affirming our experience by listening to each others’ stories. This is much like encountering gay-themed movies and literature that affirm our feelings. I have made a hobby in recent years of studying the growing field of Gay History, which affirms my experience by putting it into a historical perspective.

The 1950s was about the darkest time for homosexuals in recent American history. This was the time when I was growing up and coming to understand my sexual feelings. From the 1800s to around the 1920s there was an innocence about buddy relationships between gentlemen and romantic friendships between ladies that allowed a lot to go on under the radar. But slowly the ideas of Sigmund Freud and other sexologists became popularized throughout all levels of American society, and those friendships became suspect. Eventually they came to be viewed as pathological. With the rise of military psychiatry surrounding World War II, we saw the institutionalization of homophobia, which is still present today with the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
In the 1950s people didn’t speak about homosexuality. It was as if it didn’t exist. It is no surprise that I grew up thinking there was something wrong with me.

This historical perspective helps us understand the context of our experiences. The result of this affirmation is that we feel better about ourselves and can live and act more confidently in the world. But there is a paradox here. This can serve only to strengthen the ego. Eckhart Tolle explains this paradox very clearly. Here is a quote from his book, The Power of Now (1999):

“In the quest for enlightenment, is being gay a help or a hindrance, or does it not make any difference?”

“As you approach adulthood, uncertainty about your sexuality, followed by the realization that you are different from others, may force you to dis-identify from socially conditioned patterns of thought and behavior. This will automatically raise your level of consciousness above that of the unconscious majority whose members unquestionably take on board all inherited patterns. In this respect, being gay can be a help. Being an outsider to some extent, someone who does not fit in with others or is rejected by them, for whatever reason, makes life difficult, but it also places you at an advantage as far as enlightenment is concerned. It takes you out of unconsciousness almost by force. On the other hand, if you then develop a sense of identity based on your gayness, you have escaped one trap only to fall into another.”

Buddhism teaches us to identify, not as gay or straight, not as male or female, not black or white, us or them, but as part of all sentient beings — the broadest possible category we can imagine. And maybe this can help bring us closer to understanding another great Buddhist teaching: the emptiness of the self.

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