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Shock, Guilt, and Privilege: On Being a Masculine Gay Man
“So, Mr. Beach. Is there a special lady out there for ya?” asked one of my community college students. I’d given them time to make progress on a paper when this student spoke up.
I took a second to consider my answer since I’d begun the process of coming out about a year before this. My answer could represent a brave moment in one direction or a perpetuation of the last 15 years of my life, where I had fought against my homosexuality.
“No, but there is a special guy.”
“Wha…?” he asked. The rest of the students stopped typing on their computers lining the edge of the classroom, and most turned around.
A couple beats passed. A few students smiled. A few dropped their jaws.
“But you’re, like, the most masculine guy I know!” he said.
“Yeah, I get that sometimes. We’ve been dating for about 9 months.”
A different student asked if my boyfriend was a teacher also.
“Nope. He’s a pastor.”
The shocked, “What?!!!” came from multiple students, and others audibly gasped.
I smiled ear-to-ear and chuckled to myself. This wasn’t the first time I’d heard something along the line of “I had no idea.” Me passing for straight happens often…