Debating the Meaning of 'Coming Out'

One feels almost inclined to applaud the brazen insensitivity of last Wednesday's Conservative "Coming Out" Dinner. Here, under the guise of good-natured mockery, we are presented with an appropriation of the discourse of "coming out" that utterly disregards the real experiences of being a despised minority.

Conservatives would have us believe that this is not a groundless appropriation, that they are in fact a persecuted and marginalized presence on this campus and elsewhere. While it seems monstrously obvious to note that the conservative opinion goes far from unrepresented (one need only look to the Harvard Magazine's execrable cover story on the royal Harvey C. Mansfield '53, Kenan professor of government), more egregious is the theft of minority-rights discourse.

Of course, party organizers will contend that this is merely a gentle self-mockery in which conservatives' own acknowledged sense of risk is exposed as paranoia. Clearly conservatives want to have it both ways (an aspiration with which many of us can identify). They would simultaneously suggest that the rhetoric of "coming out" is appropriate because being conservative puts one at risk, even as they dismiss this risk as purely fanciful (and therefore a source of humor).

Implicit in this "humor" is the assertion that the endangerment suffered by minorities in general, and queers in particular, is also illusory. They suffer discrimination; we only cry it. We are at pains to note that no conservative has lost his job, been disowned by his family, expelled from his community of faith, barred from marriage or adoption, had every aspect of his sexual life criminalized--or, certainly, been brutally beaten to death--based solely on his political sympathies.

To suggest that the imagined plight of conservatives is in any way comparable to the oppressively real struggles of queer communities is an act, at best, of shameful disingenuousness. At worst, it is a frank assault. Implicit in this false parallel is the fantasy of a queer conspiracy putting the increasingly fragile American family, character and more under siege. For example, a recent staff editorial in The Salient accused the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters' Alliance of domesticating the Undergraduate Council into a queer lapdog and making Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 into a mere bedfellow, in a manner of speaking. It came as a terrible shock to all of us in the queer community--could someone please direct us to the glorious Harvard in which queer radicals and militant feminists have their way?

Certainly at such a Harvard, it would be possible to engage in a campus-wide discussion about AIDS, particularly last Wednesday, World AIDS Day. Instead, at this Harvard, we had the monumentally vicious scheduling of the conservative dinner, providing an opportunity to reminisce about the bad old days of the Reagan administration.

Of course, you will recall, Ronald Reagan's approach to AIDS education and AIDS policy was tantamount to ignoring genocide; more than 20,000 people had died by the time Reagan uttered the word AIDS in a public address. His refusal to acknowledge the epidemic in its earliest stages contributed to its becoming the major American public health catastrophe of this and perhaps any other century. Despite repeated entreaties from the Centers for Disease Control, Reagan adamantly refused to discuss the epidemic or permit any of his public health officials to do so. Implicit here was the perception that these people--gay men, intravenous drug users and immigrants (though of course the victims were never limited to these groups)--were acceptable victims. Their deaths, for Reagan, constituted a national cleansing.

But perhaps we're being unfair. After all, it's quite desirable to open a dialogue in which we can discuss our differences as free citizens on equal footing. The Harvard experience, we are told time and again, is all about being curious about other people's lives or lifestyles.

Of course, that equal footing is itself a fiction. One cannot draw an equivalence between the condemnation of queer lives (for whatever reason) and disagreements on ideological grounds. It is not persecution to have someone challenge your views. It is persecution when your very right to exist is constantly being called into question. We cannot begin any equitable dialogue until those on the other side of the table acknowledge the insidious reality of homophobia and accept that there are no valid grounds, religious, personal or "moral," to question the validity of our existence. To suggest otherwise is to come out as a bigot.

Michael K. T. Tan '01 is co-chair of the Bisexual, Gay, Lesbian, Transgender and Supporters' Alliance and Nicole Carbellano '02 is an officer in the Queer Resistance Front.