GP Academy Letter 250823: Want To Be Happy? Gay Is The Way.

Dear Friends,

Our language is crumbling beneath our feet. “Bring” and “take” are misused. As are “that” and “who”. The horrors!

“People that voted for Trump.” No! “People who voted for Trump.” 

That is for things. Who is for people.

“I’ll bring you a gift when I come to visit.” No! “I’ll take you a gift when I come to visit.” You turn to a friend and say, “He’s bringing me a gift.” 

You take to. You bring from.

Then there is the issue of language capture when a segment of society appropriates a word for themselves. One such example is “gay.” A perfectly good word from my youth, now captured by those who do not reproduce.

I present to you an essay I wrote many years ago to protest the grammatical imprisonment of this fine and festive word. Enjoy!

I Have Always Been Gay

It’s true, I admit it. Just about every day of my life has been a gay day. As a young boy I can remember running gaily through fields of spring flowers, gazing at an azure sky and feeling spiritually close to the boys around me. Of course, I felt spiritually close to the girls around me too.

As a young man I noticed that, when in the company of strong and dashing young men, I felt uplifted and empowered. But I felt this way when in the company of strong and attractive young women too. 

Then there was my design sense. I’ve always had a knack—dare I call it a flair?—for interior design. I could transform a friend’s apartment into a place of style and beauty, adding nothing more than items found at yard sales, then arranging them into an inviting living space. I learned that certain other men had this ability too. These men were called “light in the loafers.” But I always had a jaunty step to my own daily walk, so I thought little of this. 

I met a terrific girl, a real knockout, who told me that because she was gay we couldn’t date. I was confused. I told her I felt gay too—at least on most days (heck, we all feel a little down once in a while)—so couldn’t we at least be friends? The next thing I knew we were rolling in the hay. Her father had a hay barn and we had fun laughing and rolling down huge mountains of hay together. 

I remember a friend joking that if you drop your wallet in San Francisco, “you’d better kick it to L.A. before bending over to pick it up.” I thought that was about the dumbest thing I ever heard. Why scuff up a perfectly good leather wallet? 

Some of the guys I met in college were called “queer.” I thought that idea itself was pretty queer. Other than wearing eye shadow, they seemed perfectly normal to me. 

Another friend accused me of loving “fags.” But I assured him that, while I did not smoke cigarettes, I had no problem with other people loving fags. To each his own, right? 

A couple of my friends were professional dancers in a Boston ballet company. They were smart, worldly, fun to be around and I enjoyed spending time with them. The reputation got around that I was a “homo” lover but I thought this was highly exaggerated. Yes, homo sapiens is the dominant species on this planet, but that’s no reason to think we’re any better than the rest of nature’s creations. 

I remember the first Gay Liberation parade that was held in Boston. Thousands of young men carrying purple and rainbow colored banners and dressed in all sorts of colorful and interesting clothing—some wearing almost no clothing at all!— and demanding equal rights from the rest of us. This confused me tremendously. I remember thinking that I was having a particularly gay day myself and felt no need to march for my rights. But again, to each his own. 

One night as a young bandleader I was on a break at a nightclub when a debonair young man approached and offered to buy me a drink. When we shook hands he wouldn’t let go which I found more than a bit socially uncomfortable. Plus he was licking his lips, batting his eyelashes and smiling at me oddly. I remember thinking that he might have Tourette’s, or perhaps Parkinsons? I thanked him and told him I didn’t drink. He looked disappointed and walked away with an odd sort of strut. I remember thinking that my diagnosis had probably been correct. 

In later years I came to realize that an entire segment of society that calls themselves gay had commandeered one of my favorite words and essentially stolen it for themselves. This concerned me. I began to imagine the peril that faced some of my favorite words. 

Which would be the next to go? Perspicuous? Supercilious? Niggardly? After all, writing is an important part of my life and words are like musical notes to a composer. Being without even a single word because someone appropriated it to themselves? 

That would make me very sad. And a sad person cannot be very gay, can they?