Hetero Privilege

Thanks to my youngest, I've had a chance to examine my heterosexual privilege lately. My six and a half year old son is given to wearing dresses, and I've had to face my own fears about losing heterosexual privilege when he got past the kinda-weird-but-kinda-cute stage and into the "what the hell is that boy doing in a dress" stage.

That is, he's old enough now that I know--or at least I really think--that he's going to draw a lot of hostility, and maybe even hostile remarks, if he goes outside in a dress. My wife has had conversations with him about places where it's going to be safe to wear a dress--our play dates with other hippie/liberal homeschoolers, the organic grocery store, friends' houses--and places where it might not be so safe: Home Depot, the huge chain grocery store, IHOP.

In fact, a lot of this came up because I was able to realize that I was very much afraid of losing my straight privilege. It came about like this: he was in a stage where he really liked wearing dresses--all his sisters' old dress-up clothes fit him now, so there are ball gowns and wedding dresses, etc.--and I really wanted to go out and get a cheap dinner at a neighborhood restaurant.

Now, I live in a neighborhood that's still predominantly Hispanic, and I know that a lot of the people have, shall we say, fairly traditional views about gender roles. Views which do not include little boys with long hair wearing ball gowns to the taqueria. So while we were in the restaurant, not one but two of the waitresses looked at me, looked pointedly at my son, and asked, "Nino?" When I answered "Si," I got that gee-that's-really-not-OK-but-I'll-laugh-and-pretend-it's-cute response. It wasn't outright hostility, and it wasn't directly at him, but I can see where it's heading, and it's not good.

And then there was the time we were going to Home Depot and he was wearing the bridal dress. On one hand, I really didn’t want to be the gender-Nazi and tell him he had to change. On the other, I really didn't relish the idea of asking the guy in the plumbing section for help and enduring his pointed looks and/or questions about my little boy in a dress.

And the crazy/cool thing about it is that I realized that I wasn't really worried about him. He's a really resilient kid, and he doesn't notice a whole lot that's not right in front of his face. The one I was worried about was me. I was the one who was going to get the "what the fuck kind of weirdo faggot-raising parent are you?" looks from the guy in the plumbing section.

But that was my deal, not my son's. I was prepared to grit my teeth and take him to the hardware store in a dress, but then for some reason that I can't remember, he ended up changing into a pair of pants and a T-shirt. But I came face to face with my straight privilege in a way I hadn't before--I have the privilege of knowing that anywhere I go, I am safe from harassment based on my gender/clothing choices. Anywhere I go, I can count on not being taunted, stared at, or even assaulted because of the gender/clothing decisions I made that day. I have the privilege of not even considering the gender politics of my clothing when I get dressed. I never have to think "is it safe to wear this outfit?" "Might I get beaten up if I wear lipstick?" Those thoughts just don't cross my mind.

Like when I was walking to our neighborhood pool one afternoon with the kids, and there was a teenage (hetero) couple holding hands in front of us on the sidewalk. It suddenly occurred to me that if my partner were male instead of female, I might think very carefully about both of us taking the kids to the pool on a hot afternoon. And I sure as hell wouldn't hold hands or kiss my partner at the crowded public pool. I can just imagine the waves of hostility, and I would be seriously worried about safety on the walk back to our house.

And then, there's the book. Although my youngest seems to have lost interest in cross-dressing at the moment, it was really looking for a while like this wasn't just a "little boys like to wear their sister's dresses" stage, but could quite possibly be a life choice. My wife and I were looking around for resources to help us support him in whatever gender/clothing decisions he wanted to make, but we also wanted to keep him safe. The first time my wife ever saw the inside of a hospital was when she took a friend there who'd gotten jumped by some goons who decided he looked like an easy "fag" to assault. She knows, first hand, just how quickly your gender/clothing decisions can get your nose broken.

So she looked and looked and finally found this book called Mom, I Want to be a Girl It's about a teenager (as all the resources are. Not a lot of literature on six year-old cross dressers), but it looked like a really useful, first-hand account of the challenges of parenting a trans-gendered child. But it was something like sixteen dollars at Amazon.com, so being frugal, I suggested that instead of buying it, I request it through the Interlibrary Service at Huge State University.

So we did, and it arrived for me, and I picked it up. And then I had to return it. Now, I work in another branch of the library, and although I had to walk down to the main branch to pick the book up, I didn't relish a walk in the baking heat to go turn it in. So, it sat on my desk all day while I debated whether to use the library mail system to turn it in. And here's the crazy/cool/educational thing: I kept it kinda hidden on my desk all afternoon, and didn't put it in the library mail system until everyone else was gone for the day. I'd like to think that it wasn't that I was ashamed of my son, or that I was necessarily embarrassed by having the book on my desk. What I do know, however, is that I didn't want to have to answer questions. Some of the people I work with are of an older generation, and I don't think would necessarily be entirely supportive. One I can see getting rather flustered, and not knowing what to think, and another I can easily see making a lot of stupid jokes about it. I'm not ashamed of my son or embarrassed to be reading that book, but I also know I don't need the hassle of dealing with people who aren't going to support my parenting decisions, especially around a sensitive topic like that.

Now, what I gained from that episode is that I got a glimpse, a teeny tiny and entirely voluntary glimpse of what it must be like not to enjoy heterosexual privilege. If the book had been on kids with ADD or on dealing with the Terrible Twos, I could have expected lots of sympathy and well-intentioned advice. I could have struck up conversations with my co-workers, who might or might not have had useful advice, but who wouldn't have freaked out or taken it as an opportunity to give me a hard time. If it had been about ADD or the Terrible Twos, I wouldn't have worried about the pervasive heterosexism and homophobia that I swim in all day, every day, without even noticing it because it (supposedly) doesn't affect me. If it had been about ADD or the Terrible Twos, I wouldn't have worried about what would happen the next time my son visited me at work.

So. It's not much, but the other day I was at the local feminist bookstore to order our copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (was anyone else seriously disappointed by that book?), and I found what I had been thinking about getting for a few days. At the library, we've had to wear these badges lately--not ID's to get in and out, but just little badges on lanyards that identify us as library staff. There's blank space at the bottom, and some people have put their names, or ink-stamped designs, or what have you. I wanted to customize mine in some way, and after drawing a creative blank for a long time, this incident helped me decide. Now, at the bottom of my badge, there's one of those long, skinny rainbow stickers. It's not much, but it's easy to see if you look. If anyone (who knows I'm hetero) asks, I'll tell them that I just wanted to make sure that any gay/lesibian/bisexual/transgendered/questioning/curious student who I helped at the desk would know that Huge State University, or at least the little corner of it that I'm in charge of, is not a homophobic place.

But the truth is, that at the same time, I wanted to renounce some of my hetero privilege. It's not a big sign that says "I'm gay: beat me up, you homophobic fucktard!" but it's enough to make people wonder. Enough, to say, as it were, "I am Spartacus." Or at least, "I might be Spartacus--you never know."