Local Black Man Says Homophobic Family Doesn’t Accept His Gay Lifestyle
7.13.07
NEWSFLASH -- “The bottom line is that my family is straight up homophobic! Can’t accept me for who I am and I don’t appreciate that shit.”
These are the first words that Miles Windward (not his real name) issued as we sat down for our interview. Onyx Cranium picked up his story through word-of-mouth and decided to follow up on it. Why? Homophobia and hate toward openly gay men and lesbians is not new in any community, especially the black community. We figured it was worth detailing an anecdotal and personal account of what it means to come out to your immediate family. That was the idea anyway.
When asked to describe his experience, Windward decided to detail the actual night he finally came out to his family.
“I was basically yelled out of the house. They had all these accusatory and unreasonable questions to ask and quite frankly, I didn’t feel like answering them. I told them that I’d been wanting to say something, meaning to say something, for years, but because of their expectations of me and their clear hatred of gays, I stayed silent. That was until I felt I had to say something. And when I did, they reacted just how I thought they would.”
Windward says this with a mixture of disbelief and annoyance. He’s a very handsome man with a close shaved head and a rich caramel complexion. Windward describes himself as athletic, though he never played team sports while in school because he was primarily an academic. He considered himself well liked, but said when he decided to admit to his family and close friends that he was homosexual, all that changed. He suddenly felt ostracized and demeaned. Life had taken the proverbial turn for the worse.
“And it went downhill simply because I chose to be honest.”
We chose to feature Miles Windward due to the reportedly stereotypical reaction his family had to his admission. He’d been kicked out of his house and was staying with a cousin while he figured out what his next steps would be. Yet as the interview progressed, I became aware that the story wasn’t quite as clear-cut as OC was led to believe. I mean, is it ever?
I mentioned that he had an understanding cousin. This is who he was staying with at the time of the interview. She was the source, but had neglected to include a few descriptive details.
“Thank God for [my cousin] man, or I’d be out on the street.”
Like many African American men, it is hard to determine Windward’s age. When hearing of his story, we assumed he was in his early 20s, perhaps a student who really needed his family to help get him on his feet. Perhaps this was why my line of questioning almost missed the real story.
“So Miles, has your family refused to help you with your education as a result of your outing?”
He looked up and squinted in confusion. “What?”
“I’m sorry, I assumed you were in college.”
“College? I graduated from school 10 years ago. I got my MBA over two years ago.” Sensing my confusion, he quickly added, “But trust me, if a brother was in school, they would have stopped supporting me. Trust!”
So this put things in a different perspective. Why was a man, at least 32 to 35 years of age by my hurried calculations, still living at home?
“So, um…how exactly did they kick you out?” Maybe I’d jumped the gun.
“I didn’t say they kicked me out. I said they yelled me out. Made me so uncomfortable with their accusing ass questions, that I had no choice but to leave.”
“Got it. Was one parent harsher than the other or were they equally judgmental?” I felt this was a nice save, but I was wrong. His agitation was clearly growing.
“My parents? What do they have to do with anything?”
Now it was my turn to be completely dumbfounded. My research was off and I was paying for it by looking unprepared. Was he living with his aunt and uncle or grandparents when he got kicked out? I felt I’d backtracked enough and decided to just plunge ahead.
“Well, you said your family kicked—sorry—yelled you out of the house. I wanted to know if it was one parent in particular or both?”
“Look, I agreed to this interview to talk about homophobia in the black community, but you bringing my Moms and Pops into it. Can we stick to the topic?”
Then I lost it –just a bit. “You said your family, right?”
“Yeah, but not my parents. I’m a grown ass man. What I look like living with my parents and I’ve graduated from school over a decade ago?”
Now this was what I was thinking but wasn’t rude enough to state. “Well, I’m glad you said it.”
“My parents are cool with it [his homosexuality]. I mean, they’re not happy about it by any means. But they love me and they’re there for me. My mom dropped off some dinner for me the other night and my pops and I still talk – though it’s tense. No, you got it wrong. My parents got my back.”
Are you as confused as I am? “Okay, I’m lost. So who are the homophobes?”
“Geez. My wife and kids! Who you think?! Well, not so much my kids. They just kinda looked dumbfounded, but my wife – she’s the homophobe. I decide to finally be a man about mine and tell them – you know – don’t want to be one of these quote unquote down low brothers and all that. So I straight man-up and what does old girl do – she blows the fuck up! Tell you ‘bout sistas man!”
WTF? At this point I’m hoping that my facial expression isn’t matching my mental exasperation. I could use a drink.
Apparently, he needs one. “You got me all worked up,” Windward says as he pours water from a refrigerated dispenser and gulps it down before returning to the chair across from my own. “Look, the facts are the facts. My family doesn’t accept who I am – the main person who is supposed to have my back. The-“
“Hold up!” I have to understand what he’s saying for my own sake now. This is beyond Onyx Cranium. I need to be sure that this man is telling me what I think he’s telling me. “How long you been married?”
“About 12 years.”
“Uh-huh.” That’s all I can manage.
“Most marriages don’t last that long these days,” he says this with just a hint of pride.
“Point taken,” I respond. “How many children?”
“Two.”
“Ages?”
“Thirteen and eleven.”
“So you’re upset because a woman you married-“
“Supposed to have my back!”
“Yeah, yeah. Let me finish. A woman you married, who I’m assuming thought you were straight-“
“Ah! Here we go with the labels. Like I’m crooked-“
“Excuse me brother, my bad. A woman you married who thought you were heterosexual and who had two children with you – “
“One! My daughter was one when we got married.”
Silence from me again. “Bottom line – she thought you were heterosexual and built your life together on that premise.”
“I see where you’re going with this,” he said. “Built our life together on that assumption. I mean, how well do you really know anyone?”
Was this brother serious? I looked directly at him and saw that he was challenging me. Wow.
“But weren’t you the reason she thought you were heterosexual?”
“Touche’”
WHAT? That was his answer! And all she did was yell him out the house? I woulda-
“Before you go any further. I just want to point out that Debra (not her real name) never yelled at my cousin for being gay. In fact she was real supportive of him and they weren’t even married. So how you gone treat your husband’s relative better than your husband. Nahmean!”
“Was your cousin married with two children?” We were past the point of feigning an interview. I just needed this brother to get out of his denial.
There was that smirk again. Followed by a quick, “Naw. He came out when he was about 16 or so.”
“So has it occurred to you that your wife felt personally betrayed? That it was less about you being a homosexual and more about you pretending to be somebody else to her?”
“Okay, okay. Again, I see where you’re going.”
Did he?
“I hope so. Let me ask you a question – what were the unreasonable questions she fired at you when you came out to her?”
“Oh, now we’re back on track,” he said leaning forward.
Were we really? Because I was still feeling completely derailed.
“All kinds of shit – like: Do you have AIDS? Which is such a stereotype! Have you always been this way? Did you sleep with any men? Did you sleep with any men while we were married? Shit like that. I mean, just mad personal and out the box questions.”
“So you consider these questions homophobic?”
“Sure do. I mean, especially the AIDS thing.”
“Well, let me ask you this Miles. If she has always been accepting of your gay cousin, has it occurred to you that she’s not afraid of gay men or lesbians? That she’s afraid of the known health risks associated with anal sex, which after all is one major component of the sexually active gay male lifestyle?”
“I don’t follow.”
“In short, she’s not afraid of gay people, she’s afraid of a potentially deadly disease that is largely spread through anal sex.”
“Who says I had anal sex?”
“Well, didn’t her other questions try to maybe get at that information?”
Silence now – finally.
“Well, I didn’t like her tone.”
“You don’t think she had a right to be angry?”
“I could have kept lying, but I didn’t. Where’s the credit for that?”
“Maybe her mind was racing and she wasn’t thinking of giving out ‘credit.’ There’s the argument that you could have been honest from the get-go and maybe not married her.”
“Touche’ again, sister.”
One good slap. I was convinced that was all he needed. This was not a stupid brother. He was just being defensive. I made one last attempt at getting through to him.
“I think it was difficult for you to reveal yourself in this way.” I got a head nod, so I kept going. “Based on what you’ve said and more importantly how you said it, I think you considered what you did, especially as an upwardly mobile black man, an act of bravery and you feel that you were punished for it. That whole thing about how sisters claim they want honesty, but when they get it, they go crazy. Am I on the right track here?”
“Finally!” Okay, two good slaps.
“Well, Miles, you do realize that there is a flipside to that coin. Being honest, especially about something this significant, is difficult. But it’s also difficult for her to process what you’re being honest about. You don’t get to lie, by deception or simple omission, for a long period of time and then when you finally feel ready to tell the truth, expect the recipient of that truth to have an emotionally neutral or supportive reaction.”
“Can you just boil all that down for the sake of simplicity?”
Three good slaps at this point is what I’m thinking.
“There’s something you should understand about revealing a truth on the level of what you told your wife.”
“I’m listening.”
“And I just want to say that this is across the board. Whether you’re male, female, a hermaphrodite or a transsexual. And it also doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, brown, red, or yellow.”
“Yeah.”
Was he rushing my wisdom? Regardless-
“Miles, when you tell a huge truth that stems from an often larger lie – the person is not going to just react to the truth. They are going to react to the lie. You want credit and congratulations for bringing the truth, but you brought it on the heels of a 12 or 13 year lie. In short, she gets to react to both! And you can’t choose whether she reacts to your moment of bravery or your 13 years of deception. She gets that option. And you give it to her! You get me? I mean, you do understand that had she revealed to you that your second child was not really yours, you wouldn’t immediately congratulate her on finally spitting it out?”
To his credit, old boy (no longer Mr. Windward in my eyes) seemed to let this soak in.
“And for the record, her questions, in light of the situation and damn near any AIDS related literature that you read, were legitimate.”
It was time to go. I’d had enough. My article had become an odd story – perhaps one that the OC’s editor wouldn’t even run. And this was all assuming I could actually capture the whole situation in an objective light, which was questionable at best. I stopped the recorder, gathered my things and walked with Miles to the front door. Ever the gentleman (no pun intended), he walked me to my car and opened the door for me after I turned off the alarm.
“Just so you know. I did love my wife. Still do. And whatever happens, I’m glad that we raised our kids together. I’m not crazy. I know that I hurt her and that she may never forgive me, but my point is still my point. At the end of the day, I told her when I could. If I could have come out of the closet – I hate that term by the way – I would have. I tried to hint at it for years, but it wasn’t until three weeks ago that I could bring myself to actually tell her that I was gay. I don’t want a parade or nothing – just some understanding of what that took.”
He was being straightforward and honest. No pretenses. His defensiveness, for the most part, had dissolved.
“Well, I just think it’s unreasonable, not impossible, but unreasonable, to expect that from your wife. I think you should have let her yell it out. You’re looking at it as her punishing you, but that yelling, that fury, it was much less about you than about her confusion and you setting what she knew to be true on fire. You didn’t just change who you were to her. You changed who she thought she was to you.”
“Got you.”
“In any event, I hope things work out for you and I hope you’re able to be honest – no matter how difficult it is. For your own sake.”
As I eased into the car and closed the door, one more thought occurred to me. I rolled down the window, “And you know, while it may not have been the most enlightened thing to do, you’re lucky she didn’t hit you upside the head with something. A lot of women would have.”
He let this sink in with a knowing, curt smile. “Is that what you would have done?”
It was a fair question and I pondered it for a few seconds. “Would have done – yes, definitely. But knowing what I know now, will I do that if in the same situation? I’m hoping not.”
And truth be told, I am.
