PRINTLife as usual
As the stigma against gay culture slowly subside, Columbia begins to embrace its gay community
Zachary Siebert
April 24, 2008 | 12:00 a.m. CST
In 1969, Nixon took office, Americans landed on the moon, 400,000 hippies attended Woodstock, and one drag queen threw a beer bottle at a police officer and initiated the Stonewall riots, which challenged a system that had long oppressed gays and lesbians.
Prior to the first riot on June 28, police often raided the Stonewall Inn, a working class gay bar. They demanded pay off and roughed up the patrons they considered unworthy of their protection. One night, those patrons decided to fight back.
Jenny Baker (left) came out her freshman year of college. Her roommate later moved out ...
In the 1970s, gay liberation and rainbow pride countered assimilation tactics from the 1940s and 1950s that demanded homosexuals stay quiet and closeted to gain acceptance. The Stonewall riots brought loud and proud LGBT individuals into people’s living rooms and raised public awareness of the community. Suddenly, the invisible became visible.
Early pioneers in liberation left a mark on popular culture, where flamboyant images and cultural stereotypes continue to dominate coverage of gay men and lesbians. Although the word gay was unspeakable a generation ago, it is increasingly accepted today.
Many companies now offer benefits for domestic partners. Younger generations readily acknowledge gay siblings, friends and peers. Columbia, along with Kansas City, St. Louis and Springfield, host Pride events on alternating weekends in June to commemorate the historic struggle of Stonewall — events the community at large attends, not just gays and lesbians.
But for every state that allows gay marriage or civil unions, another dozen deny the same civic protection. Missouri kick-started the trend in 2004 with Amendment 2, a ballot measure meant to protect traditional marriage. The amendment denied gay men and lesbians equal rights. Despite advocacy groups urging citizens to “Vote no on 2,” a slogan touted on bumper stickers and yard signs, the amendment passed overwhelmingly. Eleven states passed similar gay marriage bans.
With only Massachusetts, New Jersey, Vermont, New Hampshire, Oregon and Connecticut allowing gay marriage or the equivalent, it might seem gay is far from mainstream. But alongside great strides for gays in political and cultural realms, Columbia continues to evolve in accepting its own LGBT community.
Elisa Sims
Inside Panera Bread on Ninth Street, 52-year-old Elisa Sims indulges in a chocolate-filled croissant while she discusses politics and her desire to see a woman in the White House. She’s a staunch Clinton supporter and has been a feminist since she moved to Columbia in her mid-20s.
Relocating from Arkansas (she affectionately calls her home state the “armpit of America”), Sims says Columbia’s liberal climate encouraged her activism. Politics challenged Sims’ Methodist upbringing, which treated lesbian as a dirty word.
“People who worked in politics at the time were lesbians who didn’t care what people thought,” she says. “They were stronger and braver, and I intellectually identified with them.”
In Arkansas, Sims dated only men. She didn’t question her sexuality until her early 30s, when feelings for a female friend overwhelmed her. “I fell in love with a woman, and I thought it was going to be the worst, most terrible thing in the world.” Sims exhales slowly. “And it wasn’t.”
She tried to deny her feelings. But after a frustrating trip to New Orleans with the object of her affection, she decided it was silly to keep up the charade.
Sims began a relationship with the woman, yet when she tried to share this new, important aspect of her life with her two oldest friends, they rejected her outright: the Bible condemned loving “Gwen, not Ben.”
Their betrayal prompted Sims’ eight-year sabbatical from the church. During this time, she grappled with her religion and her sexuality. Sims began attending services at Columbia’s Unity Center and decided the god she believed in wouldn’t condemn her for loving someone.
Today, Sims and her partner attend the Unity Center and are part of the Open Door Ministry at the Methodist services. Sometimes they hold hands or wrap their arms around each other in church, and no one has objected. She still waits for a church-wide change in Christianity.
“I’ve been impatient for 25 years,” she says.
They reserve affection for church and places like the Ragtag, where they feel more comfortable displaying their sexuality. Sims assumes most of their friends and neighbors know they’re gay. Although she is completely out, her partner still remains somewhat closeted for professional purposes; it’s possible people just assume they’re roommates, Sims says.
Sims sometimes worries overt displays of affection could out her partner, who remains closeted. Although Sims’ career as a nurse has allowed her some openness with her sexuality, her partner’s occupation hasn’t provided the same luxury.
If neighbors know, they don’t seem to care. Sims speaks of the elderly woman who calls to check in if she hasn’t seen the couple’s dogs out in the yard that day and the aging couple who brings them baked goods at Christmas and praises the upkeep of their house.
Last year, Sims and her partner celebrated the 10th anniversary of their commitment ceremony. Sims wears her ring on her right hand as a form of personal protest against a state that does not recognize their union. But she doesn’t like to get mixed up in the political jargon.
“I don’t care what the hell they call it, so long as we get the same rights and benefits,” she says.
Dressed in a plain blue button down shirt and flat shoes, Sims adorns her ears with tiny rainbow pebbles. She keeps her silvery-white hair short and says she likes to stay comfortable just like other women her age.
Because she likes to dress up occasionally, Sims supposes she herself could be called a lipstick lesbian, the typical term for a lesbian who still enjoys feminine pursuits such as makeup. Mostly, she doesn’t fit a stereotype because she says she “could probably love any number of people, male or female. I don’t have to label it.”
On Sundays, Sims watches The L Word, a Showtime drama about Hollywood lesbians, with gay friends. She enjoys the show, but she can’t relate to it at all — the women laugh when they spot what they call a “real dyke” on the show.
“We walk dogs, pay taxes and go to the grocery store, just like everyone else,” Sims says. “The media shows the fringes, not the 80 percent of the rest of us who are here. People don’t know we’re queer.”
Jennifer Baker
Jenny Baker praises her dog, Tyche, as he plays in the mud: “Good job! Get all muddy!” Excited, Tyche races Baker’s other dog, Niobe, to Hinkson Creek.
At this point in her life, the dogs — along with three cats she shares with her partner, Jessica Johnson — take the place of kids, but 27-year-old Baker says it doesn’t mean she won’t have children someday.
Baker and Johnson recently celebrated their eight-month anniversary, but the former best friends decided their relationship had to be long-term to be worth risking their friendship. Kids are definitely in the cards, Baker says, but not until Johnson finishes her graduate degree in social work at MU.
Baker, a Dallas native, came to MU in the late 1990s to pursue a journalism degree. She came out five months after leaving home.
“My mother probably knew before I did, and she tried to sway me against it,” Baker said. “In retrospect, it was so obvious.”
In high school, Baker wanted to join the Air Force, but her mother told her the military didn’t want people like her, which confused Baker. Another time, when she brought a friend home, Baker’s mother asked if the girl was straight. She thought her mother meant straight-laced.
Baker came out to her mother at 20, and it took her months of research before she finally began to move toward acceptance.
Baker’s generational difference from Sims is evident: She doesn’t see a real problem with how gay men and lesbians are depicted on television and in the movies. She feels exposure — no matter how over the top — is the first step toward mainstream acceptance.
And as much as she likes Columbia, Baker longs to return to Texas. She tried to change her license plates to Missouri ones once and ended up changing them back. She and Johnson hope to move to Austin and start a family.
Until then, the couple remains in Columbia, where Baker has been involved in a number of advocacy organizations. Since 2002, she has helped plan PrideFest, a community-wide celebration event that takes place every June. What started as a 20 to 30 person picnic has become a 300-person extravaganza uniting LGBT individuals with the community at large. Baker does not consider herself very political, but she places a high value on social interaction to bring people together.
“It’s been neat to see Columbia become so accepting because when I first came here, it was still on the cusp,” Baker says. “Now it’s very safe here — which in some ways is a deterrent to activism.”
Tom Harris & Brian Mahieu
With his partner’s arm draped casually across his shoulder, Tom Harris holds out his left hand and taps the silver band on his ring finger.
“I don’t care what the law says, we’re married,” Harris says. “We bought the rings and put them on in defiance of the state.”
Harris, now 48, had just come out when Missouri passed its gay marriage ban in 2004. A resident of Fulton since birth, he married a woman, had three children and got a divorce before accepting his homosexuality.
“I was totally afraid of losing everything,” he said. “But you have to live your life the way you were destined to. You find out really quickly who your friends are. I did lose some, but for the most part, my friends were my friends.”
Harris’ family, ex-wife and children were supportive, but his partner, Brian Mahieu, wasn’t so lucky. Mahieu came out twice — first at 18 and again at 40. When coming out the first time cost him his family and his finances, he turned to a charismatic Christian group for support. Within three years, he was back in the closet; soon after, he exchanged vows with a woman.
Outwardly, he had everything — a beautiful wife and son, a home in Howard County and a successful business in Columbia — but Mahieu was profoundly unhappy. Meeting Harris in a coffee shop helped him realize how empty his life was.
But unlike Harris, Mahieu was still unhappily married. He soon realized his good fortune and extensive social circle were contingent on staying closeted: When he came out the second time, the bottom dropped out.
“At 40 years old, I lost everything a person could lose, except my own authenticity,” Mahieu said.
Mahieu now lives with Harris, but his name isn’t on the deed of the house. He says he can’t help but play “what if” every time he walks out the door.
“In the state of Missouri, if I’m ever in a car crash, my ex-wife, the parents who disowned me twice and the siblings who haven’t spoken to me in years could be in the emergency room, but not my mate,” says Mahieu, who’s lived without health insurance since coming out cost him his business and his benefits.
For Mahieu, lack of tolerance is a constant source of frustration and fear, but Harris remains optimistic. He believes the state’s ban on gay marriage is a disaster that will eventually be resolved. When Harris starts to discuss other means through which he and Mahieu could receive protection, Mahieu is quick to point out the cost of hiring a lawyer to draft legal documents. More than 1,000 benefits accompany legal marriage, and for gay couples, there’s no way to duplicate them all.
Harris, who is the more laid-back of the two, says they balance each others’ personalities, and Mahieu acknowledges he couldn’t have survived the loss of his wife and son without acquiring the support of Harris and his family.
Both are in agreement about Fulton, however: It’s not as tolerant as it could be. They are planning to move somewhere more gay affirming in the future, somewhere they could receive a civil union, but for now, their kids tie them to mid-Missouri.
Unfair and untrue stereotypes have made it difficult for them to find acceptance — Harris says that he has noticed a difference in the way he is received at school functions. A few local parents, some of whom Harris has known all his life, no longer want their children to associate with the Harris kids because their dad is gay.
At the encouragement of Harris’ ex-wife, both men attend band performances and school functions. But Mahieu notes the irony — he can’t even take the kids to a doctor’s appointment.
“I do laundry, the dishes, I pick the kids up from school, but I’m invisible,” Mahieu says. “I have all the parental responsibilities, but legally, I do not exist.”
Wayne Boykin
When Wayne Boykin II graduated from Harrisburg High School this past year, he was looking for a small school close to home. Columbia College allowed him to study three disciplines (the ambitious 18-year-old is pursuing degrees in marketing and management and a minor in communications, with hopes of attending the MU School of Journalism as well). It also allowed him to live in a community where he was already out.
Boykin made the decision to stay closeted in high school, in fear that the small, religious community would not accept him. He attended meetings of Prism, the LGBT youth group, and when he came out, he told his friends here first.
He had one close call in Harrisburg, a town 30 miles north of Columbia. Before determining he was gay, he’d experimented with bisexuality. When he admitted as much on his MySpace page, a classmate threatened his personal safety. He promptly deleted the account and managed to keep his orientation a secret.
Boykin knew firsthand the trouble being different could cause — before Missouri, he lived in California, then Kentucky, where he and 20 other students attempted to start a pagan club on campus. When officials protested, the media latched onto the story, and his grades suffered as he tried to balance schoolwork and the spotlight.
“I moved here and decided that my religion and sexual orientation would have to stay closeted if I wanted to keep the grades I wanted,” he said.
Boykin, whose parents are divorced, came out to his mother during his senior year. An ordained pagan minister, she was accepting. But his father, an ordained Baptist minister, was not. Boykin says he and his father don’t talk anymore for a variety of reasons, his sexuality included.
Boykin has continued to align himself with Columbia advocacy groups, including the Center Project and the Mid-Missouri Community Coalition. His involvement helped ease his transition, but Boykin says he hasn’t had trouble living as a young, gay male.
He’s a representative for student government, a peer educator, a member of marketing group Delta Epsilon Chi and a lifetime volunteer, who has logged more than 1,800 service hours. He’s an average student and an avid Harry Potter fan. Several months ago, he even debuted as an amateur drag queen at college.
“I went to classes in drag the first day I performed, and no one said anything negative,” he says. “I go to a very supportive school.”
Boykin lives off campus for family and financial reasons independent of his sexuality. He and his mother share a home in Columbia with one other tenant, whom he recently started dating. The relationship encouraged Boykin to come out to the rest of his family, including his grandparents, because he wants to take his new boyfriend to his sister’s wedding in May. So far, he says, so good.
“We don’t have a lot of problems with hate and hate crimes in Columbia,” Boykin says. “It’s not even just the LGBT community. Like when the Nazis came to town, everyone came together to help keep the diversity.”
Queer theory
When MU sociology professor Wayne Brekhus wanted to study gay male identity in suburban New Jersey in the late ’90s, many potential subjects protested on the same grounds Elisa Sims might — they’re just like everyone else. “Go to New York,” they urged. “You’ll find much more interesting characters there.”
But Brekhus felt enough had been written about the flamboyant gays in Greenwich Village — he was much more interested in suburban gays. Of his New Jersey study participants, he found no matches to the stereotypical, over-the-top characters on television.
The result was his study titled Peacocks, Chameleons and Centaurs: Gay Suburbia and the Grammar of Social Identity. Instead of the extremes, he found gay men who organized their lives in two separate social networks: These men maintained a relatively heterosexual existence Monday through Friday and commuted to the Village on the weekend to visit gay friends and clubs.
Columbia is far from a gay mecca, but for a lot of gay men living in rural towns nearby, Brekhus suspects it’s something of a destination spot, a place to interact with other LGBT individuals. Most Columbia residents are what Brekhus calls integrators: gay men who balance their sexuality with traditional Midwestern values.
At MU, Brekhus teaches Queer Theories and Identities, a new class that caused a flap in 2006 when it was proposed. In opposition to the course, a member of the Board of Curators suggested that the money for the class might be better spent renovating the university’s chemistry labs.
But Brekhus said the push to form the class came from “all sectors, not just LGBT students looking for a safe space and a place to learn their history, but from heterosexual students as well.”
He waited until the controversy died down and proposed the class again this past fall. Because of his study, he has earned a reputation as a safe space for many students struggling to come out.
“I’m not tied to any 20-year-old’s social network,” Brekhus says. “If you tell me (that you’re gay), your roommate isn’t going to find out. I’m an authority figure, already an ally. People tied to social networks are too messy. Even if your best friend is supportive, is he or she going to slip?”
In 2004, the neighborhood where Brekhus lives with his wife was lined with “Vote no on 2” signs. It’s not that they purposely picked a like-minded area, he says, but factors including its proximity to downtown make it an attractive enclave for liberals.
Brekhus recently acquired a new yard sign while on a visit to Maryland. It proclaims, “Civil Marriage is a Civil Right.” With a chuckle, he says the sign has caused some confusion for those who visit the gay couple next door: Guests usually try the Brekhus house first. V
