Chapter 9 - Family

Chapter 9 – Family

Family. That’s my word for the day. I have very real and reactive issues with this word and what it represents. Like everything I put into this blog I am going to discuss my experiences, unapologetic, about the reality of my life, this time with ‘family’ as the central theme. How do we define family as a society? What are our expectation of what that family mean? How does family contribute to the life of individuals within this social structure? So much to talk about and just thinking about those questions simultaneously makes my blood boil and fill it with joy.

So, let’s start with the basics. How do you define family? The classic format is obviously a heterosexual couple or a set of ‘breeders’ as we used to refer to straight couples during my militant periods, a derogatory term used to combat the ‘queer’, ‘faggot’, or ‘poofter’ terms thrown at us from what was essentially the other side of the battle ground. I will say that it was rather empowering to have a derogatory name to use when dealing with the straight opposition, simply put, a gay couple can’t produce children on their own so to refer to straight couples like cattle did give me not a small amount of pleasure. All those claims that children had to be protected by their ‘families’ from being initiated into being gay by older gay men, I wish. I would have been so grateful to have been exposed to even one gay person as a child, someone to show me that I was okay, that I was special and not broken. Recruit, my ass, the truth is we have always relied on ‘breeders’ to produce our generations, they are both a blessing and a curse, producing gay youth but then blocking their development by trapping them in straight family culture. I still love the term ‘breeder’, I will admit, I know that we are changing as a society and the anger that brought the term into use is slowly dissipating but it is very empowering to refer to the dominant culture with a term that makes us (gay) the farmers taking the cream of the crop. So back to families, we have a couple who then have children and according to Western consumer society this is the perfect construct. It all helps a consumer economy to spin, school fees, family size cars, family holidays, family discounts. The family then extends to grandparents, cousins, nieces, aunts, uncles and so the family tree spreads. Basically a family is defined primarily through blood ties, you are born into a family there is no escape or avoiding the fact that we are all born into this series of defined attachments.

What do we expect from this social grouping? Family are expected to be part of our lives. That group of people on whom we can rely. A group that forms the core of our social existence. It only takes a cursory glance through any ‘Facebook’ page to see weekend gatherings for a niece’s birthday, pictures of a family BBQ with aunts and cousins all over the screen.  This is a group of people who seem to live in each other’s pockets, everyone knows everyone else’s business. I’m not here to rip this experience to shreds, it works well for some and the relationships built in some of these family units are strong, supportive and empowering to the members involved, I just want to discuss how my idea of family is so at odds with this idea. The major problem I have with the idea of family stems from the simple fact that it is based on a continuum, straight parents have straight kids, who join the group and have straight relationships and the family tree continues to grow. If, like me you do not fit into this mold there are going to be problems, or at least major challenges. Did I have gay uncles, great uncles, aunts? Surely I am not the first gay person to come out of my gene pool but how would I know? In the not too distant past a gay uncle would have hidden the fact that he loved men, everyone would have at least suspected that he was queer but it wouldn’t be discussed. The gay uncle would keep it quiet and never discus it openly, a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ situation. So I may very well have had gay members of my family who could have helped me through adolescence trapped in a social group that didn’t understand what I was going through. Their histories are lost, the black sheep of the family who often moved away so that they could be free from the pressure and constraints of family expectations.

So of course I am part of this type of family. I came to Australia with two brothers and two parents so our family unit was drastically reduced. My extended family is spread throughout the world and we have had little contact since we left Scotland. This did create a situation where we were very close nit as a group, foreigners in a strange land. But time went on and we grew into our new cultural reality. The family member I was always closest to was my twin brother, this is not a difficult thing to imagine. Until we were four years old we had never been separated, never apart, but at four I needed to have my tonsils out and found myself abandoned in a long white room with 20 beds lined against the walls. Whitewash on the walls and ceilings, white sheets on all the beds and a single white table in the middle of this huge room with a single nurse also dressed in white sitting behind it. I ran to the window not quite believing that my brother wasn’t going to be staying with me and not understanding why I was being left behind on my own. I stared out the second floor window and watched my mother and brother leaving the hospital grounds. The only thing that helped my anxiety at that moment was the appearance of a Salvation Army band that marched past my window playing away as they used to do back in the 70’s. It felt like they were playing for me, to try and make me happy and I still hold that thought as a truth. The closeness between my brother and I remained tight all through childhood, moving to Australia, just before puberty was to kick into gear, re-cemented this bond while we reestablished a new circle of friends. It didn’t matter what was going on in our lives there was nothing that we didn’t know about each other.  To illustrate how close we were, we were given some money to buy a new outfit for our 16^th birthday party, we went shopping separately but we both bought the same shirt which was collarless and not a standard cut only in different colours, similar pants and shoes. ‘Peas in a pod’ a common term used to describe us. So moving back to ‘family’ it would seem obvious that we would have a relationship that most would look at with envy and jealousy but I haven’t spoken to him for over a year and it was at least that since our previous contact but when we do talk it’s never about my life, dreams, loves or goals, it’s always about what his family is doing, there is no need to pretend that he has an interest in my life. What could have happened that would be strong enough to break the bond we had through our childhood? What could destroy the ‘family’ connection that I have been talking about?
Puberty.
 I’ve talked before about my early years and that I knew I was gay by the age of 6 but it’s not until puberty sets in that the full realisation of sexuality can start to take hold. So all those feelings I had had since childhood, all those things that brought me joy, those things that enthralled me, excited me and gave me goosebumps began to make sense. As I began to recognize who I was and starting to come to terms with the chaos of my new reality my brother was going through the same hormone surge of awakening. As teenagers our circle of friends had split although it was very much like a Venn diagram with a great deal of cross over, this was an advantage of being a twin, in that acceptance into a group was automatic if the other twin was already in the circle, outsiders saw us as a linked pairing so either of our presence was automatically okayed by group members. But our groups were beginning to come into conflict. As teenagers we were like many others of our generation, parties, and trips into the city on a Friday night, working out which pubs would sell us alcohol. I soon discovered that gay bars would not ask for ID, the simple fact was that the political climate in Queensland, and the governmental policy against ‘queers’ meant that no gay man wanted to be identified so clubs wouldn’t ask. But here’s the problem, while I was discovering this community that made me feel comfortable, normal and safe my brother, along with his cohorts, would also be on the town looking for poofters that they could bash up. He’d tell me about the guys they had bashed the next morning, the fun they had had, how they had cornered him alone and the whole group ‘getting him’. His group wouldn’t bash me up but only because they couldn’t in their minds separate the two of us but how was I supposed to accept that. Did my brother know I was gay? Of course. He was the first person who did know, but he wouldn’t accept it, he wouldn’t talk about it and wouldn’t change his behavior even when I asked. If family is about accepting and protecting its members what would you call this, his response was that he kept his mates off me. What the fuck!!!! With ‘friends like these’ is the phrase but I’m not talking about friends so with ‘Family like these who need enemies’. So what was his career choice? The answer lies in two very simple facts, his favorite leisure activity was to hunt down isolated gay guys and bash them to the verge of hospitalization and he lived in Queensland, the Queensland police force rushed through his citizenship papers so that he could join their ranks, ‘your just the sort of guy were looking for’. This is not the family I need.

I did start to develop a relationship with my nieces and nephews, primarily through Facebook but when I got my HIV notice at the start of the year and started writing this blog I felt the need to break this contact. I unfriended them simply because I didn’t want my brother to find out my status through them reading my blog. Do I think he would be supportive? My doubts are too high to risk giving his prejudice anything that he could throw at me. I would have really liked to get to know his kids and see what’s going on in their lives because although what I am saying here seems to be anti-family it’s not, I just see it differently, but I can’t risk letting him in.

So what about the remaining members of my ‘family’? I do have a younger brother but again we speak rarely. I try to be part of his life and let him into mine but it’s a battle that can’t be won. He has always been supportive of me and who I am, he’s even tried to set me up with guys from time to time but he doesn’t provide me with anything more than someone I would see as an acquaintance, not family. I had to remove his kid’s as friends from Facebook as well because cousin’s talk and they are part of my twin brother kid’s life. So, for the reason I discussed above I had to block them from my life only to protect myself from my twin brother. It’s strange because my younger brother is very family orientated in the classic sense of the term. His life revolves around that of his kid’s, always organizing family gatherings that sort of thing but for me he doesn’t fulfill the basic functions of what, to me, makes a family.

I had similar issues with my parents. As I discussed in an earlier piece my mother was not supportive when I came out and this did cause a rift. It’s not as if I was going to change my mind and actually be straight…….’just joking!!’ My dad was much the same and so I had some hard choices to make. Looking back as I am now I know that the rejection of ‘so called’ family turned out to be a good thing for me personally. It forced me at a young age to make decisions that would change my attitude to everyone that I was to come into contact with for the rest of my life. I didn’t talk to my parents for years at a time when I moved to Sydney, I had developed different support systems that no longer required the traditional support of a biological family. When I did get in touch I would not hold back in talking about who I was seeing, what I was doing or any aspect of the life I was leading. I remember my mother making a comment to me, asking if I had to talk about that (gay activities) all the time. I remember it because at the time I was in the middle of a relationship which was my world. I was dating Andrew and we were heavily involved in the gay community, I knew then what family meant to me and responded simply, ‘this is my life, it is what I am doing, it is who I am loving, it is who I am, if you ask me what I am up to then I will tell you but if you don’t want to hear about my life then we don’t talk’. 

As far as I am concerned the true definition of what family is was cemented that day, we didn’t talk after that for some time but contact was re-initiated my mum who came to Sydney and met Andrew at a gay bar and because of the clear criteria I have in place she is still part of my family.

So who are my family and what criteria do I use when building family membership? This is what I want to talk about. I have given a brief overview of my experience with what is deemed to be the classic meaning of family, an experience that at times let me know that I was that ‘strange uncle’ that no one talks about. But my life, so far, has been filled with love and support, nurturing and sadness, joy and surprise, a warm welcome, understanding, openness and acceptance, everything you could possibly want from a family. So where did I find them? I didn’t find them, well not at first, they saw me and took me in, made me feel welcome and safe, without judgment and supported. The gay community became my family.

I remember my first Christmas in Sydney, I had only been in the city for a couple of months and was still feeling a little overwhelmed, the thought of my first Christmas without the obligatory family gathering was both saddening and exciting. I didn’t know what I was going to do when someone I had met only briefly ran into me on Oxford Street. “Where are you going for Christmas?” He asked. “I don’t know” was my response. “Well that’s settled then, you’re coming to my place, I’m having an orphans Christmas and you count as an orphan.” On Christmas day I found myself in a group of about 20 guys having lunch in Darlinghurst for Christmas, we were in fact all orphans in one way or another. Most of us had been rejected by our biological family for being who we were but found ourselves being adopted into a new and stronger family, a family that understood who we were, could offer us the love we needed and craved.

My family is huge. 

I found myself a couple of uncles through Stewart and Roy while I looked after them until Roy left us from an AIDS related illness. I was never part of their social circle although I was always present when their friends came along, I was very much the nephew who was being shown the ropes, as it were, they were leather queens. They saw me for what I was, a lost boy needing nurturing and like any good uncle they explained life to me in a way that wasn’t hidden behind a shield of propriety as parents tend to hide the truth from children. Uncles have always explained the taboo, the unspoken truth to their nephews and that is what Stewart and Roy gave to me. That missing component of my family was found in both of them. I learnt my history, my cultural heritage and my place in the world from these ‘uncles’. I sadly miss them both, Roy because his greatest lesson was given to me while I held his hand as he passed away yet still took the time and energy to thank me for being there and Stewart because he always knew when to push my ideas and when to leave me to work it out myself. The last act I was able to perform for these uncles was to be pall bearer for Roy, something he had asked for before his passing although not conveyed to me until he was gone. It was an honor I will never forget from two men who showed me how life should be lived, with love, commitment and pride. 

I had an opportunity to pay the treatment and nurturing I had received from Stewart and Roy back to another member of my family. David became a little brother in this new family of mine. David was Lebanese and lost. Trapped in between two conflicting worlds, the gay world where he knew he belonged and a Muslim world of his biological family from which he knew he had to escape. His desperation to escape the persecution he was under at home drove him to try and find someone to save him and he found me. I was walking along Oxford Street one day heading nowhere in particular but as always watching the traffic as it drove by, one never knows when a cute guy may be behind the wheel. I soon realised that I had seen the same car pass me by a couple of time so began to watch out for its return. Sure enough I passed on the opposite side of the road, slowing slightly in the traffic as it was parallel to me. Soon it had completed a U-turn and was pulling up beside me. Inside was David a cute, and forward, Lebanese boy of 19 years. “Are you gay?’ was his opening remark. Who asks that right up front to a stranger on the street? “Of course,” my militant response. “Do you want to jump in, I’d like to get to know you?” And so our friendship began. I will admit that like almost every gay friendship I have ever had it began with sex. I have never experienced the 'not on a first date' thing that seems so important to the straight community. We have sex before we know each other’s names then decide whether it is worth pursuing the relationship to a date. That was almost how it was with David but he was so nervous being with a guy for the first time that we spent most of the afternoon chatting rather than fucking. Our friendship soon grew into something stronger. David was in serious need of support, he was moving out of home and was trying to find a new job because his family had discovered he was gay and he needed to hide. His mother had thrown him out of the family home and had sworn that she was going to find someone to pay who would kill him. This may sound dramatic but the fear in David’s face made it quite clear that this situation was real. He never went back even to the area of Sydney where his family lived in case he was recognized. So I had found a little brother, he needed protecting, he needed nurturing and he needed guidance, god did he need guidance. He knew two things, he was gay and Darlinghurst was where gay people went. Like a good big brother I took him under my wing and taught him everything he needed to know, from how to dress, what to eat and where to go. I passed on my cultural knowledge and the lesson given to me by Stewart and Roy so he would know where he belonged. We’d go out cruising together so I could keep an eye on him while he learnt how, who and when to pick up guys. By the time he found himself falling in love with someone he had developed taste, style and an education that allowed him to move on with his life. His naivety was cute and that is probably what drew me to him, his big puppy dog eyes endeared him to me and the bond we developed is nothing short of a brotherhood of the tallest order. It’s funny, as I write this I realise that I am wearing a ring that was given to him by his father that he passed onto me before he flew the nest to make his own life. I hope the joy and excitement that always shone so brightly from his soul whenever we were together stayed with him always.

Really. what I want to say about family is that it is important. We all need the support that a family can offer. It is just my, and many other gay peoples experience, that the people that society calls our family are not able or willing to be there for us. I couldn’t relate to the family I was born into, the values and expectations simply were in opposition to who I was realizing I was. The attitude of some members made it clear that I couldn’t be happy within this designated circle called family. But I have been lucky and found people who not only understood what I was going through but were willing to take me into their family and provide me with the love we all expect from family members. In turn I have been given the opportunity to welcome others into my family and provide them with the same love and guidance shown to me. I’ve have made very simple expectations for membership into my family, I want honesty, I want respect, I want understanding and I want love. At one point you would also need to be gay for me to even consider holding you in high enough regard to be called family but times change.

 Family is important to me, but, I refuse to be forced into accepting someone as family who doesn’t care about me, my values or needs simply because of a gene pool connection. My family has no capacity limit and if our friendship is strong enough then I think that the term family is far more appropriate for the importance that person holds in my life. If someone doesn’t fit into this scope then why would I be bothered wasting energy to keep that person in my life?  

So for me, family is not biological by definition, family is what I make it, if someone can bring a warmth to my heart just through their presence then they are family, because a family should be love. If you know me and spend any sort of time with me then it may be that I actually think of you as family. I may not say it out loud because that would confuse someone who still hold the traditional definition within them but I know what they mean to me.