The Gentrification of the Mind: Witness to a Lost Imagination

by Sarah Schulman

Year after year my colleague, queer theorist Matt Brim, and I cry on the night bus coming home from work about how profoundly traumatized our queer students are. We do everything we can to intervene but for most of them, by the time they get to us, it's too late. This night a girl, Michelle, came out in class. She had been taking my courses for two years and had never given any sign of being queer, but this one evening she read a story about falling in love with a girl in high school and starting a passionate sexual relationship. When her parents found out, they gave her an ultimatum. If she wanted to have a family, she would have to break up with her girlfriend. Without much thought, she followed their instructions. Three years later, waiting in the bathroom line of a Staten Island straight dive bar, she met another woman and fell in love. In her story, Michelle described uncontrollable desire, accompanied by the knowledge of the tremendous familial punishment that lurked, waiting to pounce. And it did. After one year together, again there was a terrible show-down with her family when they confronted her with her hidden cache of L Word DVDs. There was another ultimatum, and finally she again broke up with her lover in order to have parents. At the end of the story, the protagonist finds a boyfriend, Danny. She says that she is able to “be comfortable” with him. And the story closes with her parents gleefully welcoming Danny into their home to watch the football game, offe...