I Have Something to Tell You

by Chasten Glezman Buttigieg

It would be easy to describe where I’m from as the “real America.” That term dominates talk of pragmatism in Democratic politics, where pundits obsess over “coastal elites” and their supposed inability to appeal to “the heartland,” also known as “flyover country.” People from Massachusetts, California, New York? Not “real Americans.” According to the stereotype, a real American is not a professor, banker, or artist living in New York City or Seattle. Real America is Dixie Chicks and wide open spaces, proud men and hospitable women, farms, trucks, guns, patriotism, building, rebuilding, independence, hot dogs. Real Americans do not live within a day’s drive of the ocean. (Lakes are, however, totally acceptable.) Real Americans earn their living through honest work, like manufacturing, teaching, or professional wrestling. They are usually also conservative, and so they must be unfathomable to Democrats from liberal enclaves.

We assume it’s impossible to understand one another, when in fact we’re more similar than we’d like to admit.

I was constantly trying to fit in with conflicting groups. Deep down, was I actually cultured and fancy? Or could I become as tough and rugged as the other “hicks”?

We did of course have the great outdoors, but although I enjoyed fishing, four-wheeling, and 4-H-ing, I never felt like it was enough; being good at those kinds of things felt like I was rising to expectations, not developing my own. Now I know that suppressing a major part of your identity will make it feel like nothing is enough, but at the time I just felt uncomfortable in my own body, and my body was in Traverse.

My parents weren’t especially forthcoming about their politics, and it wasn’t immediately clear to me the way politics could have real effects on our day-to-day lives. For example, we occasionally went across the channel to Sault Ste. Marie, in Canada, for my brother’s hockey tournaments, and while there, my parents would always make sure to stop by a pharmacy to pick up cheaper prescription drugs, like Tobrex for pinkeye and amoxicillin for recurring ear infections and strep throat. But I never thought about this as a consequence of the American political system—that, like many other things, wouldn’t become clear until later.

While Mom and Dad weren’t very vocal about their political beliefs, many people in some of our social circles were very forthcoming about their conservatism, especially when it came to queerness. They often used their religion as a justification for their intolerance or unkindness.

Eventually, of course, I would come out, and a close friend would tell me I was making an embarrassing choice leading me to damnation. The most common message in these circles was that God-fearing Americans and good country boys were tough-as-nails, definitely straight, and Republicans, and good, God-fearing American country boys were the only kind of boys to be.

Where I grew up, many people believed that being a Republican was also about a very visible and concentrated form of patriotism. Naturally, patriotism has something public about it—it just doesn’t cut it to be a patriot in private. Sure, you can wear American flag underwear and eat hot dogs three times a week, but how does that serve your country? As I got older, I also understood that doing the most I could to blend in with those around me might help me fit in, and survive, at school; not only did silent approval quickly convey a set of acceptable values to other people, but it also meant that I could avoid having to figure out what my values actually were. These were preapproved, and if they were preapproved then they must be at least OK, if not perfect.

I thought that if I got a John Deere–themed George Bush yard sign, maybe other boys, or even my own family, would think that I was serious and tough—one of them. I remember putting the W sticker on my car because that seemed to be the easiest way to signal “I’m just like you. Please leave me alone.”

Of course, not all conservative views are necessarily moral deal breakers. But the political atmosphere in Michigan wasn’t just a matter of differences of opinion about education policy and limited government. It wasn’t uncommon to spot a Confederate flag decal on the back of a pickup truck in the grocery-store parking lot. And by decal, I don’t mean bumper sticker—though of course there were some very aggressive bumper stickers. No, by decal I mean that the entire back window would be covered in a Confederate flag, sometimes with guns emblazoned over the flag, sometimes with some kind of “Come and Take It” language. Other trucks had actual Confederate flags waving from the cab. Never mind that Michigan fought for the Union in the Civil War and that Traverse City is much closer to Ontario than any part of the former Confederate South.

I wish I could say that from an early age I fervently objected to the presence of these symbols, but truth be tol...

I was swimming in a sea of whiteness, and I didn’t ev...

I watched as people described the flag as a symbol of “Southern pride,” even though there’s literally no reason for someone from Michigan to have “Southern pride.”

In fact, I’m deeply ashamed. I’m saying it because there are so many pockets of this country where this kind of denial is encouraged and accepted, so much so that people don’t even think to question it.

I was growing up in a system designed to keep me from questioning them in the first place.

a friend, who eventually became one of my best friends, asked me why I had a Bush sticker on my car. How could I support someone like him? “I thought you would know better,” she said, passing me on her way to class. I remember standing in the middle of the pre-first-period rush of students feeling like an imposter. Someone had called me out for something I didn’t even understand. Most of the families in 4-H supported Bush, and I thought that as a good country boy, I was supposed to, as well. I felt like I had made a mistake, despite the fact that I didn’t even know what the mistake was. At the same time, I was ashamed because I knew nothing about Bush.

The identity crisis that high school brings on manifests itself in many ways, but so often, it’s in the form of taunts and bullying by those who haven’t quite figured out who they themselves are just yet. When someone already feels low and alone, tearing down others feels like a step up.

I remember being attracted to men from a young age, but I don’t think I fully understood until about seventh or eighth grade that this might mean I was gay. I didn’t have the vocabulary for it until it was presented to me in a pejorative way.

It was something more like “Gay men are predatory swamp creatures… who are also extremely vulnerable to attack.” Alongside all the demonizing, there was a competing narrative of the gay person as victim, or the gay person as prey. The idea was that we were menaces who had to be vanquished. If a gay person was in the news, it was likely about how they’d been harassed, bullied, beaten up, or murdered. All the horror stories traumatized me, but I was especially affected when I learned about what happened to Matthew Shepard, the college student who was brutally murdered in Laramie, Wyoming, in 1998. His story wasn’t exactly familiar, but it approached the edges of reality for me—it seemed like it could happen to someone like me in Northern Michigan.

I now understand that this is how homophobia works: when people are scared or feel threatened, they puff themselves up, like certain funny-looking birds, to make what’s threatening them feel small. At the time, it worked on me. I lived in a swirl of mixed messages, which added to the sense that I was some kind of unknown thing, whose characteristics were so freakish that they were difficult for even me to understand.

My only positive exposures to homosexuality were mediated and removed. I watched a lot of Will and Grace, even as my parents or brothers protested and demanded Seinfeld. I wished that I could live somewhere like New York City, where it would be OK to be like someone on that show, where I could find friends and acquaintances who would be kind to someone “like that.”

I remember the fear of laughing perhaps too enthusiastically whenever Sean Hayes’s hilarious character, Jack, entered the room, or when an offhand gay joke was made. Would they think I was gay? Watching the show in front of my family was like torturous therapy. I loved seeing someone “like me” on TV, but I didn’t want anyone to see that I loved it.

Another glimmer of hope came in the form of E...

Still, gayness was something distant, almost like a luxury or privilege. People on television could have it—not an awkward high school student from the middle of nowhere, who worked two jobs and went to church and would probably live in the same place his whole life. It almost felt as if growing up somewhere like Northern Michigan meant it was impossible that I could be gay—gay people weren’t found in places like that. If they happened to show up there, it was ...

If they took me seriously, they would think I was a predatory swamp creature, a sinner who deserved to be cast out; if they decided my coming out was just a phase, residue of Europe’s influence, they would be denying all the pain I’d already felt about my sexuality. The prospect of being doubted or waved away was humiliating. I felt totally trapped.

This is a trap many queer Americans find themselves in, especially those living in rural, red places.

I loved my parents so much, but I had a firm belief that I would be loved only conditionally in return. This turned out to be completely unfair of me, but at the time I thought for sure that my coming out would be an immense disappointment to them.

In those days, being gay didn’t just mean I wouldn’t marry a woman—it meant not getting married at all.

Early on I remember my mother saying, “I just don’t know why you would choose something so hard.” Even though I know my mother was well-intentioned, her response encapsulates the attitude well-meaning but less-informed people most often have when their kids come out: Why would I choose to be made fun of and demeaned and picked on? Why would I give up the possibility of family, “real” love, and a career?

Working at Starbucks was an eye-opening experience, and not always in a good way. Our location was next to a private high school, and every afternoon we’d be subject to a steady stream of privileged teenagers messing around with their iPhones as they paid for their vanilla bean Frappuccinos with Starbucks cards. A thought I had not infrequently was I’m (basically) a college graduate working forty hours a week serving milkshakes to teens who have more money in their bank accounts than I do.