Oct. 27. 2015. Are You Gay?

“Are you female or male? Or… both?"

“Are you homo or not?”

[To man] “Do you have wife? Or… husband?”

“Are you man or woman? Or… third sex?”

You must be insulted if someone seriously (or either way, jokingly) ask about your sexuality. So then, how about you define yourself?

“I am a man… because I have a man’s genitalia, and I am attracted to women.”

Do you think it is enough explanation to define yourself as a MALE? Then, here are some questions for you:

1.    What if your general recognition towards biological sex has an exception, “intersex”?

2.    What if you, as a man, have a sexual attraction to women, but your gender identity wants to define yourself as a woman?

3.    What if you are not attracted to anyone, regardless of sex, and have never felt sexual arousal, which is identified as “asexual”?

4.    What if you were ostracized during your school days because your gender expression was so girly?

5.    What if you’ve had crush on man just for a few seconds because he was your ideal person who has everything and that was exactly what you have always wanted to be?

6.    What if you have fantasy about ladyboy, bisexuality or pansexuality?

So then, what are you? Are you sure that you are all-about-man? Who told you that you are a man with what kinds of criteria?

Let’s talk about my case. I used to like the color, pink. The reason? I don’t know, I just liked it, all colors from red channel, including purple, violet, and powder pink. I’d never thought my color preference would be a big issue to Americans. Of course, I have to admit the fact that it was already 3 years ago (probably, men have become more open to pink now?), and people in Utah were startled (perhaps, Utahns are more conservative than others?). Anyway, this story happened when I went to Kumasi, Ghana, for global health study abroad program with a big group of public health, nursing and medical students during summer, 2012. I brought my fancy white and pink striped slipper to wear indoors to Africa! But, some strange moments occurred. When I walked around, a male colleague saw my slipper with pop-eyed and cried out in surprise, “Pink…………..???”

“Yes, my friend, it is pink, so…?”

“Oh… You should be very careful for that.”

“…….?”

He must have some fixed boundary of choosing color to make himself to be a masculine? I took a little offense at his shock and came back to my room. Another colleague, who was my roommate, also saw my slipper and showed exactly same response, “Pink…………….???”

I shocked them again when I took out my purple laptop. A female colleague saw it and asked in surprise, “Charles! Why is your laptop pink?” Well, there was some choice that I could remonstrate with her. “My friend, this is not pink, but purple!” “Okay, Okay… You’re right.” She consented reluctantly. After that, whenever I talked with her, she asked me earnestly couple of more times, “By the way, Charles! Why is your laptop pink?”

They didn’t ask me directly, “Are you gay?” However, they seemed that they wanted to hear from me directly like this, “Yes, because I like pink, I am gay.” They were so nice Utahns who didn’t cast me out even if I looked somewhat suspicious. One more moment happened when our group came back to the U.S. from Ghana. I finally took out my U.S. cell phone to turn it on. Sadly, my cell phone case was also pink. Another female colleague said in a low voice, “Pink…?” ‘Okay okay… Your response doesn’t that surprise me anymore.’ Right after this Africa trip, I threw my purple laptop into the storage, gave my fancy white and pink striped slipper to my “female” friend, and bought the new cell phone with “pure white” cover. Also, I threw all pink shirts away with tears in my wounded hearts (half in joke). It was the moment that I had to abandon my color preference to survive (Yes, I was really serious at that time).

What is your sexual orientation?
Is it the exactly same as your gender identity?

And now, I am attending half-day Gender & Sexual Diversity (GSD) Training provided by Palladium, global health consulting firm. 13 attendees from USAID, CDC, and other implementing partner join today’s training session to discuss gender & sexual diversity. I have been working with Palladium and Johns Hopkins University to research the impact of GSD training funded by PEPFAR (The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) in 38 developing countries, and today’s training was great time for me to talk about Gender & Sexual Minority (GSM) with staff who have been working so hard to change people’s awareness towards lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), men who have sex with men (MSM), and sexism.

Wait, what is GSM? Why do we make the new terminology and make ourselves confused? GSM means “People whose gender, sexual orientation, or sexual characteristics differ from what is typically expected.” It is a broader concept than LGBT and MSM that you can be also considered as GSM. If I had stuck to my pink preference ignoring whatever people think about me, I would have been called, GSM. However, I just wanted to be normal and I didn’t want to argue with anybody by saying “Pink isn’t just for girls!” Wait again, what is normal? Since when people started thinking men cannot like pink to be masculine? How much we have been suffering from this kind of social convention, not expressing yourself to the full?

Clicker for the training! 

People have complex identities. It must be impossible to express every single emotion and define themselves who they are. Even if you are confident to say who you are and what you really want to do in the future, it can always change once you sleep and get up in the next morning. If you really like to dissect the color as black and white, sex as man and woman, and weather as summer and winder, where is true diversity? How do we ensure highest attainable standard of health for LGBT and MSM? I know, God created us, either man or woman, but we are still, imperfect creatures who always need love and sincere affection from somebody else. GSM is not the existence who we blame, but we embrace. We may be locked in the cage that is defined by our society.

I was really impressed by one attendee’s self-introduction.

“I am cis-gender. I am gay. And I am from Chicago.”

I haven’t heard of “cis-gender,” but it was actually great way to explain ourselves if you are not “trans-gender.” (It reminded me cis- trans- complex molecular structures in organic chemistry class). It was also good to see that he declared himself as a gay and said he had his husband. The time is already past when coming out man dies out. To be honest, I don’t want to argue whether same-sex marriages should be banned or not. But at least, I eagerly want to see that every single person regardless of their gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, and sexual orientation has the same human right to be respected. Also, I hope to see that people can become ally, who openly support the equal treatment and human rights of gender and sexual minorities.