The Castro means something

Jimbo had an interesting entry about how gay people fare as they progress through their days. He was writing it after a very thoughtful entry from Dogpoet which is considering how gays should react when provoked - in this case the protesters coming into the Castro and being chased out.

Now that I have adopted Iowa as home (for a little bit at least), I've seen the bizarre counterpoint to the DC, ATL, SF gay ghettos where I spent the last 10 years. Out here, gay people come out at 20 and move to Chicago (never to return) or they get married at 20, have a bunch of kids and then come out at 40. Its the Iowa Midlife Crisis. And I'm not exaggerating for effect - if you go to the bar and meet someone over 40, odds are that they were married to a woman at some point.

Since I always knew I was a screaming homo and never made any serious attempts to use chicks as cover growing up or in my 20s, this is why I find the Iowa Midlife Crisis bizarre. Did they know they were gay? Did they get married out of love or because it is expected? Why spend your 20s in a domestic trap?

For me, the most powerful aspect of Brokeback Mountain was the concept of looking at a gay couple before the concept of gay existed. The most searing quote in the whole movie is when Enis exclaims "Its because of you that I am like this." Thus I suspect that many people growing up in small towns in the Midwest lack any concept of gay - particularly before mainstream media turned gay into the 'new black'. I grew up in Raleigh (not terribly progressive in the 80s, but not a complete backwater either) and so natural variation among the folks in town was fairly normal to me. However if you come out to the Midwest and go to a small town, you will see little to no variation at all in terms of color and appearance. Jack McCafferty said the night of Obama's win in the Iowa Caucuses that Iowa is the whitest place outside of the North Pole (It is pretty much true).

I'm meandering towards a point here - the Castro was the place in the 70s where those who "knew" what they were could go. It represents more than just a place where the gays live. It was a place tenderly portrayed by Armisted Maupin in the early parts of Tales from the City. It was a refuge for gays of all ages and a promised land for those who could get there from the oppressive hinterlands.

The Castro, to me at least growing up, was the place that people from Raleigh went and everyone knew why. You not only went there to come out, you essentially told everyone you were gay when you went there. It was the west coast oasis for gays and, being one of the first gay ghettos, allowed people to figure out what gay meant to them. So for those who were bold enough to make the move in the 70s, the Castro became one of the first little incubators for defining what being gay, and more specifically an urban gay, was. In short, it is hallowed ground.

The Castro is full of memories of our past - the clone as the look, the brutal crackdowns by the police in the bars, Harvey Milk's rise and his assassination, the sex clubs and sexual freedom, AIDS, the active genocide of the gays by the Federal government via their indifference, the subsequent loss of an entire generation of gay men (that gaping hole remained, rather obviously, when I was there in the 90s), and the reblossoming of the culture once condoms became part of the wardrobe and retrovirals hit the scene.


So I agree with Dogpoet, I wish I was there. I'd chase people out - it wouldn't even require a second thought. As I was telling Bubba the other day - straights have 99.999% of the country as theirs. Let us have our 0.001% of the country as our space.

Particularly a place as special to American gay culture as the Castro.