“Charlie”

I found a great advantage in interviewing someone I’ll probably never physically see and rarely hear from. My judgements won’t take away from either Charles, aka Charlie, or I. If Charlie hadn’t told me we were partners for this assignment, I would’ve never known who I was interviewing. A number texted and soon after we organized what date and time we would conduct our interview. Charlie is someone who takes initiative with planning.
When we began, I asked Charlie; “Who are you?” I believe that question, although simple too some, threw him off because he didn’t know how to answer it right away. He asked if he should state his name and I didn’t want to directly influence his answer. “Whatever answer you wanna give to that question,” I said. Charlie replied, “Uhm. . . Jeez, that’s really deep. Well, my name is Charlie, I guess I should say what community I’m a part of so lets just say I’m gay. So I’m a part of the gay, LGBT community. I think that’s a defining community; I’m a white dude and being in the LGBTQ community is something I’ve had to think about. We live in a very straight world, I guess.” I agreed that society was very heteronormative.
Charlie added on, “Yeah, I’m gonna steal that word from you. Yes, heteronormative world. I guess thats a big part of my identity just because you don’t see a lot of representation when it comes to gay couples. . .That’s just a big part of who I am. It’s just something I had to think about a lot. I feel like people in that community, pre high school or middle school, it’s almost like living a lie. I think a lot of times straight people don’t understand that. Granted, I did come out when I was like in tenth grade but at the same time you can’t really show who you are. Honestly, being part of the gay community is a lot of who I am.” As we went further into our interview, that seemed to be a part of Charlie’s identity that composed a lot of who he is because of his thoughts and opinions given to me.
I asked Charlie, “Why are you a part of that or those communities?” which I then had to clarify because Charlie asked me too after telling he was born gay. I clarified; “Like. . .why do you participate in that community? Why are you a member of that community? What draws you to be a part of that community?” Charlie answered, “I think what really draws me is mainly accepting it is, you know? This is contradicting but the most homophobia I’ve ever got from people was from like another gay person which is kind of ironic. I think the reason I’m drawn to the community is that its very accepting of all different types of people. Granted, there’s a lot of racism and toxic masculinity. . .yeah, it’s not perfect. Especially with this whole 2016 Trump stuff: the communities kind of a shit show now. Anyways, mainly what drawed me to the community, it’s kind of like a safe haven, you know? I don’t think some straight people realize the paralyzing, crippling fear and anxiety of being a gay person. You can’t really hold your partner’s hand in public or do any of that PDA. I think in gay spaces, thats where you can do that. There’s no judgement with that. . . I think people like to be with people who are just like them.

You like being with those kinds of people because they just get it. That’s my answer to that question.”
“What does it mean to be a gay man?” I asked. “Well, obviously, it means you’re a man attracted to men. I know other – not even just gay men, lesbians, transpeople – it’s just kind of sharing that common bond between other LGBT people. Growing up and having those difficult experiences. I know a lot of LGBT people and I only know of one of them who had a good High School experience and everyone else had a horrible experience like; bullying, mental health issues. To me, the biggest part is just having that common ground, not trauma bonding, but having like. . .I guess it’s just having, like, that same early life experience and just. . .bonding with a positive connotation.” As someone who is involved in the community as well, I understood where Charlie was coming from. Knowing people went through an experience similar to yours is comforting because you feel understood, seen and heard. You don’t have to justify yourself.
Charlie’s answer leads up to the next question about his community’s culture, He answered: “This might sound a little problematic but who cares? I definitely think that the community is very. . . As of right now, I’m living in a small town but I was supposed to live in the city. The city is kind of like a haven for the gays and other LGBT people. In small towns, it’s very isolating and lonely. As a straight person, I don’t think they get that you can see a guy or girl on the street and flirt. Gay people, it’s really not the same thing. I live in some bumblefuck little town everyone chomping on cotton candy over here. It’s very isolating. In the city, the cultures are different. I would also just say in addition to that, this is what I mean when I say this

might be problematic, it’s very hard to date someone. Warning you, its very easy to find sex or friend with benefits but like, as far as dating? It’s so hard. I don’t know why that is. I have lesbian friends and they experience it the other way around. Maybe its just a guy thing? I don’t know. It’s odd.”
I asked Charlie about microaggressions and stereotypes, what are some he think his community faces? “Ok, so, there’s a word for this- it’s called Fruit Flies1. My friend told me about it. It’s always a girl, especially white girls, it’s like – I had this coworker for example, her name is Claire, and she’s perfectly nice. I’m training her for the job and it casually comes up that I’m gay. Literally her whole demeanor changes. I’m gonna impersonate her: ‘Oh honey! Oh yaaaasss, Queen!’ That’s probably like a microaggression. I don’t know, I would say so. When I came out to my family a lot of them were like chill about it. I’ve definitely gotten, ‘you’re doing it for attention’ but I feel that applies more to Bisexual people. . .I know people who are like, ‘Why are they making their whole personality trait [being LGBT.]’ I don’t think straight people understand how isolated you are. I think most microaggressions come from women. Obviously, I’m over-generalizing but thats my experience, I know it’s not expansive of every gay persons experience. I’ve faced homophobia from another gay person. Long story short, in High School I was a little wild. I was telling a story to a group of people, I noticed that he wasn’t laughing at the jokes. He was also out. He straight up told me to my face, ‘You make gay people look bad.’ I was like, ‘What the fuck?’ The first thing I thought was ‘Fuck You’, but then I was like; If you think about it semantically there’s so much self hate in what he was saying. Anyone who exists is not responsible for what others think of them. If you put it into context of whatever marginalized community a person is a part of, no gay person is responsible for what straight people think of

them. I just told him, ‘Listen, the world already thinks the worst of you before I did what I did.’ You don’t really understand what you mean when you say things like that.”
I closed out my interview by asking Charlie, “Have you had recent changes to your community and how do you resonate?” Charlie replied, “I think in the past years I think representation on TV has increased and I think it’s very, very important but at the same time there’s good and bad to it. Representation is really important because as a kid, there’s years and years of social and societal conditioning that you go through and you’re not even aware of it. By the time you’re ten years old you already have preconceived notions. I remember when I was ten years old; I was suppressing that aspect of me because I didn’t see any gay couples on TV growing up. I thought it was weird. I would definitely say representation has increased. Who wouldn’t want to be represented on TV? It’s a nice feeling, I can just look up to this person – like – this is normal. On the flip side, there’s some aspects to it that I don’t like. I know some gay people that hate that flamboyant potrayal, which I don’t because theres some gay people genuily like that. I think that’s internalized homophobia if you do hate that. I think it’s very white people-centric. There needs to be more diversity to it. You only really see white gay people and that their sole trait. There’s ways to go in regards to that. Queerbaiting is also something that pisses me off. I’m not offended but it makes me roll my eyes. Other than that, I think society has moved past the gay best friend trope. But yeah, I think thats my answer.”