On Gay Role Models

The other day I posted a piece discussing the limitations of making lists of illustrious gays in order to combat homophobia, both from without and from within ourselves. To clarify, such lists have little, if anything to do with searching for or providing gay role models.

Identifying people whose lives and work provide us with intellectual and spiritual guidance and inspiration is essential for our growth, both as individuals and as a community. This is especially the case for us gay men and women since we have so long been victims of oppression and prejudice that there are few of us who can honestly deny having had sexual orientation related self- esteem problems, at least at some point in their lives.

But this is quite different from simply composing a list of famous people who happened to be homosexual. As a homosexual man, I find little strength or consolation in the figure of a homosexual artist or political figure who occasionally, or even frequently, snuck off to have a secret tryst with another man. Federico García Lorca is among the greatest poets of the XX century and even a courageous political figure who was murdered by the fascists, but his tortured and clandestine homosexuality hardly provides us with a useful role model.

Even men such as Leonardo da Vinci, whose homosexuality was well known but essentially unrelated to his accomplishments, don’t, as I see it, provide us with very useful homosexual role models. Leonardo is a source of constant admiration, almost veneration, for me as a civilized man (I like to think of myself as such), but in his case, the homosexual context is pretty much irrelevant.

Political figures such as Barney Frank, or the openly gay mayors of Paris and Berlin, or even political figures from the ancient world, such as the Roman emperor Hadrian, on the other hand, are much a different matter, as are artists such as Cavafy, E.M.Foster, Alan Ginsberg, Gide, Caravaggio, Lucien Freud, Fassbinder and Almodóvar. These are all men who integrated their homosexual identities with their political or artistic accomplishments. The politicians fully represent all their constituencies, unabashedly including themselves and us as gays (or, as Hadrian, set up monuments throughout the empire honoring his lover); the artists have created a universal art in which the acceptance of homosexuality is an implied imperative.

It’s not necessary, however, to limit our consideration of homosexual role models to those who have taken a public stance or created works with overtly gay themes. I also accept as homosexual role models men such as John Maynard Keynes and Walt Whitman who were privately open about their homosexuality, quite at peace with it, allowed it to inform a good deal of their work, but because of their times and social situation, could not be more direct and public concerning their sexual orientation.

I refrain from elaborating much further on the categories from which our role models should be selected. I have no intention of trying to establish a canon for qualifying as a gay culture hero. Those criteria should, in fact, be open ended and forever subject to discussion. Such discussion itself would be a sign of health and vitality within the gay community. My point is simply that in order to provide a useful role model, a figure should be something more than just illustrious and gay.