That Time I Met Homophobia in an Elevator

They didn’t fear or hate me so much as seem to feel sorry for me

It was the early-aughts. I was in my first few years of college, although I can’t remember the exact calendar year. Probably 2003 or 2004. It was definitely during the Bush/Cheney administration… because I would obsess daily over how so many fellow Americans wanted to stop me from ever marrying a future husband.

Now, here we are, almost two decades later — and such dogma is still being promoted openly and flagrantly by Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio and Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas.

Anyway, back to the past …

I stepped into one of the elevators at Hibbard Hall, the main humanities building on our campus. I was traveling downward, from a floor several stories up — probably after having met with a professor for something. I honestly don’t remember. But I do remember initially being overjoyed to see two other people already in the elevator, having descended from one of the floors above me. I can’t ride in elevators alone, due to partial-claustrophobia.

As I entered, I could see I was walking straight into a conversation-in-progress. They were an older woman and an older man (maybe both in their fifties?), possibly a married couple. I had no idea who they were or what they were doing on-campus. Likewise, they had no idea who I was…or how the proposed Federal Marriage Amendment had been spurring continuous suicidal thoughts within me for months.

Both of them (I’m just going to call them “Gus and Gert”) stopped talking as soon as I stepped in the elevator. When the doors closed, Gert looked at me and, out of the blue, blurted out:

“You’re not gay, are you?”

I had to do a double take. What a bizarre turn my day had taken.

Thinking quickly, I replied with matter-of-fact honesty:

“Um, actually…yes, I am.”

Now it was Gert’s turn to do a double take. She glanced at Gus, clearly taken aback.

“Oh,” she said, in a mildly stunned tone that sounded like a monosyllabic substitution for “Heh!-well-I-sure-wasn’t-expecting-to-hear-that.”

Obviously, Gert had been anticipating that I’d declare myself to be a flaming heterosexual. She glanced at Gus again, as though they were communicating telepathically. It was like Ma & Pa Kettle had merged with the Betazoid.

Then, she turned back to me with an intently quizzical gaze. “But aren’t you afraid of getting sick?” The sheer innocence in her voice was almost adorable.

Almost.

Did this ballsy broad really just ask me that? Am I being Punk’d, right now? Is Ashton Kutcher about to frolic into our elevator after it stops and chest-bump me?

Thinking quickly once again, I said nonchalantly:

“Well, I’m a virgin.”

It was true. I was indeed a virgin at that point in my life. Not that it was any of Gert’s business. Did she really just ask me that?!?!

She made eye contact with Gus again. She raised her eyebrows, salaciously…clearly even more surprised by my latest response. With almost dumbfounded fascination in her voice, she remarked aloud to Gus:

“Ah! ... a gay virgin…”

…as though I were some museum oddity for all of the lovely and generous straight people to gawk at.

By this point, the elevator had made its final stop. The doors opened and I practically sleepwalked out onto the ground floor. Gus and Gert emerged alongside me. They probably bid me a cordial farewell. I probably politely replied. I honestly don’t remember.

All I remember was feeling like I’d stepped into The Twilight Zone. I half-expected to see Rod Serling waiting for me just around the corner, ready to ambush me with an exit interview.

Nope, no hidden cameras, to my knowledge.

Let’s unpack what had just happened to me. Keep in mind, this is all purely conjecture on my part. I have never again encountered Gert or Gus. I’ve also never, since that day, ever had another complete stranger spontaneously ask me about my sexuality while I was stuck in a confined space with them.

What I think was going on: Gus and Gert were probably a middle-class conservative married couple, possibly evangelical, with no experience around openly LGBT people, either in their families or social circles. They’d probably been having a casual conversation about AIDS or the audacity of gay marriage or Matthew Shepard or Queer Eye For The Straight Guy or some other LGBT-adjacent topic. Verbally opining to one another why “those queers” want “special rights”…or some rhetoric along those lines.

Then, I’d unintentionally interrupted them with my pesky entrance into the elevator. Oooops, silly me… daring to exist.

Gert probably noticed me and correctly assumed I was a student at this university, then spontaneously decided to pick the brains of “one of them whippersnappers.” Of course, she also made the assumption I was heterosexual. You know, cuz most “normal” people are.

My theory is that Gert wanted the opinion of a random White twentysomething kid — who just HAD to be straight and would automatically agree with her on this, right? — in order to validate the idea that LGBT people are being such a nuisance to everyone else’s Extraordinary Heteronormative Utopia.

And that lucky subject-of-interest ended up being me. Woohoo.

Little did Gert realize, until it was too late and she’d already crudely blurted out her question… nope, he’s one of them queers. One of those sex-obsessed heathens who has been corrupted by Will & Grace and Margaret Cho. Kids these days…

I should have been mad…right? Most people would be more than a little irate if a complete stranger suddenly began making unsolicited commentary about your sex life. But, somehow, I wasn’t.

I was intrigued. Morbidly intrigued… but intrigued nonetheless. This must have been how Jane Goodall felt, studying the chimpanzees? Or maybe more like how TV fans of Dallas felt when Patrick Duffy turned around in the shower?

As soon as I’d confirmed to Gert that I was indeed gay — dashing her hopes of wandering across a token elevator-riding Millennial straight boy who could reinforce her bigotry — her brain must have shifted gears. When she saw this plain-looking, unfashionably-dressed, not-too-obvious, sort-of-straight-passing queer dude admit to being a member of what she probably viewed as some salacious country club for deviants…she shifted from seeking validation to having pity toward me. Hence, her inquiry about me being at high risk for sexually-transmitted diseases based on her assumption that I was regularly engaging in unprotected anally-penetrative intercourse.

News flash: I’m a “side.” Not that the term “side” had been coined yet, back then. Mad props to Joe Kort, in all sincerity.

I know what many of you are probably tempted to say. Those of you who happen to be LGBT family yourselves, or supportive straight allies of ours…

“Eichy, it isn’t your job to educate them.”

I know. It should never be anyone’s job to have to educate simpletons who lack critical thinking skills. But here’s the thing…

I would have been more than happy to have educated them. If my subsequent assumptions about the hypothetical mindsets of Gert and Gus were indeed accurate, I would have loved to have sat down with them and engaged in some honest dialogue about what so many members of the LGBT community truly wanted from the federal government and from society as a whole.

Of course, there wasn’t time for that. Nor was it an appropriate venue for such intellectual stimulation. It was a friggin’ elevator, for Eros’s sake!

I don’t mind being a “spokesperson” to counter misinformation. I’m someone who tends to break the mold. I possess a cacophony of intersectional identities of competing privilege and oppression…and I own all of them. But I apologize for none of them. I feel no guilt for any of what makes me who I am. I make room for people who happen to belong to the same “groups” as me, even if their ideologies differ from my own. I emphasize how my voice is one of many, and we are all trying to be heard.

No one should have an inherent duty to educate anyone else about anything in life. But, as Gert blatantly showcased, there needs to be more education in so many facets of American life.

I’m but one of a massive blessing of unicorns on this planet who are living proof that challenging assumptions is amongst the healthiest exercises in which our culture as a whole can engage.

Part of me feels angry. Gert and Gus were emblematic of the pedestrian mindsets throughout the world that have been responsible for centuries of sexual repression.

But another part of me feels guilty…that I had this burning desire to share my story with them (even though I was unable to actually do so), as though I could somehow have the arrogance to become a symbol for the vastly diverse human landscape that is our LGBT+ community.

Another part of me feels embarrassed…that the Russian Roulette of social conservatism landed upon me, randomly, that day…and I had to be reminded that I was still a shameful second-class citizen (as though I’m not already ruminating about it, at all times of the day).

And yet another part of me feels sadness. Fleetingly forlorn when mulling over the notion that, maybe, if someone who had my type of conciliatory skills was empowered with a more visible national platform and megaphone — there wouldn’t be so many Guses and Gerts out there trying to control the lives of complete strangers, thereby giving cover to opportunistic politicians who seek to do the same.

I could also be completely off-base regarding my speculation as to what Gert and Gus had been discussing and thinking, on that very peculiar afternoon. But these theories are really my best guess.

I’m still laughing about how ludicrous the entire scenario was, after the fact.

And simultaneously crying (painfully!), inside…as my heart deflates, thinking about the millions of Queer people who came before me — as well as those who will be born after I’m deceased — having our lives twisted, maligned, and branded like cattle because of elitists who want to see their own sex lives venerated as superior. Trapped in twin cages of societal judgments…and our own judgments of ourselves.

Yes, this was 100% a true story that actually happened to me.

Now, somebody hold my rainbow martini…