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| Gay men and lesbians with disabilities say they sometimes feel ignored and isolated from both gay and disabled populations. But increasingly they are networking in person and online to provide each other with support. (Illustration by Jen Mabe) |
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HOME > SOVO SCENE > FEATURE
By: KATHI WOLFE
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ON A RECENT night in San Fran-isco, John Killacky, a 51-year-old writer and video
artist, attended an AIDS benefit with his partner, Larry. During the reception,
Killacky, who became a paraplegic eight years ago after doctors removed a benign
tumor from his spinal chord, says he felt invisible.
“People leaned over me in my wheelchair and asked Larry, ‘How is
he feeling?’” he says. “It’s as if my mind wasn’t
there.”
As a gay man with a disability, Killacky’s experience isn’t unique.
He and other gay disabled people say they frequently encounter discrimination
from not only other gay people, but from people with other disabilities as well.
To bring the discrimination to light, Killacky and Bob Guter co-edited “Queer
Crips: Disabled Gay Men and Their Stories,” which was published earlier
this year and won a Lambda Literary Award for best non-fiction anthology in
June.
Guter says disabled people appropriated the negative word “crip”
in the same way that gay people reclaimed the word “queer.”
“We use it to retain our identity with pride rather than shame,”
he says, noting that crip is used “generically,” to refer to people
with all types of disabilities.
“‘Disability’ is more of a medical or public policy term,”
Guter says. “‘Crip’ is more in-your-face.”
BUT BEING PROUD isn’t always easy for people who are gay and disabled,
some say.
Before Killacky became disabled at age 43, he was athletic.
“The night before my surgery, I went running,” he says.
After the operation, his body froze.
“I got a whole new perspective,” he says.
After Killacky’s surgery, gay men no longer felt comfortable around him,
and he ran up against homophobia among other disabled people.
“In rehab, all of the material on sexuality was for heterosexuals,”
he says.
At a conference for artists with disabilities, there were no openly gay participants.
“A paraplegic comedienne made homophobic jokes at the event,” Killacky
says.
Guter’s disability is the result of malformation birth defects. When
he was six, his legs were amputated below the knees.
Guter, 58, says that he has known that he is gay since he was a little boy.
Coming out was hard, but coming out to himself as a person with a disability
was far more difficult, he says.
“When I’d see other disabled people, I’d be reminded of what
I hated about myself,” he says, noting that the non-disabled world confirmed
his negative self-image.
Guter began to identify with other disabled people eight years ago.
“It was a slow process,” he says.
Today, he edits a Web zine — “Bent: A Journal of Crip Gay Voices”
at www.Bentvoices.org.
“The male gay sub-culture is about looks,” Guter says. “Gay
men with disabilities don’t fit into the queer image of beauty. In places
where gay men congregate … for erotic connection — like bars —
we quickly get the impression that we aren’t welcome.”
BERRITA “RENEE” PARKER, 57, is a lesbian with pulmonary hypertension
and degenerative arthritis. She uses bottled oxygen and an electric wheelchair.
“A lot of social events aren’t accessible or smoke free,”
she says. “If there’s smoke, I’m up a creek.”
Parker says she is excited that “Inhertwined,” an events management
company in Washington where she lives, is geared toward black lesbians and holds
“Say Yes” Saturdays at a “handicapped accessible” club.
Roberta Goldberg, a 38-year-old lesbian who is an interpreter for deaf people
in Danbury, Conn., says lesbian groups sometimes offer interpreters or wheelchair
ramps at meetings or music festivals.
“They feel that they’re ‘sensitive,’” she says.
“But it’s really, ‘We’ll keep you at arms length. We
won’t date you.’”
In Atlanta, lesbian programs sponsored by Charis Circle offer sign language
interpreters on request and provide wheelchair access to their events.
Susan McDaniel Stanley, a lesbian who lives in Bowie, Md. with spinal cerrellbum
degeneration.
She says lesbians seem frightened of dating women with disabilities.
“They think, ‘I can’t be together with a disabled woman because
I’d have to take care of her,’” Stanley says, adding that
this fear is misguided.
“Gay crips” don’t fit the “model,” says Corbett
O’Toole, who operates a Web site at www.disabledwomen.net out of Albany,
Calif.
“The lesbian image is of a woman who can work and support her lover,”
says O’Toole, who has had a physical disability since age 1 and uses a
wheelchair.
“If you’re disabled, it’s hard to be seen as ...
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