Letters from the Lesbeyond
by Jennifer Schumaker

“Is it Pride or is it Memorex?” (Church Ladies)

(“Letters from the Lesbeyond” is a column I wrote (for 2-1/2 years) for Update, Southern California’s oldest GLBT newspaper. This is one of the articles which chronicle my lesbian suburban pioneer adventure and reflections in the northern area of San Diego County, California. An earlier version of this column was published in Update Issue #1134, September 18, 2003. Update closed it's doors in April 2006.)

I have my own version of that classic lesbian (gay, bi, trans) psychological tape. I will put myself out there to a known or very likely homophobe, get rejected, and thereby reinforce my internalized shame at being lesbian. Living in North County*, I feel like the opportunities for this tape to play abound in full surround sound.

But let’s fast forward through the therapy years, and we find that my tape is reprogrammed.

Or is it?

Sometimes I allow “church people” to press play. The tape is already cued as I walk past a table where there are seated two elderly women handing out literature for the Jehovah’s Witnesses. I do not happen to have a desire to become a member of their faith; yet, as I breeze into the Target in Poway, my tape starts to run, advising me to confront these women.

--Tell them you’re lesbian.
--Make them deal with you.
--Dare them to reject you, while in your heart you secretly hope for acceptance.

Acceptance? From strangers? On what level do I feel this will be a significant, authentic interaction? What is this tape?

I reaffirm that it is just old nonsense, which is why I’m able to pause the tape so often. But the message scrapes away somewhere inside me like the metallic undertone on the worn-out k.d. lang tape in my car’s old cassette player.

Everyone my age has years of memories of denigration of LGBT people. I had no idea those messages would end up replaying in reference to my close friends, family, and one day, to me. So the tape is stored. But does it still run, unaltered, no remix? No overdubbing?

Of course not. I’m out and proud and spreading outness around suburbia as quickly, firmly, and cheerily as I can. But that tape. Those Jehovah’s Witnesses. Why do I want to come out to them? Is it Pride, or is it Memorex?

I decide that it is Pride. On the way into the store, the source of the mental replay is hard to discern. On the way out, it starts to get cleaned up. The updated message overrides the long-stored recording. I no longer hear “They reject me because I’m lesbian.” My new track is more accurate, ringing with the tones of truth: “Because of the bigotry that has hold of them, they reject people with my beautiful lesbian attribute.” I am almost to my car, but I turn around and walk back to them. We have a conversation.

I ask the two women who they represent, and they say they are Jehovah’s Witnesses. I say I thought so, and that I assume I am not welcome in their church. They look surprised and tell me emphatically not to think such a thing. I am direct and polite as I ask, “What do you tell gay and lesbian people about your church?”

Woman Number One looks slightly away and stays looking away. The other replies, “Excuse me?” (I will not bore you or myself with typing out “Excuse me” the number of times she says it as I repeat to her the same question.) She finally answers by saying she has never been approached “by one.” Hmmm.

She turns to her compatriot and passes on the query, “What do we say to gay and lesbian people? Woman One continues to look the other way, apparently studying the neat row of shopping carts. I wonder if she trying to figure out once and for all just how to pull them apart when they are stuck. Woman Two restates her question a little more loudly. Woman One looks over and says “What?” Woman Two raises to a near shout, saying, “I said, what do we tell gay people? You know gay people!?”

Woman One just starts shaking her head “no.” I look at her and ask, “Are gay and lesbian people welcome in your church?”

Now they are both shaking their heads. Woman Two says “no, no” quietly. Both of their faces register bewilderment, but they keep shaking their heads.

I finished our encounter by pointing my finger at myself and asking, “So, I am lesbian. Am I welcome in your church?” They both keep shaking their heads. They do not look like they like communicating this to me, but it is their only response. I say “OK,” and walk to my car, shaking my head.

I have heard many churches justifying bigotry toward LGBT folks with the claim that they “…love the sinner, hate the sin.” These women did not have anything like that prepared. They simply never expected to talk with a real live lesbian. They probably never had to put their church’s policy onto their own lips and reject a human being standing right in front of their table full of literature explaining how to bring peace to the planet.

I had walked back to talk with these women to raise awareness, not to confuse, shock, or hurt them; and certainly not to replay my old rejection tape. I just needed to be there, to be out and present as a member of the LGBT community who lives up here in suburbia. I walked away not just thinking, but truly feeling that the rejection was their loss.

Yes, I was a little sad, but not angry. I show anger when I need to, but when I am running to the store for school supplies for my fifth grader, there is no the time to wreak activist havoc at the strip mall. However, there is time to come out to a couple of well-meaning church ladies. I know that in doing so, I added to my new collection of Pride recordings. I dare to hope that the encounter laid down the beginnings of a track of acceptance in the minds and hearts of those women. Maybe --just maybe-- something, someday will trigger them to hit “rewind” and “play.”

(*In San Diego, locals call the different geographical county areas here as South Bay, East County, Central San Diego and North County. - Webmaster note.)