The Trauma of Growing Up Gay (part one)




[align=justify]Homosexuality is in and of itself not pathological; and like heterosexuality, it is a complex expression of multiple personal and historical meanings.

The gay-affirmative psychological literature has been helpful in understanding and exploring what it is like growing up gay. It means being scapegoated, shamed, ridiculed, and hidden. It also means internalizing negative self-esteem, managing it, and growing to an acceptance of oneself.

We wish to take a look at the childhood of gay men. "Not being queer" is a central organizing principle in our culture. Every young boy's experience is shaped and formed within this framework. The young boy, who later identifies himself as gay, begins his life within this "reality". This has potent implications for the development of his own sexual identity.

Gay men often report some awareness of "being different" that started fairly early in life (e.g., well before puberty, often as early as 4, 5, or 6). In looking back, they can appreciate and tie this feeling into their current differentiated and formed gay identity. How do we begin to grasp the nature of this child's experience? This poignant feeling of "differentness" appears particularly tied to one's gender-atypical behavior.

Many more complex processes are also going on in more subtle, less conscious ways. One such process is the lack of mirroring responsiveness to one's early, emerging sexual and affectionate expressions. It is the same-sex erotic fantasies centering on the father (often later repressed) that initially make these children feel so different and reprehensible.

The proto-gay boy often, from an early age, has some beginning awareness of feeling different. He also, to varying degrees, begins to connect this differnentness with something forbidden, terrible, unthinkable. This may perhaps come in a momentary flash or it may be a continual fear; it may be conscious or it may be primarily unconscious. The hatred, hostility, and vehemence with which people around him manifest when using words like faggot, sissy, queer, whether directed at him or others, coupled with his own undeveloped, distorted understanding of these terms, presents a unique situation.

Unlike being Black or Jewish, the gay man as a child is both typically alone with his "differentness," as well as often unclear, confused, conflicted, and horrified by "it". Unlike the Black child whose parents are typically also Black or the Jewish child with Jewish parents and relatives, the proto-gay child typically not only does not have gay parents, but also doesn't even know what "gay" is except as very nebulous and very negative thing. It (his "gayness") either remains unobvious to the outside world and is then "managed" internally alone with varying degrees of consciousness and unconsciousness. Alternatively, it becomes obvious to the external world and is met with intense disapproval and ridicule; further increasing the shame and fear, all of which is almost always also "managed" alone. Unable to react emotionally and/or thoughtfully to the traumatic event, the individual is then forced to keep its presence undigested and powerfully influential, albeit out of consciousness. There is not a sympathetic person to share his feelings with or his own ability to appreciate the injustice of his situation. His numerous injuries, overt or covert, that often occur daily are "suffered in silence". Whether he is overtly ridiculed for being different or covertly hears ridicule and rejection for being different in a way he suspects and fears he might be, or tries to prove to himself that he's not different, these are all injuries that are typically suffered alone, silently, sometimes consciously, often unconsciously. Can this boy voice his tormenting secret? It is unlikely for many reasons. Certainly as a child the "secret" is typically a secret to oneself: poorly understood, dimly realized, fearfully avoided, rationalized, reacted against. Hence, even the private emotional reactions often get aborted, e.g., tears, lamentations, rage, blowing off steam, thoughts of revenge. Can this boy repair his injury or must he accept it? Again, can he correct his memory of humiliation by appreciating his own worth?

The above-mentioned tasks require very complex and highly developed capabilities, clearly beyond the capacities of most 5-year-olds. The ability to empathize with oneself and appreciate that the world's rejection and ridicule is wrong, unfair, unjust, and hence have sympathetic tears or rage, while maintaining a consistent and reliable sense of self-esteem: Who could expect a 5-year-old to accomplish this without enormous external support?

As a result of this inability to react, the traumatic events then become subject to a splitting of consciousness or dissociation. These traumatic experiences are laid down as unconscious memory traces, powerfully influential, reactivated later in life.

A sense of "feeling different" is difficult enough, but when one intuitively senses that it might be related to some of the most taboo, frightening, despised images in our culture, as well as in one's own family, then this is surely too emotionally overstimulating as well as confusing for the young proto-gay child. The boy who feels generally valued and approved of in his family, who hears his parents viciously talk about "faggots," receives unarticulated trauma that gets structured internally, remains and affects the gay adolescent and adult later on in life.

The "coming-out" the very gradual process of beginning to identify oneself as gay, to slowly accepting oneself as gay, and simultaneously disclosing this identity to others: this is an enormously complex process that touches one to the core. It is not merely a series of discrete events leading to increasing self-disclosure (as gay) and reduced isolation and emergent support. The sophisticated gay adult within a large urban gay community, who is "out" to himself and others, still has a very rich developmental history. He has laid down internal structures that do not easily vanish or change even with the more current overt support from his community. Even overt support from his family of origin, now finally available in the best of cases, does not "make up" for the early deprivation. In other words, there is still much internal work to be done: the emotional sequelae to lifelong deprivation, isolation, and humiliation do not resolve themselves through social interventions alone.

Abridged from original with permission (Alan Blum, Ph.D. and Van Pfetzing, Ph.D.)

To be continued

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The Trauma of Growing Up Gay (part two)




[align=justify]The following is a case discussion to illustrate some of the major themes of the "Trauma of Growing Up Gay". A 38-year-old gay male attorney, Bud, comes to treatment with an agitated depression of two years duration following the breakup of his first homosexual relationship. The patient encountered his former lover at a meeting where he found himself tongue-tied, unable to converse, ashamed and embarrassed. Bud spent several weeks preoccupied with whether he was "really loved" during this six-month relationship or deceived, manipulated, and exploited. Specifically, he wonders if he was taken advantage of financially. The evidence in support of this position is sparse. As we explored this more deeply, painful insecurities emerged about his own self-worth. This attractive professionally successful gay man was intensely critical and judgmental of himself. Bud compared his own appearance, intelligence, success, and status with that of other individuals. This accounting would always leave him feeling deficient and lacking. His attractions were toward those whom he idealized. He could not register even the more blatant cues when someone he idealized expressed an interest in him. He concluded that no one desirable was attracted to him.

It became clear that Bud felt himself defective and at risk of exposure if he were to become emotionally intimate with another person. His self-sufficiency and detachment pervaded our sessions together. He talked compulsively with little awareness of the therapist's presence; in fact, he typically seemed stunned by any comment from the therapist. It was as if he was in the consulting room alone. His erratic attendance further amplified the detachment and distancing that were so characteristic of his life.

A first awareness of relatedness to the therapist, many months down the line, was his expectation of exploitation, reminiscent of his fears regarding his ex-boyfriend. Over time, these defenses and fears regarding relatedness, which he was originally completely unaware of, began to soften. As this occurred, affect states emerged in primitive, disjointed and frightening ways. The therapist had to tolerate a lot of "not knowing" during this period.

Over time, the intense affect states became labeled and understood as neediness, vulnerability, and wishes for attachment. It became clear that these feelings were deeply intertwined with the threats, rejection, and humiliation that had pervaded his childhood. His resulting internalized sense of defectiveness and crippling shame was central.

Gradually we were able to reconstruct his immersion in a hostile environment at school, subjected to spoken and unspoken criticism, and left to parents who embodied achievement and desirability with no acknowledgment of his own struggles and shortcomings. His parents had been the picture of an ideal couple to the outside world. His father was a successful physician and decorated veteran of World War II. He exuded enthusiasm, confidence, and capability. Bud's mother was beautiful, sociable, and admired. Their desirability in the community contrasted with his own ostracism. Bud existed in their shadow. Until he excelled as a swimmer in his final two years of high school, his father showed no interest in Bud. Bud felt swimming was his first success in a masculine pursuit. Despite this success, Bud felt defective and was left alone within this experience. He still felt it best to avoid exposure to others and to shield himself from the barrage of hostility and hatred directed toward him. He did not have the means to articulate his experience in this isolated and traumatized state.

One cold rainy day later in the treatment, he enters the consulting room with a comment about the "wonderful" weather. He lapses into a quiet reflective reverie, which contrasts with his usual pressured speech. His Associations lead him to memories of his first year in elementary school. On a rainy day, he would feel snug and safe inside the schoolroom focused on a solitary project. As he experienced the comfort of this memory, he identified a dreadful foreboding that intrudes and carries him to further painful recollections. He could feel comfort within the classroom because he had a secured place. His performance in this structured space spared him the threatening exposure he knew awaited him outside. He vividly recalled a classmate's sudden punch to the stomach that took his breath and left him beyond words or tears. The sensation itself immobilized him with no point of reference to organize the experience. The punch was delivered as a challenge to fight and he was disparaged with an unknown word - "sissy." He recalled repeated abuse that left him with a deep sense of alienation, shame, and hurt. He felt himself to be undesirable and different from other children.

This sense of "differentness" was poorly understood, dimly realized, and fearfully avoided. He had a secret that he must hide or he could lose everything in an instant. His social interactions were conceived around self-protection: Never allow anyone to detect his difference, even though he could not identify the defining qualities of his difference. His world had begun to shrink by the early age of 5. He was not free, as the other children appeared to be. He had identified a life or death task that he sensed but could not articulate.

Bud's psychotherapy ultimately provided the opportunity to experience the range of feelings, along with the traumatic circumstances, which had been too painful and disturbing to recollect alone. In fact, his functioning had seemed to depend on forgetting these emotional wounds. Yet as he did remember, he began to experience his own aggression in a freer, more direct way. He recognized how alone he had been as a child and adolescent. This was not to say that he had not had friends or, at times, even been popular. The popularity was based on who others thought he was. He cultivated an image to exclude those very sexual emotional aspects of himself that were not mirrored in childhood. He replicated the same aversion to himself that he had been subjected to from an early age. He lived with constant vigilance and anxiety about being found out. Whom could he have turned to for understanding and support?

The patient consistently began to recall years of accumulated ridicule and ostracism. He dreamed that he was in a social situation in which a young boy was exhibiting a snake. He attempted to move away surreptitiously rather than risk drawing attention to his terror of the snake. He maintained his composure on the surface yet the boy sensed his distress inside and aggressively forced the snake in this direction. He panicked, attempted to flee, but the boy flung the snake toward him. The snake clung to his shoulder. He awoke terrified.

His associations to the dream amplified the long-standing fear he had been left to mange alone throughout his life. The snake-boy recalled the all-powerful and idealized masculinity represented by an exhibitionistic aggressiveness that he felt belonged to other boys and not himself. They could do whatever they pleased. They were unafraid. The patient felt the dream represented his struggle to hide his fear of discovery as different. No one else in the group reacted to any difference in him, but the young boy sensed it, pursued him, and exposed his vulnerability to everyone else.

This dream reflected a turning point in the treatment. It vividly and concretely portrayed his origins. The realization of his utter and complete isolation finally penetrated him in a deeply personal way. He knew at that moment that there was truly no one he could have turned to for understanding and support. These experiences as a child were finally becoming organized, understood, and affectively real. As he recognized his plight, he began to feel compassion for himself. Gradually the compassion replaced the shame that had been so pervasive. Concurrently, his anger began to replace fear, the other dominant affect of his life.

Bud took a roommate into his home. This was his first shared living experience in over twenty years. It became clear in the treatment that Bud had a fantasy love life with his roommate. As he acknowledged these feeling, his shame and fear were mobilized. He anticipated and feared the therapist's critical judgment. It became apparent that his roommate did not reciprocate these feelings. Bud decided to share his struggles with his roommate, who didn't reject him, but acknowledged the limitation of the relationship. These unrequited feelings blossomed into an intense passion that interrupted Bud's typical isolated activities of watching television and video ****ography. He began to socialize, partly to manage the intensely emergent pain of his unsatisfied cravings for love. For several months the therapist worked actively to interpret Bud's shame and sense of defectiveness that unconsciously aborted his initiative toward reaching out toward others. As he began to experiment sexually and socially, Bud found that he craved physical contact. His desire to touch and hold was enormous and felt overwhelming at times.

His dissociated traumas had isolated him from huge areas of his inner life, which threatened a recapitulation of helplessness and despair. He had held an aloof contempt for this childhood vulnerability. There was no tenderness for himself as a child; all yearnings for contact and tenderness had been squelched by a terrible fear of punishment and annihilation. He had longed to achieve adulthood as rapidly as possible to escape, or at least limit, his exposure to further abuse.

All these defenses were necessary for his survival as a young child, but left him cut off as an adult from his own emotional world. Consequently, emotional relationships-intimacy threatened to activate his dissociated traumas. Vulnerability, tenderness, the fear of being found out, these were the very things he had worked assiduously to avoid. The patients deep longing for an intimate loving relationship could finally be articulated now that the splits were healed.

Seven years after his treatment began the patient could acknowledge the damage he suffered at the hands of others while growing up. He could feel the reality of the terror, sadness, humiliation, and hurt, but now with compassion for himself. These feeling, as well as the specific memories associated with them, no longer activated a deep shame and sense of deficiency, which he must hide. He could show himself for who he is, imperfections and all.

This integration brought him to realize that he had abused and hurt the one person he had loved so dearly. He had subjected his boyfriend to a harsh, critical scrutiny and pushed him away. He could now tolerate the love that had threatened him then, so many years before. These moments of realization brought tender tears of pain for all the suffering and loss they had both endured. The poignancy of these recognitions was in contrast to his look of utter disbelief when I had originally suggested that his boyfriend had really loved him.

This man had begun treatment as a very detached, disconnected, self-sufficient individual whose elatedness to toners was severely impaired; his dissociations were pervasive and had rendered him a shell of a person. Over the years of treatment, as he began to finally truly experience for the first time, the pervasive traumas of his life as a proto-gay child, he became present, real, connected to himself and the therapist, in ways that had been impossible earlier.

Abridged from original with permission (Alan Blum, Ph.D. and Van Pfetzing, Ph.D.)

Dr. Pfetzing is in private practice in Hollywood, California.
Dr. Blum is in private practice in Brunswick, Main.

Please send your comments to: info@iraniangaydoctors.com[/align]

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Invisible, Black & Gay:
When Gay Is The Part That Doesn’t Show





By Chuck Tarver
Creator of the Blackstripe.



[align=left]This article first appeared in the February, 1989 (Black History Month) issue of the now defunct Delaware Diamond the Gay Newspaper for the First State. It later appeared in the September, 1990 issue of Network the Newsletter of the Black Men’s Support Network, a Delaware Organization for Black gay and bisexual men. Both the organization and newsletter are no longer in existence. The article appeared both times without a byline. I reprint it here with the hope that others will find their voices.[/align]



I hate being invisible. Being both Black and gay, I haven’t developed the courage to fight on two battlefields. So I’ve chosen one by default; the obvious one, the easy one, the Black one.

What’s easy about being Black? Nothing, but my struggle for a positive Black identity is filled with support and affirmation. Since the beginning I have had the love of family, the strength of community and the force of history on which to build a foundation. Allies and role models are clearly visible.

As a gay person, I’ve feared losing the love of family, and facing the wrath of community. I’ve searched through an obscure history. Allies are gay friends also trying to remain invisible and straight friends sworn to keep my secret. My best role models, Black lesbians and gay men; successful men and women who are doctors, lawyers, and African chiefs, men and women who could have had a profound influence on me as a child, were the most invisible. Just as now some Black child thinks “he or she’s the only one, because I’m invisible.

While I openly share the beauty of my Black experience, insight gained from being gay is shared only when it’s safe. Black publications proudly announce their arrival, while gay publications arrive hidden in plain manila envelopes.

While I can’t think of a single thing which would make me want to be White, the notion of giving up all of my talents just to be normal often seems attractive.

When I’m hurt as a Black person I have an instant support network. When I’m hurt as a gay person, I’m left to lick my wounds until I find a safe place.

Often I feel the answer is to tell the world, I’m gay. However, I lack that courage. I fear taking on another label and providing people with yet another reason to view me as a target. It’s difficult enough educating people to see Black people as multi-dimensional and not flat stereotypes. Why take on the added burden?

I suffer as a result of this decision. People who honor me for my talents, still maintain the perception that gay people are somehow evil or inferior. They have no idea that much of what they admire is the result of my being gay. The skills and strengths developed to cope with a painful reality have positive effects on all facets of my life. James Baldwin in his essay, "Notes of a Native Son" perhaps says it best. In referring to the writer as artist he says, “...the things which hurt him and the things which helped him cannot be divorced from each other; he could be helped in a certain way only because he was hurt in a certain way...�

All groups of people have a need for self definition. Black people and gays are more exposed to and influenced by definitions that come from the majority, than by internal group definitions. Even refuting myths gives negative ideas validity and challenges our own perceptions. As a result, we question our statements of self and the process of self affirmation becomes all the more difficult.

While I appreciate the support of sensitive Black straight people and gay White people, I sense that because they see themselves in me, they somehow fail to fully appreciate who I am. I am as unlike them as I am like them.

Just as Black people need distance from the distorted image reflected by Whites, so too do we as gays need an environment in which to affirm ourselves. For those of us who are both Black and gay, the process is all the more difficult. Not only do we have two sets of stereotypes to sift through, we’re claimed by two groups.

Straight Blacks and White gays develop group identities that further distort who we are. When people think, "gay" they see, “White�. When they think, “Black� they fail to see “gay�. As a result, Black straights and White gays create some of the worst obstacles to a positive Black gay identity.

The worst obstacle however, is presented by Black gays. Our success in being invisible robs us of knowing ourselves and each other. It further robs us of being known on our own terms by Blacks, gays and other majorities. Yet, the risk of being visible is one that too few of us is willing to take.

Someday I’ll marshal the strength to fight on two battlefields. Until thin I’ll choose the obvious one, continue to be invisible and hate it.



Chuck Tarver Copyright © 1999

Rousengo[/b]…Sorry these three articles you’ve posted is to put it politely utter and complete rubbish…really…I’m going to detail my reason for saying this in a minute however…but let me state this first.


I’m in absolutely no doubt that being Black & homosexual must be bloody difficult, because obviously African community quite rightly in my view do not wish to embrace the whole culture of homosexuality without questions as they have already done in the West..

That said I recognise that it must be difficult being black and openly gay, within a traditional black culture.. However whilst I accepting these difficulties, I do not accept the premise, sorry contrived arguments you presented to underline this issue..

Firstly the part 1 of your article is clearly trying to hard to prove an non existent point, contradicting itself in so many different levels….for example is the author arguing that Homosexuality is Nature or Nurture? This article appears to suggesting that it is totally Nature, but latently coming out in early childhood, my obvious question is since when did ANY child regardless of sexuality have sexualised thoughts especially at 5 years old?

Flipping this back to the beginning of the article, the Author lays on the emotive arguments really THICK...by talking about Homosexuals, being ‘scapegoated’ ‘shamed’, ‘ridiculed’ or ‘hidden’…this begs the obvious question how would anyone KNOW that a person is GAY? Last time I check there wasn’t a scartlett mark on their foreheads signifying a person’s sexuality.


Then there is the other contradiction when the author states ‘unlike black or jewish a gay man as a child is both typically alone with his differentness’ [/i]personally I found this assertion erroneous and insulting as it attempts to belittleand minimise black identity issues, I know from Professional and established research that this argunment just does not stand up to scrutiny I cite CLARK and CLARK’s blues brown eyes doll experiement…that completely undermines this premise..as one obvious example of black identity issues.

Then amazenly it states that gays don’t have gay parents, and appears to suggest this as a disadvantage…Well Rousengo apart from the obvious contradiction of THAT statement. I can only state how ridiculous I found that attempt at an argument.. but it begs the question should we now moniter all children and have those with alleged homosexual tendencies placed within gay households?…and what would such a gay parenting model look like I wonder?

I have to say that at this point I really couldn’t be bothered to waste any more time on this Americanised load of rubbish at legitimising Homosexuality ..because to say the line of thought is poor is a mild understatement..

Moving onto the second article..by ‘chuck Tarver'..written I highlight in 1989…more than 15years ago …obviously the first thing to say is that the climate of the world has significantly moved on from 1989 hasn’t it?


But let me move on, this is yet another poor attempt to link Homosexuality to race discrimination..and missing the target very badly..very badly indeed… It starts by talking about being ‘invisable’ and 'fighting a fight on two fronts..being ‘gay’ and ‘black’..and so it goes on, the author says he choose the ‘easy fight’ the ‘black one’… That bit right there, lost me from the get go..how patronising how disgusting, how insulting….

Maybe Rousengo, you can go and look up the stat’s on the comparative numbers of Gay’s being in prison, the mental health treatment or in poverty and then ask your self whether being black is ‘easy’… Did you actually engage your brain when you decided to post this piece of crap to articulate your thoughts?

When pray tell did you last hear of Police profiling gays in regards to crime, or gays being harshly diagnosed in regards to mental health?

There is many more poorly thought out and often patronising points littered through out this joke of an article..but I especially like the crap about.. ‘straight blacks’ develop group identities..but the poor down trodden Black gay’s are hidden..obviously you don’t watch American next top model…a nationally rated show.. where the lead stars are Mr jay (gay) & Ms Jay (Gay)…I guess they are typical iof those hidden black gays so traumatised at birth….oh please.

what is disappointing is that you have a case, one that might even be interesting…however you typically miss the plot with this attempted glorification of homosexuality FIRST, wrongly in my view at the expence of common sense…try again this effort is just utter and complete rubbish..