Warning: I'm trying to get in a PoMo mindset (gotta write a paper), so this might get a bit funky.
One of the big stories of the day was Governoe McGreevey's resignation and announcement that he's gay and that he's been having an affair behind his wife's back. One of the conversations has regarded some, shall we say, ethical issues with McGreevey's time in office, both related and not related to his affair. There has been discussion as to whether his being gay should be part of the story. Well, it is both necessary and irrelevant. Like it or not, certain things came together this year to make it a story: the rights, roles and recognition of gay issues have taken a prominent position in American political life this year; the lover who he got a job was a male, and there is still a truth in a revision to the old saw that it's better to be found in bed with a dead girl than a live boy; there are other issues of corruption and official misconduct not related to the sexual story, and these may have led to the Governor's downfall.
What got to me, though, was this comment on Kos' thread:
Victim schmictim (none / 1)
Somebody forced McGreevey to hide in the closet? So how do you explain Barney Frank, or former Atlanta City Council prez Cathy Woolard, or my internist, or the Fab Five, or any of the millions of out gays and lesbians? It's 2004, fer chrissakes- nobody is forced to stay in the closet. (emphasis added)
OK, so my first reaction was to call "bullshit". I had a student this past spring who asked to see me about his failure to turn in a paper. It turns out, he came out to his parents and they threw him out of the house. His story is not an isolated one.
At the same time however, there has been a "normalization" of homosexuality in many social and geographic areas. While we have been beaten up in legislatures and elections this year, and we probably will continue to be, we are also enjoying more specific rights than we have in any other time. It may just be the best and worst of times.
The contemporary closet is a result of all of these developments. It is a complex creature. The increasing reflexivity of the social body regarding how multiple sites of social life are also sites of political and cultural contestation over resources and identies has led to new conditions for identity deployments. In other words, there are a lot of levels of "out of the closet."
I consider myself "out.' However, there are two people from whome I intentionally hide and obfuscate when possible. I'm "in the closet" when I'm around my grandmothers. I do so on the request from, and as a favor to, my mother. She knows, as do I, that my grandmothers would make our lives more difficult. They wouldn't have any power over us, but they would be incredibly difficult. I only see them 1-2 times per year and I live over 1200 miles away. Our lives don't really intersect, and when they do it's at an incredibly superficial way. It's honestly probably the better way to go forward to keep it that way.
That's one possible way of being closeted, it's a reason--life is sometimes easier that way. The reasons are various, as are the ways people are closeted. Some are out to family and friends, but not at work. Others are out to friends and co-workers, but not family. Others might be out to certain people in any of those circumstances.
What this draws to our attention are the multiple means by which hetero-normativity is maintained. There are gradations of "outness' and these are related to the severity of the sanctions for declaring a non-straight identity. In some locations, it can still mean a beating, or even murder. In others, it's a disapproving glance. In still others, it's. "Cool! Will you take me to a gay bar?"
The discomfort many feel at disclosures of sexual identity may result, in part, from a disruption in the order of their lives. Assumptions, which we all use to make life easier, can't be made so easily or confidently any more. These disclosures can have other effects that trouble the mind. For instance, the distinction between men and women, at least in their supposed social roles, is troubled by sexual couplings that "violate nature and her reproductive imperative" and other social regulation. The presence of transgender and intersexual people troubles it further. The solid ground starts to crumble.
This is a development that frightens the fundamentalist, leaves others nonplussed, and thrills those of us who think that "all the freaky people make the beauty of the world." As some among us become "normal" others of us question normality and its power effects. New people get to be the freaks.
The McGreevey case demonstrates all these glaring contradictions in maddening play with each other. Homosexuality is both central and peripheral to the story. the fact that it has these conflicting relationships demonstrates that the closet is still with us. As long as heteronormavity remains an organizing social principle there will be sanctions applied to violations of it. This ensures that there will be social sites where remaining closeted is the safest option...physically, materially, emotionally...or politically.