Why I’m NOT going to miss Aubrey Dan!

            Recently Richard Ouzounian took time out from NOT reviewing plays written by Canadian writers, directed by Canadian directors, and starring all-Canadian casts, in order to write two articles in praise of Aubrey Dan.

One of the articles -- “Why I’m going to miss Aubrey Dan” showered him with glowing hyperbole. For instance, Ouzounian wrote tearfully of Aubrey Dan’s struggle and his ideals  --

“If I love him for one thing, it was that he had the courage to bring Next to Normal to town, even if the theatre was too big, the run was too short and everyone knew it was going to lose money.”

And speaking of one of the openings of Jersey Boys, Ouzounian effectively deifies him:

“I like to think of that night as the high point of Dan’s five years as a producer, a time of communal joy and possibility.”

            So who is this Aubrey Dan?

            Frankly, I don’t care much for Aubrey Dan and his so-called ‘achievements.’ I’m sorry if Aubrey Dan is – to his closest friends and family -- a kind little man who wears funny hats. I have nothing, personally, against the man. But what he certainly represents to me is the sad decline of Canadian theatre.

            Dancap presented 19 productions between September 2007 and January 2012.

            Wow.

 Impressive, eh?

            Not when you understand a few other important details.

             I will not miss Aubrey Dan because he represents to me a celebration of death of Canadian theatre; he represents a dance on our theatrical graves.

            NONE of the nineteen Dancap productions were Canadian productions. What is a Canadian production – for those for whom it has been so long that they have forgotten? It is a play written by, directed by, and produced by Canadians, starring Canadian actors.

             I will not miss Aubrey Dan for reminding us that we are nothing but a bunch of dumb Canadian yokels, who can’t appreciate, understand, or create art.

            Most of the Dancap productions were remounts of productions that were hits on Broadway. When I first started doing theatre in the early 70s, Canadians had very little possibility of seeing their own stories written and directed and performed by Canadian actors, writers and directors. The theatre scene was dominated by American second-rate musical touring productions at the Royal Alexandra Theatre. The 1970s saw the rise of alternative theatres in Toronto – Tarragon Theatre, Factory Theatre and Theatre Passe Muraille, all of which celebrated Canadian work and talent. When Aubrey Dancap produced Next to Normal – much vaunted by Richard Ouzounian, it was, for me, the ultimate slap in the face to our Canadian theatre scene. Once again, in a kind of tragic return to 1970, we were being asked to run (not walk) -- not only to see a remount of a Broadway hit -- but one which starred second-rate (in this case not even Equity professional) actors in a touring production aimed at dull local provincials who don’t know better.

         I will not miss Aubrey Dan for his dedication to squashing radical thought and squelching originality.

            Most of the Dancap productions were either remounts of old or somewhat old chestnuts (South Pacific, My Fair Lady, Miss Saigon, Avenue Q, the 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) or remounts of lousy or somewhat lousy recent Broadway shows (The Addams Family, Come Fly Away, Happy Days, Memphis, Next to Normal, 3 Mo Divas, The Toxic Avenger) juke box Broadway musicals (Green Day’s American Idiot, Jersey Boys), nostalgic sing-alongs (Colm Wilkinson, Donny and Marie Live) or Canadian musicals that slavishly imitate Broadway models (Anne of Green Gables, The Drowsy Chaperone).

             I will not Miss Aubrey Dan for focusing a generation of young creators on producing silly, irrelevant work.

             When I think of The Drowsy Chaperone – that’s when my eyes really well up with tears. I certainly enjoyed the show for what it was (charming fluff, which ain’t easy to put together let me tell you). But to have all that Canadian talent focused on NOT offending people, and on ‘making it to Broadway,’ well, I’m sorry to say it, but the success of that show has gone a long way towards nurturing a generation of Canadian young actors and writers whose only goal in life is to be a success SOMEWHERE ELSE in plays THAT HAVE NOTHING TO SAY.

           Do you think I am being unfair to the cute little ‘chapeauphilic’ Aubrey?

            In case you haven’t had a chance to look around you lately (been watching too many musicals and listening to your ipod?) the world is kinda falling apart. We need writers and artists who think and create and challenge themselves and others. Aubrey Dan represents, for me, all those who would rather fiddle and let Rome burn.

            And Canadian culture, our culture, indeed all contemporary, indigenous, thoughtful, challenging art was not built in a day.

            But in no time at all it will be gone.

The Hunger Games: Homophobic Garbage

First of all, can we get out of way the notion that this movie ‘leads young people to reading’? I can’t remember exactly what I  was reading when I was 14 years old, but around that time I had discovered Ayn Rand -- as well as J.D. Salinger,Victor Hugo and Dostoevsky. Perhaps my interest in reading can be traced to Hortense O’Dell, the librarian at Harlem Road Public School in Amherst, New York. Once a week we would go to ‘library class’ and she would read to us, mostly from Charles Dickens. I remember her kittycat glasses, and her left leg thrust forward forcefully in her long skirt -- poised to seduce us, through literature.

Nowadays it’s a different matter. Young people are not expected to read adult books. There is instead a wealth (and believe me it’s all about wealth) of ‘young adult’ titles.  Increasingly, these books are tied – as nearly everything is – to multi-media mass marketing schemes. Harry Potter was not a book; it was a video game, a movie, as well as countless promotional objects. The idea of ‘getting young adults/children to read’ was merely the first phase of a marketing tool aimed at tricking gullible young people into buying products.

This is one reason I get so angry when people celebrate the latest tween phenomenon -- The Hunger Games .

I haven’t read The Hunger Games and I don’t intend to. I am here to speak about the movie. While watching it at a matinee in Hamilton, I had the treat of sitting behind a group of breathlessly quiet teens who gazed up at the screen as if in church, while two much older working class denizens in the back row chatted loudly. In a quite unprecedented switch of roles, the young people felt obligated to shush the septegenarians.

So what’s going on in this movie? As film fare, it’s a pretty straightforward action flick peppered with ‘touching’ moments. Nothing special. In terms of race issues the movie manages to foreground a touching non-white character named Rue (whose moniker is reminiscent of a flower that Ophelia tosses during her mad scene in Hamlet -- a book that, sadly, most fans of The Hunger Games will likely never read). Rue dies in a moment of particularly nauseating sentimentality. The presence of this non-white character in the film has apparently offended some young moviegoers who expected the characters to be white. Apparently they didn’t ‘read’ the novel too carefully. Well, so much for anti-racism!

When it comes to sexual politics the movie tries to cover its misogynistic ass by featuring as its central character a woman who is also an archer. But she is also (surprise!) pursued by two young men. Is it just a co-incidence that the heroine of Twilight was also pursued by two hotties? I don’t think so. If these movies tell young women anything, it’s that -- whatever their actual talents might be -- their actual worth is only to be measured through the eyes of attractive males.

Then there’s the homophobia. The heroine Katniss (um, what’s up with that name?) lives in a poverty stricken, mountainous American rural mining town – it’s obviously meant to represent Appalachia. The people who live in that town appear to be predominantly God-fearing white country folk. If they lived in present day America they would be members of the extreme Christian right. But alas, Katniss must desert this tough yet wholesome country life and travel to a big city that somewhat resembles the Emerald City of Oz, except everyone who lives there appears to be homosexual, or at least ‘homosexualized’. The men are all effeminate and wearing make up and bizarre dandyish outfits, and the women appear to be men in drag. This is no accident. The romanticization of  Christian, wholesome country life and the demonization of amoral corrupt city life (i.e. Sodom and Gomorrah) is promulgated daily by the Christian right. Born-agains  believe that evil people  (i.e. desiring women of all ilks and homosexuals) are created by cities. This message is masterfully concealed in The Hunger Games by the notion that the city folk in the movie are merely a symbol of dystopian ‘decadence.’ Well they are, but if they were decadent macho men and their feminine wives, being decadent with their decadent families, it would present a very different picture than the image of queer party people as a God-loving heterosexual’s nightmare.

Okay, I recognize that the movie contains no crosses, and no mention of the word God, or Christianity. But the images speak to a Christian worldview.

True, using homosexuality as a stand-in for decadence is a time worn tradition. After all, it makes sense. (Queers can’t make children and contribute to the ‘future’ unless they do something unqueer – copulate with the opposite sex -- in real life, a test tube, or in mommy’s belly). And on the bright side, I’m sure this movie gave tons of work to unemployed gay actors who were more than grateful to portray the depraved cityfolk -- unless of course the director (as is so often the case) thought homosexual urbanites were best played by heterosexual actors stretching their ‘instruments.’

If what I’m saying about the film seems crazy to you, then it may be that the idea of the effeminate male as queer, decadent undesirable/impotent figure of fun is so incredibly entrenched in our culture these days (especially with the rise of the gay male TV designer fag) that we don’t even notice it.

Well…. speaking of dystopias….

Mid-March Mini Reviews…

1. Very good and it kinda made me cry:

Albert Nobbs and Friends With Kids

I don’t know what to say about Albert Nobbs, but if you are gay or thinking of being gay -- run don’t walk, because it’s all about being alone and having no sense of community and then finding it. It makes me cry now just writing about it.

And Friends with Kids well ….duh! I would see ANYTHING with ADAM SCOTT in it. He is the BEST EVER FOR SARDONIC! He gets to cry in this one (exploring his range) which made me cry too. Why did this picture get SO MANY bad reviews? I can understand why Liam Lacey didn’t like it – after all he’s an incredibly uptight old geezer. But do the other critics hate it because they hate Jennifer Westfeldt -- because she is a great writer and director AND actress, and she wrote and directed AND starred in this, AND on top of that she is also beautiful and married to the talented and hot John Hamm? Or is it because the movie promotes ‘alternative lifestyles’ (not so popular these days)? Or it could just be because she’s a woman?

I forgot about that…..

2. It didn’t make me cry but it was very very good, and all about the anti-hero:

Rampart and Puncture

Rampart is a really good picture about a hot but screwed up police guy starring the aptly cast Woody Harrelson. It‘s really good but you won’t hear about it or even see it, ever. Puncture is only available on DVD and is another great picture about a very important social issue (needle pricks in hospitals cause disease!). But you won’t ever see this movie either. The reason you won’t see either of these movies is because Hollywood has decided that only movies that feature heroes who are fine, upstanding, religious, spotless, family men like Rick Santorum and Stephen Harper are suitable for us (and of course our children) to see. The era of the complicated/conflicted anti-hero is over (unless it’s an abusive Dad as in Tree of Life -- we’re supposed to NEVER STOP LOVING abusive Dads – that will probably ALWAYS be allowed, compulsory even). But hot drug addicted sex fiends who are also heroes? No way. That’s over. These two pictures are the last gasp of one of my favorite genres, the ‘bad boy as hero’ movies. (sigh!)

3. Only if you’re 13…..

Goon and Project X

If you’re thirteen you’ll really like Project X because it’s all about kids who have a crazy party in their backyard hoping they are going to fuck hot chicks. The message of this movie is ‘your father will love you and be proud of you if you have a huge party in your backyard that is very violent and wrecks the neighborhood.’ This movie will probably inspire lots of kids to have huge crazy violent parties in their backyards. In fact it already has. See:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2113065/Teen-inspired-Project-X-movie-house-party-invite-trending-Twitter.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

And Goon -- well it’s another great movie for 13 year olds. The message is: ‘hockey violence is a lot of fun,’ and ‘men have penises and balls swinging between their legs.’ (As somewhat of a thirteen year old myself I was pleased to be reminded of the second fact.)

4. Not even if you’re 13……

Wanderlust

I don’t know what to say about this because it was SO dirty it was SO sex obsessed you’d think I would have liked it -- but I didn’t. Could it be Jennifer Aniston?

Beyond Psychology

I was listening to Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along the other day and it finally occurred to me why he’s so over-rated. It isn’t just the fact that the music is, let’s face it, not consistently hummable, and the dialogue is not merely witty, but self-consciously so (at a recent Toronto Sondheim love-in, the enormously talented composer/lyricist -- interviewed by Robert Cushman -- was beyond self-congratulatory about his own perilous wit. And Sondheim’s Finishing the Hat book?  Please Stephen, spare me the insight into your peerless genius!). No, what I object to is that a Sondheim musical sometimes provides me with the theatrical equivalent of a good therapy session. For example, there’s a song in Merrily We roll Along called “Now You Know," which is all about (you guessed it!) growing and changing. The lyrics are “It's called burn your bridges, start again. You should burn them every now and then. Or you'll never grow!” It’s almost as if Sondheim jumped from his therapist’s couch directly to his composing desk; he could hardly wait to graft those magnificent pearls of growing/changing wisdom into his next musical.

            Don’t get me wrong. I adore Sweeney Todd and A Little Night Music (yes I was in the front row watching Elaine Stritch sing the Hermoine Gingold role recently on Broadway. And yes, I witnessed her tragically and heroically struggling to remember the lyrics). But I could never figure out why I hated Into the Woods so much.

Well, it’s because of all of that ‘growing and changing.’

            When I was in university I roomed with a friend. As we only had one stereo, I had the player in my room, but there was a speaker in his. Once, after we had a fight, I played my favorite song from the movie musical version of Lost Horizon (featuring  Liv Ullman) “Living Together Growing Together” -- to patch things up. It sent my friend out of his room screaming. This is pretty much the way I feel about Sondheim’s gleeful psychologizing. And it pretty much sums up the way I feel about psychological art.

Again -- don’t get me wrong. I’m all for therapy, and have spent most of my life IN it. And I think I’ve improved (really, I’m better). But I work very hard to keep ‘gems of psychological insight’ out of my novels and plays. I’m not suggested that playwrights shouldn’t write fascinating or multi-faceted characters. What I’m suggesting is that the goal of a play should not be to impart ways in which we might best ‘grow and change.’ That’s boring and preachy, and it doesn’t work dramaturgically; it makes for bad art.

What do you find, for instance, in many, many modern plays, countless TV shows, and lots of movies? Well when you get to the bottom of all that drug taking and sexual promiscuity, it turns out, in most cases, all anyone ever really wants and needs is love. But I don’t think that really needs saying again – at least not by artists. Psychologists can say it all they want to. But if a play sets out to tell you the most significant truth about human relationships, inevitably that truth will be that people don't love themselves -- and each other -- enough.

What’s left? I certainly don’t mean to suggest that plays should NOT concern themselves with the difficulties of -- or the humour in -- trying to find love (that it is the subject matter of most comic narratives), only that they needn’t tell us again that we need love, or how to become the type of ‘better human’ who achieves it. Instead playwrights might focus on politics or metaphysics.

What is the meaning of life? How must and should people act together and relate in a civil society? What is good and what is evil? Is there a God? What is the importance power, submission and sex within our culture? How do we negotiate human ‘difference?’ What about nationhood and identity – do they matter?  Are we and can we be responsible for our own actions? Do we all perceive the same reality? And what about capitalism, anyway?

These are the kind of questions that -- when explored -- create drama of depth and significance. The dramas I wish to see may be poetic, allusive, and abstract, and hopefully they will NOT be didactic. In the meantime please just don’t bother to sing me -- once again -- that old Beatles song.

           

Mini-Reviews Again!

1. Really Fabulously Awful Please Run Don’t Walk……

The Vow. OMG! (ROFL) I’m telling you this box office smash is the most enjoyable piece of garbage made to please 13 year old girls that Hollywood has come up with since they broke the bed on their wedding night in the last Twilight movie! I was entranced! In the much celebrated ‘vow’ of the title, Channing Tatum says “I will promise to love you faithfully,” but because of his lack of good old-fashioned theatre school articulation training it comes out “I will promise to love you facially” which of course makes a lot of sense (if you watch porn). OMG! Channing Tatum farts in a car and Rachel McAdams closes the window so she can smell it! I’M NOT KIDDING! (That’s intimacy for you!) Okay one small quibble (it’s more of a kibble, actually…). There is no way that any self-respecting woman (or homosexual) would ever let Channing Tatum sleep naked on the couch instead of in bed where he belongs -- amnesia or not!

So there!

2.     Good  For 13 Year Old Boys And Me

Chronicle. Wow I really enjoyed this movie. What does that say about me? I liked watching all those boys flying and then I liked watching them come to the difficult  realization that they have to be more careful with their superpowers. It was kind of all about growing up. Kind of about my own life actually.

Hmmm….

`     3. Wish It Was Better

We Need To Talk About Kevin. Too arty. And why doesn’t the kid look like his Dad at all? But I guess that happens. Unfortunately I kinda started laughing even when I wasn’t supposed to. The problem for me was the little boy who turns out to be (oops, spoiler alert!) a serial killer is a lot like most of my best friends. But to its credit, this movie brings up the elephant in the room for me (and I think everyone).  How come family members are always supposed to like each other? I mean, what if they don’t? And who said they had to?

Was it God?

      4. Ummm…I dunno

W.E.  I really don’t want to trash Madonna because I love her and I honestly think if someone else had directed this movie it would have gotten way better reviews. That said.….um…I think she wanted to make a movie about spousal abuse but somehow ended up making a film about The Duchess of Windsor by mistake. What she needed was someone to say “Which movie do you want to make, Madonna? Decide or else it will be a fucking mess.” But she divorced him, so….

Oh well.

Penis N. B.

I must comment on Joanna Schneller’s recent article about penises in The Globe and Mail. She complains that penis jokes have become predominant in television shows and movies and are therefore lowering the general cultural tone. On one level, I’m quite glad that Schneller is talking about penises. I believe they are the elephant in the room that comprises western culture.

But hey, it’s not their fault.

We live in a phallocentric culture. It should come as no surprise to anyone that people are making penis jokes from time to time in a culture where the penis rules (after all penises can be bullies, and bullies are terribly tempting to make fun of!).

The penis remains largely invisible in our society. And yet our cultural values are predominantly male. People who make a success of their lives must be strong and brave -- and well, hard. And those values are associated with the active partner in sex. We pay lip service to feminine values on Mother’s Day  – to vulnerability, grace, gentleness, sweetness, love, and acquiescence. But those who exemplify the feminine virtues do not receive our highest admiration. Ultimate praise is reserved for the active, (phallic) dominant, achievers. Men hold the power. They run everything, and the only fundamental difference I can find between men and women, is that men have penises and women don’t. Courbet painted a beautiful portrait of a woman’s vagina called The Origin of the World. But in fact we all know that the world did not begin between a woman’s legs. Women were only given the power to procreate after a snake screwed everything up.God created the world, and he was a man.

So if we live in a culture where men (and male values) rule, why are penises so  invisible? Well we are certainly embarrassed about our essential phallocentricity – that is part of it. But the reason phalluses are generally not talked about is because they are so terribly sacred that they must not be treated casually, i.e. considered as normal aspect of, let’s say, nudity. In other words we don’t want those penises pulled out unless we mean business, and unless the penis is at its active best (i.e. erect) So why would penis jokes, and even the odd penis sighting in a Hollywood movie (ie Michael Fassbender’s baseball-batty member in Shame) be typical of a culture that worships the phallus and is also terrified that something may threaten its ascendency? Well a joke releases, momentarily, some of the incredible seriousness that surrounds issues raised by the heterosexual ‘act of love’ (Will he get it up? Will he impregnate his wife? Will the human race, please God, continue?). And laughter -- as per usual -- triggers a release of this fear.

So the penis can carry on.

So, I would certainly have to agree with Joanna Schneller in two respects: not only are penis jokes cropping up in mainstream media somewhat more than usual, but they certainly are “a way to seem subversive without actually being subversive.”

But Schneller’s explanations for the recent media obsession with phallic jesting are less convincing. She says: “access to Internet pornography has created a world of sexters for whom nothing is off limits” and “the current generation of twentysomethings, raised with less homophobia, is embracing Kinsey’s theory that all sexuality is on a continuum.” I don’t think we can blame sexting (there was sex before sexting and penis jokes galore, too). And though our hypocritical, politically correct culture pays lip service to a sexual continuum, you won’t find adolescent males in high schools embracing the term ‘bisexual’ (these days only a very few timid college age females are willing to do so.) No, don’t worry -- we aren’t becoming (sigh!)  – yet again -- more ‘sex obsessed’ or ‘decadent.’ 

Hollywood and TV are obsessed with dick jokes because the mainstream media is an extremely closeted place. Though cultural commentators still get giddy with optimism when a new gay character arrives in a movie, (“Is Gay the New a Trend?” etc…) Ellen still has to be squeaky clean (ever heard of a dildo Ellen?), K.D. Laing must remain largely silent, and when it comes to all those out gay movie stars…um Rupert Everett anyone? The Hollywood Gentleman’s Agreement About Homosexuality has sealed so many pairs of otherwise gossipy lips that John Travolta can get caught kissing some dude on an airplane runway but hey – it just turns out that’s the way he always greets his baby’s nanny.

Schneller mentions the uncontrolled priapism in the upcoming hockey movie Goon starring Seann William Scott and Jay Baruchel. Well when I recently caught the sodomitically obsessed trailer for the film I thought “Wow – this movie is a big inside homo joke that the producers, the writers, and all the straight boys on the set are having with Seann William Scott!” (Scott is rumoured to be gay). Can’t you see the whole cast (along with Seann) giggling away in the out-takes over Seann’s necessary closeted faggottedness? But the only glimpse we get of that from Hush Hush Homophobic Hollywood is, of course a plethora of silly onscreen ‘did you drop the soap?’ gags.

The penis jokes we see in popular culture are the result of a sexually repressed, homophobic entertainment industry. All that pent up sexual energy and all those lies … well they have to go somewhere to find a release.

The result?  What Joanna Schneller seems to think are too many penis jokes.

But as far as I’m concerned (you may have guessed my inclination in this direction) there can never quite be enough.

Is Trans Gay?

Who cares? Why talk about identity categories at all? When people ask me why I am interested in terms like gay, straight or transgendered, I speak of Brandon Teena, who was murdered in 1993 in Lincoln Nebraska, or Jamie Hubley, the Canadian gay teen who committed suicide due to depression over bullying on October 15, 2011. In such cases words like dyke, fag and trannie are hurled at people as terms of abuse. In other words I would  -- like the founders of the gay liberation movement -- be pleased when we all become ‘one.’ Unfortunately, the time has not arrived. Until it does, we must own the terms of abuse that are so often hurled against us and be proud queers, dykes and trannies.

I am specifically interested in whether or not transgendered people are gay. This is not because I don’t like them, or because I am jealously guarding my own personal identity category. (In fact, in The Globe and Mail I recently spoke out about what I think is wrong with the gay identity today). No, my concern is about what seems to be a general assimilationist tendency in minority politics. In other words many think that racism, misogyny and homophobia are pretty much over, and that people are tired of listening to what whining feminists, anti-racists and gay libbers have to say. Even many members of the Tea Party and the ‘Occupy’ protesters work hard to be considered representative of the majority.

Gay men are obsessed with reminding everyone how much like straight people they are. They’re the only ones these days that really want to join the army (Bradley Manning may be one infamous exception) and still line up for the best pews at Church. And long after most straights have come to view marriage with cynicism, gay men still get all dewy-eyed at the prospect of turning their favorite dirty ‘john’ into their respectable husband Johnny.

And while many trans people are passionately committed to being members of a radical minority, others, well -- they’re kinda not.

I should begin by stating that I consider myself a transgendered person. I do not live 24 hours a day representing myself as belonging to the gender that I was not assigned at birth. Many people consider this to be the working definition of  transgendered. But I am a proud drag queen and an effeminate gay male, one who makes others uncomfortable with his often unintended ‘flamboyance,’ and is often denied basic human respect, because of that.

In our community there are two kinds of people:

a)  those who want to assimilate

b)    those who celebrate and enjoy ‘difference’

What excites me about the transgender movement is the comittment of those who celebrate their visible outsider status. What is less exciting to me are those who -- when they are able to pass -- decide to take full advantage of the rights and privileges offered to them as heterosexuals. For some transgendered people the goal is to marry a person of the opposite sex, have children, go to church, get a good job, buy lots of cheap products from Walmart, and not ruffle any feathers. Of course one cannot blame them for wanting to affluence and acceptance. But they are not gay – at least in the old 'gay liberation' sense of the word.

To all my trans friends who are married, and have children, and who pass, I would say – more power to you. But unless you want to proclaim your queerness and your difference every day, and experience the corresponding loss of privilege -- which is what being ‘out’ means -- then I would suggest you just call yourselves straight.

            I say this because I used to be one hundred percent behind all trans people. This was partially because I am one, but also, because trans was once the only queer identity that seemed to enjoy challenging the status quo. However, I recently read an article in Toronto’s GRID magazine (by Sarah Liss) about high school Gay/Straight Alliances that stated “‘coming out’ can be a very fraught issue in the trans community, where passing can be a significant part of identity.” As I say, I have nothing against trans people who wish to pass, but if their ‘don’t rock the boat’ approach to their lives persuades young members of the already too conservative gay and lesbian community that the closet is okay -- then we are all in big trouble.

            Yay trans! Yay gay, queer, dyke, fag! (And, yes, okay, yay straight!) But if you want to be exactly the same as everyone else, you are now part of a bigger club that some of us don’t actually want to join, but instead would love to challenge fundamentally -- at the core.