Being
bisexual in the newsroom has been
a piece of cake: I’m
invisible — no one thinks I truly exist.
Much
as the rest of society — including “the media”— tends
to dismiss bisexuality as counterfeit
homosexuality (of course
you’re “bi” — nudge-nudge, wink-wink),
straight and gay colleagues
have alternately been bemused or
bewildered by — but
generally tolerant of — my claims and protestations
over the years
that: (1) I actually have had real,
all-encompassing attractions to
certain individuals regardless of
gender (“bi” is such an outdated
and — in its own way — limiting word and concept,
but it communicates
quickly and fits in a one-column
headline), and (2) I
actually am monogamous (well, these
days).
It doesn’t help (or hurt) that I’m
not a hot young thing (never
was), nor a highly visible on-camera
anchor or reporter, in large part
originally
because, when I was starting out,
I couldn’t
have been out in the days before
NLGJA’s
Garrett Glaser blazed the trail
on TV. Now
I’m at that age where, for all intents and
purposes, my sexuality is irrelevant.
After
all, do you want to think about
your grandparents
being sexual? Yech! And, yes,
through marriage, I am a grandparent
eight times over, and through my
late husband
I have many nieces and nephews.
Besides,
I’ve come out so many times
over the years that frankly I don’t remember
who knows I’m bi, so at this point it’s
more an academic exercise and chore
to
come out. My, how blasé I’ve gotten; I
guess that’s progress.
Also,
I work on a copy desk: The commas
and hyphens just don’t care anymore
if I’m gay or straight or both (although I
do sometimes wonder about that
question
mark, and quote marks always
did strike me as rather fey).
I suspect
the same is true of on-camera
reporters covering a fire:
The
flames don’t care what your sexuality is, as long
as you capture the
story in an accurate, compelling
way.
Of
course, being bi, I like to fancy
I have some special insight
into stories and language
that no one else seems
to have, including
supersensitivity to gender-neutral
wording, and advocacy in
news meetings about covering
lifestyles outside of the
straight/gay, monogamous/promiscuous
paradigm. Not that
those stories have ever seen
the light of day on a regular
basis at
general newspapers I’ve worked at. Again, this
issue is fairly academic
for me these days, as I currently
work at a business publication,
where we’re primarily interested in who made what
deal,
not whom that person lives
with.
Another
frustration besides not being believed
by gay and
straight colleagues is
the resistance to change:
Several of us tried
to get NLGJA to expand
its name when it first
began, but to its
credit it did create a
secondary title and mission
that mentions the
B and T words, as do virtually
all its correspondences
and
brochures. I was even recruited
to serve on its Rapid
Response
Task Force last summer
after the infamous New
York Times headline
over a faulty story about
a highly dubious Northwestern
University study that claimed
bi men don’t exist. I guess that
makes me a unicorn or a
sasquatch, but the Times
figured I’m just
dishonest. The headline
read: “Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality
Revisited.” The study and even the Times report
never suggested
men who identify as bi
were lying about
their sexuality. To this
day, the Times has
never apologized or run
a correction to
speak of, just letters
to the editor.
However,
my assumably perceived chameleon karma doesn’t seem to have
gotten in the way of acceptance
or rejection
for assignments, as far
as I know. I
apparently have been
promoted or denied
promotions over the years
based on my
perceived skills (or
lack of them). I’ve done
OK at copyediting, news
editing and
reporting, not so good
at schmoozing,
being suave and urbane,
personable or
witty, and I’m clueless when it comes to
office politics and peccadilloes.
In the distant
past, it appears, there
was one time
when I was apparently
passed over for a
job because I was a little
too gay for such a
visible position, but
that appears to have
been the exception. And
then there was the
time I lost out on a
promotion to a lesbian
younger than me (who,
by the way, was and
is a stellar journalist).
Still,
I served four terms as president
of the Los Angeles
Newspaper Guild (AFL-CIO),
co-founded or led
other journalism
groups in Fort Wayne,
Ind., and Minneapolis,
helped found the
L.A. chapter of NLGJA,
and have had other
positions of responsibility
in other civic, queer
and journalistic
organizations, so I
guess people tolerated
me just enough to
let me do these chores.
Then again, they were
(and are) almost
always chores no one else
wants to do and often
with the worst pay
and worst hours in
the
business. Hmm. The
stereotype is that
bisexuals are promiscuous
sluts. You don ’t think that’s why?
Nah.
