On Outing Ed Koch.

One of the most interesting, surprising (though I guess it shouldn’t be) things about the response to this article about Ed Koch’s “secret gay life” is that a large number of queer people will still argue against “outing” a public figure who had the power to help us but whose investment in secrecy about his own life led him to respond weakly or not at all to our suffering.

I’ve said already that on a personal level, it’s heartbreaking. I feel a deep sympathy for any queer person whose life has been corrupted and hollowed out by shame and fear of living an honest life. And of course on a public level, Koch’s avoidance of the AIDS crisis happening all around him was monstrous. Unambiguously evil. It looms over any good he may have done in one of the most powerful elected offices in the U.S.

Stories like this confirm my belief that the numbers of so-called LGBTQ people are vastly underestimated because they are based on self-disclosure in a society where the risks of coming out are massive, where people fear the loss of status, power, family, friends, their homes, livelihood, freedom, personal safety, their lives. People are always throwing around numbers, 3%, 10%, whatever, as if poll numbers reflect actual numbers of queer people. I have to laugh at the conservative freakout about recent polls showing more young people are identifying as queer. It’s contagious! Societal pressures, stigma, discrimination, are loosening (don’t get too used to it, though), so of course the numbers are ticking up.

To me, the Kinsey numbers from the 1940s have always felt pretty close to reality; over 1/3 of American males have some degree of gender nonconforming feelings or desire or experience. But we’ll never know.