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On Being Different
Moving personal account by a very fine writer, on being a gay man.
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First published January 1, 1971
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June 12, 2024
Perfect read for Pride Month. I was surprised by how emotional this essay made me feel. Originally published in 1971, it is an invitation to not forget our gay history and to celebrate the people who had the courage to become visible when being gay was still illegal.
January 13, 2022
"Human beings need to give and receive love. Does it really matter whom we choose to love so long as we are loving?"
My first 5-star reading of 2022. It couldn't have been more meaningful and impressive than what it was.
I remember one afternoon in July, 2011, almost eleven years ago; I was in my room, sitting on an old rocking chair that belonged to my grandpa, my father was standing near the door and my mother was sitting on my bed. I remember a long silent, a silent which somehow made me feel nervous, because I knew, I knew I was about to tell them something really important to me.
I was 15 years old, and that was the year I decided to come out to my parents, the first people who knew my truth, my 'secret'. I was scared though, and to be honest, I don't know why. I suppose everyone who has lived something like that has been somehow scared, because you are not quite sure what's coming next.
Another long silent, I didn't know what to do, what else I could say, but suddenly my mother talked, and she told me, she didn't hug me right away, but she told me: "you know we love you, and no matter what, we will always love you" (in Spanish, of course). And that's it, that was enough for me at that moment.
Before our talk, I felt as though I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, but then that feeling was gone forever. I found out that I had the best parents in the entire world – I was finally able to trust someone, and, as Merle Miller wrote in his essay: If I had been given a choice (but who is?), I would prefer to have been straight. But then, would I rather not have been me? Oh, I think not, not this morning anyway. ... On such a day I would not choose to be anyone else or any place else., to be who I really am.
On Being Different: What It Means to Be a Homosexual is not only an essay written as a response to an 'article' which was against homosexuality, but it is also a powerful message about human rights that everyone should read. Here, we have a perspective of how many people, many voices had to make a difference, and eventually make history. We also have an interesting foreword, a complete afterword which is a good conclusion to the previous essay, some appendices, basically a very well done piece of work.
Perhaps it's important to mention this essay is focused only on the LGBT history in the United States, since his author is American and he is mainly talking about his own experience and the like. In addition, some events which are mentioned in the book, such as the movement of 1969, were crucial to getting a better life for many people in that country.
Fortunately, during the last decades, the lives and rights of LGBT people have been improved in many countries from all over the world (including my country), and even though we still have a long way to go, I am sure that everyone will be able to live their own lives in their own way at the end of the day. If Miller were alive, he would certainly be proud of what we have done so far:
"I am much more optimistic than when I wrote the piece, much; the laws, as I said, will be changed, sooner than I thought. Efforts are under way in every state, and they will, I think, succeed."
My first 5-star reading of 2022. It couldn't have been more meaningful and impressive than what it was.
I remember one afternoon in July, 2011, almost eleven years ago; I was in my room, sitting on an old rocking chair that belonged to my grandpa, my father was standing near the door and my mother was sitting on my bed. I remember a long silent, a silent which somehow made me feel nervous, because I knew, I knew I was about to tell them something really important to me.
I was 15 years old, and that was the year I decided to come out to my parents, the first people who knew my truth, my 'secret'. I was scared though, and to be honest, I don't know why. I suppose everyone who has lived something like that has been somehow scared, because you are not quite sure what's coming next.
Another long silent, I didn't know what to do, what else I could say, but suddenly my mother talked, and she told me, she didn't hug me right away, but she told me: "you know we love you, and no matter what, we will always love you" (in Spanish, of course). And that's it, that was enough for me at that moment.
Before our talk, I felt as though I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, but then that feeling was gone forever. I found out that I had the best parents in the entire world – I was finally able to trust someone, and, as Merle Miller wrote in his essay: If I had been given a choice (but who is?), I would prefer to have been straight. But then, would I rather not have been me? Oh, I think not, not this morning anyway. ... On such a day I would not choose to be anyone else or any place else., to be who I really am.
On Being Different: What It Means to Be a Homosexual is not only an essay written as a response to an 'article' which was against homosexuality, but it is also a powerful message about human rights that everyone should read. Here, we have a perspective of how many people, many voices had to make a difference, and eventually make history. We also have an interesting foreword, a complete afterword which is a good conclusion to the previous essay, some appendices, basically a very well done piece of work.
Perhaps it's important to mention this essay is focused only on the LGBT history in the United States, since his author is American and he is mainly talking about his own experience and the like. In addition, some events which are mentioned in the book, such as the movement of 1969, were crucial to getting a better life for many people in that country.
Fortunately, during the last decades, the lives and rights of LGBT people have been improved in many countries from all over the world (including my country), and even though we still have a long way to go, I am sure that everyone will be able to live their own lives in their own way at the end of the day. If Miller were alive, he would certainly be proud of what we have done so far:
"I am much more optimistic than when I wrote the piece, much; the laws, as I said, will be changed, sooner than I thought. Efforts are under way in every state, and they will, I think, succeed."
March 21, 2013
Every baby gay read this (and straight people too), and reflect on the ghost of gay liberation past (know your history, girl). There may indeed be closets and bullies and asshats like Justice Scalia and mean crazies like the Westboro Baptists. But it does indeed get better, and Merle Miller reminds everyone of that not so distance time (in the grand drama of history) when being in the closet wasn't a personal choice but a necessity, and when publicly coming out wasn't a big deal - it was enormous. Thank the gay gods for people like Merle Miller and all those who came before, who paved the yellow brick road.
June 16, 2021
I’M NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING
Pieces like this, reading a slice of your own history makes me si incredibly emotional. I had a similar experience with Carol/The Price of Salt; just reading something that you know made such an impact and helped get things to where they are now. So that I can enjoy the laws that they fought so hard to obtain. So that I can live proudly without fear of what it will do to my career. Although we still have a LOT of work to do, reading about how it was back then really makes you realize how far we’ve come and how better it is now. I was just on the verge of tears the whole book. (And yes I also fully cried a bunch).
Also, whisper-shouting “suck a dick” to the men that said incredibly homophobic things is weirdly entertaining.
*cough* Epstein *cough*
Here are some amazing quotes that absolutely made me bawl:
“It’s no secret that you, that one, has such-and-such colored hair, is yea high, weighs thus and so, and so on, but when you keep one oart of yourself secret, that becomes the most important part of you.”
“Look, goddamn it, I’m homosexual, and most of my friends are Jewish homosexuals, and some of my best friends are black homosexuals, and I am sick and tired of reading and hearing such goddamn demanding, degrading bullshit about me and my friends.”
A Note: Merle would have been delighted with the laws that have been passed since his death making homosexuality a basic human and civil right.
(that one mad me cry so hard lol)
“Until de 1980s, there was a deep gulf between gay men and lesbians. But when the epidemic arrived—even though they were mostly unaffected by it themselves—lesbians by the thousands selflessly reached out to their stricken gay brothers. They provided great care, as well as vital political support in the streets in the search for a cure.”
Pieces like this, reading a slice of your own history makes me si incredibly emotional. I had a similar experience with Carol/The Price of Salt; just reading something that you know made such an impact and helped get things to where they are now. So that I can enjoy the laws that they fought so hard to obtain. So that I can live proudly without fear of what it will do to my career. Although we still have a LOT of work to do, reading about how it was back then really makes you realize how far we’ve come and how better it is now. I was just on the verge of tears the whole book. (And yes I also fully cried a bunch).
Also, whisper-shouting “suck a dick” to the men that said incredibly homophobic things is weirdly entertaining.
*cough* Epstein *cough*
Here are some amazing quotes that absolutely made me bawl:
“It’s no secret that you, that one, has such-and-such colored hair, is yea high, weighs thus and so, and so on, but when you keep one oart of yourself secret, that becomes the most important part of you.”
“Look, goddamn it, I’m homosexual, and most of my friends are Jewish homosexuals, and some of my best friends are black homosexuals, and I am sick and tired of reading and hearing such goddamn demanding, degrading bullshit about me and my friends.”
A Note: Merle would have been delighted with the laws that have been passed since his death making homosexuality a basic human and civil right.
(that one mad me cry so hard lol)
“Until de 1980s, there was a deep gulf between gay men and lesbians. But when the epidemic arrived—even though they were mostly unaffected by it themselves—lesbians by the thousands selflessly reached out to their stricken gay brothers. They provided great care, as well as vital political support in the streets in the search for a cure.”
December 10, 2023
Here’s a legitimate question: Why are conservatives in this country losing their shit over pronouns? I don’t get it. I don’t understand how FOX News can have hour-long “discussions” about how people who prefer to be called “they/them” are destroying America. As if there aren’t a hundred other more important things that they could be talking about, like how racist immigration policies and global climate change actually are destroying America. I don’t think they are having round-table discussions about those issues on FOX.
(In case I get called out on this, let me say that I actually witnessed an hour-long discussion about the “idiocy” of pronouns on FOX News. It was an episode of Gutfeld! that aired recently. Gutfeld!, in case you don’t know, is a late-night talk show on FOX News hosted by Greg Gutfeld, one of the few FOX News personalities that I kind of like, as he isn’t afraid to make fun of himself. That said, his comedic rants tend to lean hard to the right, despite his contention that he is a somewhat moderate libertarian. I cry bullshit on that, as I think he is a conservative in sheep’s clothing. While I do think he is, at times, humorous, I can’t say that I agree with a majority of his politics. I don’t watch his show with any regularity, mainly because it airs way past my bedtime, but I will occasionally catch episodes on-line. If you go on Youtube, you will find at least a half-dozen episodes of his show devoted to the issue of “pronoun abuse”, which seems like a ridiculous amount of time devoted to—-in my opinion—-a non-issue.)
People (and by “people” I generally mean conservatives and Republicans) are truly angry over this, going so far as to claim that being asked to call someone “they/them” is a violation of their First Amendment rights or, in some cases, against their religion. (???) And, again, in case you are about to call me out on this, I have had very awkward and confusing conversations with angry conservative co-workers on this subject, and they have used those very arguments.
My rebuttal is often a very simple question of how their rights are being violated. Nobody is holding a gun to their head and forcing them to call a co-worker “they/them” or forcing them to call Brad a “she” or Tabitha a “he”. It seems to me that they are simply asking for courtesy regarding their gender identity. To me, it’s no different than if a co-worker asks to be called “Michael” rather than “Mike” or Mikey”, or if a woman prefers to be referred to as "Ms." rather than "Miss" or "Mrs.". If that’s what they prefer, then it’s common courtesy to accommodate their wishes. It’s not violating your First Amendment rights or religion to do so.
Personally, I think a lot of this ridiculousness stems from a residual homophobia of conservatives who—-for want of anything else to bitch about, since same-sex marriage has been legalized—-still harbor a disgust and a deep mistrust of anyone within the LGBTQ+ community, mainly because they don’t understand “those people”. They claim that members of the LGBTQ+ community are forcing the issue of “gay pride” and “tolerance” and “acceptance” on them, when the only people I see forcing the issue are conservatives. Every gay person I know pretty much just wants to live their life. They aren’t pushing an agenda or forcing people to join in gay pride parades or even asking anyone to even like them. They just want to be treated like human beings. And if that means that Brad wants to be referred to as “she/her”, what’s the big deal?
Being a gay, transgendered, or non-binary person today is probably easier than being one twenty years ago, but a lot of the homo- and transphobia still lingers in society.
Merle Miller, in 1971, published an essay in the The New York Times Magazine entitled “What it Means to Be a Homosexual”. Revolutionary for its time, the essay was a response to a homophobic article in Harper’s Magazine. Miller was angry at the way homosexuals were still denigrated and ostracized in society, especially while so many other groups—-such as blacks, chicanos, women—-were seeing civil rights victories, and gay people were still being called “faggots” by so-called upstanding citizens. The essay would later be published in book form under the title “On Being Different”. It would also be personally significant for Miller, who publicly “came out” within the essay.
This short (all told, the book is only 42 pages long) but powerful book still resonates today, because while views on homosexuality (and the more recent accompanying issues of transgenderism, gender-fluidity, and non-binarianism) have progressed over the past several decades, there are still troglodytes who believe that homosexuality is a sin or a mental illness or a choice that can simply be “deprogrammed” out of a person. I like to believe these people are a minority that are dying off, but they unfortunately still manage to suck the oxygen out of the air and embarrass the shit out of rational-minded people when they blather idiotically on FOX News.
(In case I get called out on this, let me say that I actually witnessed an hour-long discussion about the “idiocy” of pronouns on FOX News. It was an episode of Gutfeld! that aired recently. Gutfeld!, in case you don’t know, is a late-night talk show on FOX News hosted by Greg Gutfeld, one of the few FOX News personalities that I kind of like, as he isn’t afraid to make fun of himself. That said, his comedic rants tend to lean hard to the right, despite his contention that he is a somewhat moderate libertarian. I cry bullshit on that, as I think he is a conservative in sheep’s clothing. While I do think he is, at times, humorous, I can’t say that I agree with a majority of his politics. I don’t watch his show with any regularity, mainly because it airs way past my bedtime, but I will occasionally catch episodes on-line. If you go on Youtube, you will find at least a half-dozen episodes of his show devoted to the issue of “pronoun abuse”, which seems like a ridiculous amount of time devoted to—-in my opinion—-a non-issue.)
People (and by “people” I generally mean conservatives and Republicans) are truly angry over this, going so far as to claim that being asked to call someone “they/them” is a violation of their First Amendment rights or, in some cases, against their religion. (???) And, again, in case you are about to call me out on this, I have had very awkward and confusing conversations with angry conservative co-workers on this subject, and they have used those very arguments.
My rebuttal is often a very simple question of how their rights are being violated. Nobody is holding a gun to their head and forcing them to call a co-worker “they/them” or forcing them to call Brad a “she” or Tabitha a “he”. It seems to me that they are simply asking for courtesy regarding their gender identity. To me, it’s no different than if a co-worker asks to be called “Michael” rather than “Mike” or Mikey”, or if a woman prefers to be referred to as "Ms." rather than "Miss" or "Mrs.". If that’s what they prefer, then it’s common courtesy to accommodate their wishes. It’s not violating your First Amendment rights or religion to do so.
Personally, I think a lot of this ridiculousness stems from a residual homophobia of conservatives who—-for want of anything else to bitch about, since same-sex marriage has been legalized—-still harbor a disgust and a deep mistrust of anyone within the LGBTQ+ community, mainly because they don’t understand “those people”. They claim that members of the LGBTQ+ community are forcing the issue of “gay pride” and “tolerance” and “acceptance” on them, when the only people I see forcing the issue are conservatives. Every gay person I know pretty much just wants to live their life. They aren’t pushing an agenda or forcing people to join in gay pride parades or even asking anyone to even like them. They just want to be treated like human beings. And if that means that Brad wants to be referred to as “she/her”, what’s the big deal?
Being a gay, transgendered, or non-binary person today is probably easier than being one twenty years ago, but a lot of the homo- and transphobia still lingers in society.
Merle Miller, in 1971, published an essay in the The New York Times Magazine entitled “What it Means to Be a Homosexual”. Revolutionary for its time, the essay was a response to a homophobic article in Harper’s Magazine. Miller was angry at the way homosexuals were still denigrated and ostracized in society, especially while so many other groups—-such as blacks, chicanos, women—-were seeing civil rights victories, and gay people were still being called “faggots” by so-called upstanding citizens. The essay would later be published in book form under the title “On Being Different”. It would also be personally significant for Miller, who publicly “came out” within the essay.
This short (all told, the book is only 42 pages long) but powerful book still resonates today, because while views on homosexuality (and the more recent accompanying issues of transgenderism, gender-fluidity, and non-binarianism) have progressed over the past several decades, there are still troglodytes who believe that homosexuality is a sin or a mental illness or a choice that can simply be “deprogrammed” out of a person. I like to believe these people are a minority that are dying off, but they unfortunately still manage to suck the oxygen out of the air and embarrass the shit out of rational-minded people when they blather idiotically on FOX News.
April 15, 2025
Another book that made me cry, as the forward is written by Dan Savage, who started the It Gets Better Project with his husband. I partially owe the fact that I survived high school to that project. Merle Miller wrote On Being Different as a piece in a 1971 issue of the NYT in response to a homophobic article. This act of bravery sparked conversations about queerness that weren’t spoken about before. I’m so, so glad I read this short book. I put this on my Goodreads shelf labeled “Changed My Life”.
March 7, 2020
This short essay published in the New York Times Magazine was written as a response to a homophobic article published by Harper’s and written by Joseph Epstein. Even though the situations and experiences of today might be different from what Merle here describes, I think this is a very interesting read to grasp what being a homosexual in the US at the beginning of the 1970s was like.
July 5, 2020
An awesome, short, landmark piece by a man who did not really want to write it, as he had spent fifty years of his life pretending to be straight (including four years of marriage - his homosexual relationships were much longer).
Reading a homophobic article in Harper's, where he had worked, the author of which expressed a wish that homosexuals be wiped off the face of the Earth, saying they are experiencing much suffering anyway, was the final straw. At some point, when discussing the article with some people in a - how he put it - mixed company, he erupted:
***
This being a short article published in the Penguin Classic series, some intelligent padding was involved. The volume contains:
- a foreword by Dan Savage, focusing on the positive change
- "What It Means to Be a Homosexual", as printed with short cuts (for reasons of space) in The Times, in January 1971.
- Miller's "Afterword", published in May 1971, actually another essay examining the aftermath of the first one:
- The four appendices, which could probably all be left out; Miller's reply to a friend who criticized his decision; his wife to his former wife and friend, explaining that he will write this piece (not as thrilling as one might expect); an obituary; a fragment of an unfinished foreword by Frank Kameny, a man whose personal crusade against assumptions dressed in the language of science led to change of qualification of homosexuality by the APA.
On verbal abuse:
"The American Civil Liberties Union recently has been commendably active in homosexual cases, but in the early fifties, when homosexuals and people accused of homosexuality were being fired from all kinds of Government posts, as they still are, the A.C.L.U. was notably silent. And the most silent of all was a closet queen who was a member of the board of directors, myself."
Reading a homophobic article in Harper's, where he had worked, the author of which expressed a wish that homosexuals be wiped off the face of the Earth, saying they are experiencing much suffering anyway, was the final straw. At some point, when discussing the article with some people in a - how he put it - mixed company, he erupted:
"Look, goddamn it, I'm homosexual, and most of my best friends are Jewish homosexuals, and some of my best friends are black homosexuals, and I am sick and tired of reading and hearing such goddamn demeaning, degrading bullshit about me and my friends.”Then The Times called, and the rest - the best piece they had had in a while - is history. And this piece is illuminated by the personality behind it - a highly intelligent, sensitive, self-aware, empathetic person, who quotes Forster’s "What I Believe" as his credo.
***
This being a short article published in the Penguin Classic series, some intelligent padding was involved. The volume contains:
- a foreword by Dan Savage, focusing on the positive change
- "What It Means to Be a Homosexual", as printed with short cuts (for reasons of space) in The Times, in January 1971.
- Miller's "Afterword", published in May 1971, actually another essay examining the aftermath of the first one:
”I may not be freer, but I'm a lot more comfortable, a lot less cramped.- an afterword by Charles Kaiser, explaining what it felt to be a gay man starting to explore his sexuality AFTER this piece was published, what it was to be "miraculously cured" in 1973, when the APA came to the conclusion that homosexuality was not, after all, mental illness; and how it felt when AIDS struck ten years after "What It Means to Be a Homosexual" was published.
And there are smaller pleasures involved. I for one will never again have to listen to and pretend to laugh at the latest “fag gag”; I will never again have to describe the airline stewardess who had the hots for me “…and so when we got to Chicago, we went to the hotel, and..." I will never again have to shake my head when some insensitive, malicious boob says, “Of course, I've never known any fags, have you? I mean, except this one fag hairdresser who is always..."
Never ever again."
- The four appendices, which could probably all be left out; Miller's reply to a friend who criticized his decision; his wife to his former wife and friend, explaining that he will write this piece (not as thrilling as one might expect); an obituary; a fragment of an unfinished foreword by Frank Kameny, a man whose personal crusade against assumptions dressed in the language of science led to change of qualification of homosexuality by the APA.
On verbal abuse:
"The late Otto Kahn, I think it was, said, “A kike is a Jewish gentleman who has just left the room.” Is a fag a homosexual gentleman who has just stepped out? Me?"On Stonewall riots:
"butch haircut or not, some boys in the third grade took one look at me and said, “Hey, look at the sissy,” and they started laughing. It seems to me now that I heard that word at least once five days a week for the next 13 years, until I skipped town and went to the univer sity. Sissy and all the other words—pansy, fairy, nance, fruit, fruitcake, and less print able epithets. I did not en counter the word faggot un til I got to Manhattan. I'll tell you this, though. It's not true, that saying about sticks and stones; it's words that break your bones."
But that is not what happened on June 28, 1969. A friend of mine who was there said, “It was fantastic. The crowd was a fairly typical weekend crowd, your usual queens and kids from the sticks, and the people that are always around the bars, mostly young. But this time instead of submitting to the cops' abuse, the sissies fought back. They started pulling up parking meters and throwing rocks and coins at the cops, and the cops had to take refuge in the bar and call for reinforcements. … It was beautiful.”
January 5, 2020
As one reviewer noted: “The essay is a must read, but the book isn’t worth owning”. Here is the essay published in the NY Times in 1971:
https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/17/ar...
The message here is stated so clearly. What is there to fear?
https://www.nytimes.com/1971/01/17/ar...
The message here is stated so clearly. What is there to fear?
July 27, 2022
"If I had been given a choice (but who is?), I would prefer to have been straight. But then, would I rather not have been me? Oh, I think not, not this morning anyway. It is a very clear day in late December, and the sun is shining on the pine trees outside my studio... On such a day I would not choose to be anyone else or any place else."
I suspect that it’s near impossible to read this and not come out of it with a more profound appreciation for queer activism. This was especially true for me as a queer person myself, and I find that this book has added a depth to my politics that I hadn't had before. It is such a heady and terrifying feeling of understanding just what it took for me to have the rights I have today. This article, along with Miller's strength in writing it, is part of what it took.
As Charles Kaiser writes in the afterword; "if you were born after 1970, I think it is nearly impossible to imagine how it felt to open up The New York Times Magazine on a Sunday morning in January 1971 to discover a deeply personal and beautifully written piece in defense of homosexuality." Though we still have a ways to go, it was difficult reading this in 2022 and imagining a social environment as hostile to my identity as it was up until the 80’s. (It’s like when your grandmother tells you she was a looker in her day. Sure, it may be true, but you just can’t internalize it, can you?) But the difficulty of the task does not detract from the necessity of the endeavor.
I have to admit that upon first read, the article mostly flew over my head. It’s written in a mild mannered tone, and not at all like a scathing rejoinder to Epstein’s homophobic article as I had expected. So I took a chance to re-read it a second time, taking care to put myself in the right context, fully aware that putting this out there would’ve put Miller in a position of substantial personal risk. Colored with this perspective, Miller's deceptively dispassionate words spoke to me intimately.
It was glittering, moving and insightful. I particularly loved reading about the reception to the article, with closeted queers around the nation and suburban housewives declaring their open support of homosexuality. I read this edition cover to cover including the notes and appendices, which added fascinating details about Merle Miller's legacy and LGBT history in America. For me, one takeaway is how easily things could've been different in history. It took a perfect storm for this single piece to be published and influential to shifting a nation's consciousness on homosexuality: the backdrop of the Stonewall Riots in 1969, sympathetic and open-minded publisher and editors at a national syndication, and Miller's own convictions spurred by a particularly bigoted article.
There wasn't a single wasted word within these 200 or so pages. I read this to round out my Pride Month reads and what a book, guys. What. A. Book.
TL;DR--A phenomenal pièce de résistance that contributed to a wider acceptance of homosexuality in America, and a vivid window into our uglier past. 4/5 stars (or 🌈)
April 6, 2024
Merle Miller’s essay on homosexuality was written for The New York Times in 1971, and so should be read as such. Whilst I’d recommend it to any LGBTQ+ person, its true power is directed at heterosexual readers. There are many issues Miller raises that still apply and affect queer people globally today.
The essay was a response to a homophobic article written by Joseph Epstein, published in Harper’s Magazine. Miller gives us extracts from Epstein’s article, with enough offensive and derogatory language for me to decide against including any of them here. At the time of Epstein’s piece Miller was not ‘out’, and 1971 was not a time when people could make this choice lightly. However, he was so enraged by the article that he’d had enough, it was time to stand up for himself and his friends. Over lunch with colleagues who praised the Epstein article, for the first time in public, Miler replied…
“Look, goddamn it, I’m homosexual, and most of my best friends are Jewish homosexuals, and some of my best friends are black homosexuals, and I am sick and tired of reading and hearing such goddamn demeaning, degrading bullshit about me and my friends.”
A few weeks later one of the friends at this lunch commissioned Miller to write a response to the Epstein article for The New York Times.
Of course things have moved forward massively since 1971, and today’s younger LGBTQ+ generations owe a massive debut to the trailblazers and activists of the late 60s, 70s & 80s. However there are still 64 countries that criminalise homosexuality, with 11 of them imposing the death penalty.
So even through it was written five decades ago, Miller’s essay is still relevant today. This publication also includes an optimistic foreword by Dan Savage, cofounder of the ‘It Gets Better’ campaign, and an afterword by writer Charles Kaiser addressing things Miller could not have foreseen in his essay, such as the AIDS pandemic.
The essay was a response to a homophobic article written by Joseph Epstein, published in Harper’s Magazine. Miller gives us extracts from Epstein’s article, with enough offensive and derogatory language for me to decide against including any of them here. At the time of Epstein’s piece Miller was not ‘out’, and 1971 was not a time when people could make this choice lightly. However, he was so enraged by the article that he’d had enough, it was time to stand up for himself and his friends. Over lunch with colleagues who praised the Epstein article, for the first time in public, Miler replied…
“Look, goddamn it, I’m homosexual, and most of my best friends are Jewish homosexuals, and some of my best friends are black homosexuals, and I am sick and tired of reading and hearing such goddamn demeaning, degrading bullshit about me and my friends.”
A few weeks later one of the friends at this lunch commissioned Miller to write a response to the Epstein article for The New York Times.
Of course things have moved forward massively since 1971, and today’s younger LGBTQ+ generations owe a massive debut to the trailblazers and activists of the late 60s, 70s & 80s. However there are still 64 countries that criminalise homosexuality, with 11 of them imposing the death penalty.
So even through it was written five decades ago, Miller’s essay is still relevant today. This publication also includes an optimistic foreword by Dan Savage, cofounder of the ‘It Gets Better’ campaign, and an afterword by writer Charles Kaiser addressing things Miller could not have foreseen in his essay, such as the AIDS pandemic.
September 9, 2021
Leer esto habiendo leido “los siete maridos de evelyn hugo” de taylor jenkins reid me hace querer tirarme de un puente.
RIP Merle Miller hubieras amado ver todo lo que se logró. ALSO falleció en medio del pride month me parece homofobico de parte del universo
RIP Merle Miller hubieras amado ver todo lo que se logró. ALSO falleció en medio del pride month me parece homofobico de parte del universo
October 5, 2016
Pride Month Rec #9: What It Means To Be A Homosexual [a short essay written in 1971 that *everyone* should read — link below]
______________________
Read the essay as it originally appeared in the January 17th, 1971 issue of The New York Times Magazine here.
It is a beautiful, honest essay that should not be missed.
______________________
I have never infected anybody, and it's too late for the head people to do anything about me now. Gay is good. Gay is proud. Well, yes, I suppose. If I had been given a choice (but who is?), I would prefer to have been straight. But then, would I rather not have been me? Oh, I think not, not this morning anyway. It is a very clear day in late December, and the sun is shining on the pine trees outside my studio. The air is extraordinarily clear, and the sky is the color it gets only at this time of year, dark, almost navy-blue. On such a day I would not choose to be anyone else or any place else.It has been 45 years since this was published in The New York Times Magazine, and it's just as poignant. To quote a clichéd, yet apt saying: the more things change, the more they stay the same. I read the second printing with Miller's May 1971 afterword, which responds to the reception of his essay. Lambda Literary has a review of the 2012 reprint that raises valid concerns about some of the supplementary material added to the newest edition.
Read the essay as it originally appeared in the January 17th, 1971 issue of The New York Times Magazine here.
It is a beautiful, honest essay that should not be missed.
April 2, 2023
gorgeous read ☹️ the forewords and afterwords added so much to the reading experience, and i feel like i could read this over and over again & get something new from it every time. desperately want to read more queer literature from this era
June 25, 2019
This deserves a million stars!
It was relevant then and still is. Reading this just shows how backwards the world has gone. Or how some parts of the world has gone backwards in time..
So do yourself the favour and read this book (essay)!
It was relevant then and still is. Reading this just shows how backwards the world has gone. Or how some parts of the world has gone backwards in time..
So do yourself the favour and read this book (essay)!
May 16, 2023
I’m still certainly processing this book. I’d rather keep my jumbled and mumbled opinions to myself. I still have a long way to go in fully understanding all the other differences in the human condition from my own, and this book greatly helped in that.
I acquired this book in a weird way. It was so weird, jn fact, that I forgot I had it for a while. I bought it, brought it home, then put it in my temporary shelf and completely forgot I had acquired it for a solid couple of weeks. Life is a novel, and I am as unreliable a narrator as they get.
While I live by no means in a country that has an abhorrent human rights record, more and more I find myself questioning the most basic of decisions the government manages to make. Without overgeneralizing (and trying my hardest not to get frustrated), we get these rural conservative midlife-crisis-riddled men standing their ground in what they deem to be the only acceptable concept of family. Shit ain’t right.
Anyhow, I found this at one of the more prominent local bookstores. Don’t get me wrong - it’s not out of the ordinary for status-quo-challenging literature to appear in shelves, but I still found it interesting. It was shoved (or maybe not) in a lower shelf, barely visible. The price had a date on it, dating back to nearly five years. (As a side note, it’s interesting how vividly it all came back to me despite being out of my mind for weeks.) Five years it had been in inventory in one way or another, and, while a little overpriced for a very short, older book, I realized I had to buy it. Walking back home, I had a bone to pick with myself - should I have left it there for someone actually different to someday find? Was my buying a case of appropriating something that I was not a part of? I still sort of don’t know. But I often manage to question everything.
I looked at it for what felt like eternity, then went to the cashier to get it checked out.
She picked the book up twice. Maybe she was surprised to see a book like that because of how old the price was. Maybe she was surprised because of subject matter. I won’t know. For a brief moment, I felt a need to clarify my exploration - as I thought about why I would need to assert my sexuality to a complete stranger, I realized that I’m just being a little stupid for a moment. And that’s precisely why I needed the book.
So it simmered in the vault for a while. I found it again, even though it had not been hidden, and finally decided to read it.
I’ll never know fully what it means to be someone else, just like no one will ever fully know what it means to be me. But I’m glad I read this. I hope that I am better for having read this, and that I will do better whenever I can.
So that’s where I am. It’s 1:33, and I’ve spent a little too much of my allocated sleep time pondering again. Oh well.
I acquired this book in a weird way. It was so weird, jn fact, that I forgot I had it for a while. I bought it, brought it home, then put it in my temporary shelf and completely forgot I had acquired it for a solid couple of weeks. Life is a novel, and I am as unreliable a narrator as they get.
While I live by no means in a country that has an abhorrent human rights record, more and more I find myself questioning the most basic of decisions the government manages to make. Without overgeneralizing (and trying my hardest not to get frustrated), we get these rural conservative midlife-crisis-riddled men standing their ground in what they deem to be the only acceptable concept of family. Shit ain’t right.
Anyhow, I found this at one of the more prominent local bookstores. Don’t get me wrong - it’s not out of the ordinary for status-quo-challenging literature to appear in shelves, but I still found it interesting. It was shoved (or maybe not) in a lower shelf, barely visible. The price had a date on it, dating back to nearly five years. (As a side note, it’s interesting how vividly it all came back to me despite being out of my mind for weeks.) Five years it had been in inventory in one way or another, and, while a little overpriced for a very short, older book, I realized I had to buy it. Walking back home, I had a bone to pick with myself - should I have left it there for someone actually different to someday find? Was my buying a case of appropriating something that I was not a part of? I still sort of don’t know. But I often manage to question everything.
I looked at it for what felt like eternity, then went to the cashier to get it checked out.
She picked the book up twice. Maybe she was surprised to see a book like that because of how old the price was. Maybe she was surprised because of subject matter. I won’t know. For a brief moment, I felt a need to clarify my exploration - as I thought about why I would need to assert my sexuality to a complete stranger, I realized that I’m just being a little stupid for a moment. And that’s precisely why I needed the book.
So it simmered in the vault for a while. I found it again, even though it had not been hidden, and finally decided to read it.
I’ll never know fully what it means to be someone else, just like no one will ever fully know what it means to be me. But I’m glad I read this. I hope that I am better for having read this, and that I will do better whenever I can.
So that’s where I am. It’s 1:33, and I’ve spent a little too much of my allocated sleep time pondering again. Oh well.
January 19, 2023
Between the time I added this book to the TBR and the time I got around to it, I changed sexualities, genders, and area of living, so if that isn't enough to make me an expert on the realm of 'being different,' nothing will. In any case, I also had it on the TBR list for so long that, when I finally stumbled across a copy at one of the sales whose offerings tended to be so paltry that I skipped it for the most part, I could barely remember having committed to it in the first place. Fortunately, I kept a grip on it long enough to confirm its presence in my digital 'to buy' list (not the hardest thing with such a slim offering), and with the coming of 2023 and my newfound devotion to my existing physical collections, I finally got around to reading it, eleven years after committing to it. What I found was, as I expected, very 'white gay man' in its attitude, its assumptions, its blasé logic and (sometimes) offensive rhetoric, and all in all a lot more use as a historical artifact than an article of continuing relevancy. Still, I did learn a few things worth imbibing and found I could have kept reading past the brief 74 page conclusion (although anything beyond the 300 page range would have been pushing my patience), and I can also see it being of some use to the most milk-skinned of cishets (although I'd hope they'd at least have the sense to not succumb to the temptation to compare gay rights to BLM or Antifa, and not in the pejorative sense either). I'd never tell any of the members of my community to read it, but I will acknowledge that the work served its purpose when it needed to, and is of some use, if more of the critically reflexive type, today.
The further I go in my journey into queerdom, the more I find the growth that fuels our current humanity and the weeds that cut off so much of that humanization for those who refuse to submit to legislature that comes not out of justice, but of fascism, where adults are only permitted to build a life together so long as they can spawn fresh bodies for the militaries and the prisons. Miller wrote what he did at the vantage he was afforded for reasons that are rather wishy washy compared to that of those who literally put their bodies on the line for the legal jurisdictions he would ultimately benefit from. However, I cannot begrudge him entirely for what he chose to do of his own free will for reasons neither of profit nor of glory, but a certain instinct that, if he did not say something at this particular time, he would no longer be able to live with himself. I've certainly had those moments in my life, and having accidentally left my they/them pronoun tag at home, it's hard not to feel as if I am once again involuntarily slipping under the radar, reverting back to the days when I was misgendered 100% of the time rather than only some of the time. So, for all my griping, if you asked me what Miller should have written about instead, I would certainly have a list, but whether it would hang together as cleanly as this piece did is another matter entirely. When it comes down to it, sometimes the most effective argument is a name, a title, and a year of publication. At other moments, however, the most effective argument is protecting your own via wrath and riot, so I will accept the paths of Miller so long as those paths don't interfere with mine.
...[Y]our article—totally honest for you—was not totally true for us. This isn't a put-down; it's to say that from where we stand, some things are clear in our lives that can't be part of your experience. For us this was not "what it means to be a homosexual," but what it no longer need mean.In many ways, the previous quote holds true. Miller reckoned with a near abyss of the representation that every other literary article I run across acknowledges in some fashion, not to mention a straitjacket of a kyriarchical legal-scape across mental, social, and literary norms that made 'gay' a dead man's switch wrapped in barbed wire and tied up in a lynch-know bow. In many ways, it doesn't, for the typical white gay still latches onto give-them-an-inch-they'll-entomb-you-in-stone relationship with the status quo as if there isn't any other form of living that need not appeal to the kindness of the witch hunt and the humanity of the inquisition with its modern day forms of the US legal system, the DSM, and all the other facets of respectability politics. In that way, little has changed, so it was rather disappointing to watch Miller adhere as closely to a 'normal' sexual activity, a 'normal' romantic lifestyle, a 'normal' career, a 'normal' set of values, a 'normal' paradigm that is about as normal as WASP paranoia, envy, and self-hatred will ever be. In light of that, I wouldn't mind that this work be the first exposure that a self-labeled cishet, questioning or otherwise, has to the queerer side of things, but only if they immediately followed it up with Delany's The Motion of Light in Water: Sex and Science Fiction Writing in the East Village, for where Miller leaves a straight and narrow that would frown disapprovingly on any true child of the Stonewall riots (not a protest, not a non-violent march, not anything palatable to the liberals and the folks who would gladly see all us queers dead or vivisected: a riot), Delany spills on out and through and lovingly leaves the door ajar for the rest of us. If that were the case, I'd be less concerned about readers who come out of this text thinking that they now not only have the right, but also the privilege, to suffocate me and my community for our own good.
The further I go in my journey into queerdom, the more I find the growth that fuels our current humanity and the weeds that cut off so much of that humanization for those who refuse to submit to legislature that comes not out of justice, but of fascism, where adults are only permitted to build a life together so long as they can spawn fresh bodies for the militaries and the prisons. Miller wrote what he did at the vantage he was afforded for reasons that are rather wishy washy compared to that of those who literally put their bodies on the line for the legal jurisdictions he would ultimately benefit from. However, I cannot begrudge him entirely for what he chose to do of his own free will for reasons neither of profit nor of glory, but a certain instinct that, if he did not say something at this particular time, he would no longer be able to live with himself. I've certainly had those moments in my life, and having accidentally left my they/them pronoun tag at home, it's hard not to feel as if I am once again involuntarily slipping under the radar, reverting back to the days when I was misgendered 100% of the time rather than only some of the time. So, for all my griping, if you asked me what Miller should have written about instead, I would certainly have a list, but whether it would hang together as cleanly as this piece did is another matter entirely. When it comes down to it, sometimes the most effective argument is a name, a title, and a year of publication. At other moments, however, the most effective argument is protecting your own via wrath and riot, so I will accept the paths of Miller so long as those paths don't interfere with mine.
January 27, 2022
"But you can't know how far you've come if you don't know where you started." Dan Savage, co-creator of the It Gets Better Project, makes this remark in his foreword to Merle Miller's landmark essay "What It Means to Be a Homosexual" which originally appeared in The New York Times Magazine in 1971. For context, this piece was written two years after the incendiary Stonewall Riots, a time when the publication only printed the word gay in quotation marks. Savage's introductory statement makes the case for On Being Different serving as essential reading for queer folk who have more legal rights than they did in the 70's but still have far to go.
Miller initially wrote this essay as a rejoinder to essayist Joseph Epstein's homophobic Harper's article (published one year prior) in which he makes many degrading, shameful statements like, "If I had the power to do so, I would wish homosexuality off the face of the earth." By quoting the likes of Voltaire, Tchaikovsky, E.M. Forster, Sherwood Anderson, Alexander the Great by way of Plutarch, and more, Miller builds a crucial argument against homophobia and further exposes the failure of straight people to acknowledge and accept what psychologist George Weinberg called "variety in human existence." But while Miller's essay is gallantly on the defense, it's also pessimistic in places. This is completely understandable, especially considering he, like so many queer people throughout history, spent most of his life in the closet (he was 52 when the essay was published, and it was essentially his coming out speech).
While I completely recognize "What It Means to Be a Homosexual" to be an essay of the utmost importance, I think it's most compelling when it connects ideas from prominent writers, psychologists, and historians to an examination of efforts made by politically-charged gay groups like the Mattachine Society, the Gay Liberation Front, and the Gay Activists Alliance (although this opinion may be due to the fact that my existing knowledge of these groups is admittedly shallow, and frankly I found the information fascinating). While noble for their honesty and indisputably groundbreaking for their public portrayal of a gay experience during a moment in history when gay experiences simply weren't featured in media, Miller's personal anecdotes overshadow the real argument at times. However, Miller addresses this critique in his afterword which features a range of responses from fans, critics, and others. Note that Miller's afterword is more optimistic in tone; he acknowledges how he is "a lot more comfortable, a lot less cramped" after coming out. And in doing so, I'm sure he inspired so many others to do the same.
As a book, On Being Different is slightly malnourished—it exists for Miller's 22-page article alone, and as a whole it's only 74 pages long. While the foreword by Savage and the second afterword by journalist Charles Kaiser are inspirational in their own right, I wonder if additional accounts from others who were impacted by Miller's essay would have enriched the book's content. That being said, I agree with Savage who suggests that the essay should be read by all straight people along with members of the gay community because the movement for LGBTQIA+ equality also tells the story of "straight people being liberated from their prejudices and their fears." I'm excited to educate myself with more work honoring the LGBTQIA+ equality movement, namely Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution.
Miller initially wrote this essay as a rejoinder to essayist Joseph Epstein's homophobic Harper's article (published one year prior) in which he makes many degrading, shameful statements like, "If I had the power to do so, I would wish homosexuality off the face of the earth." By quoting the likes of Voltaire, Tchaikovsky, E.M. Forster, Sherwood Anderson, Alexander the Great by way of Plutarch, and more, Miller builds a crucial argument against homophobia and further exposes the failure of straight people to acknowledge and accept what psychologist George Weinberg called "variety in human existence." But while Miller's essay is gallantly on the defense, it's also pessimistic in places. This is completely understandable, especially considering he, like so many queer people throughout history, spent most of his life in the closet (he was 52 when the essay was published, and it was essentially his coming out speech).
While I completely recognize "What It Means to Be a Homosexual" to be an essay of the utmost importance, I think it's most compelling when it connects ideas from prominent writers, psychologists, and historians to an examination of efforts made by politically-charged gay groups like the Mattachine Society, the Gay Liberation Front, and the Gay Activists Alliance (although this opinion may be due to the fact that my existing knowledge of these groups is admittedly shallow, and frankly I found the information fascinating). While noble for their honesty and indisputably groundbreaking for their public portrayal of a gay experience during a moment in history when gay experiences simply weren't featured in media, Miller's personal anecdotes overshadow the real argument at times. However, Miller addresses this critique in his afterword which features a range of responses from fans, critics, and others. Note that Miller's afterword is more optimistic in tone; he acknowledges how he is "a lot more comfortable, a lot less cramped" after coming out. And in doing so, I'm sure he inspired so many others to do the same.
As a book, On Being Different is slightly malnourished—it exists for Miller's 22-page article alone, and as a whole it's only 74 pages long. While the foreword by Savage and the second afterword by journalist Charles Kaiser are inspirational in their own right, I wonder if additional accounts from others who were impacted by Miller's essay would have enriched the book's content. That being said, I agree with Savage who suggests that the essay should be read by all straight people along with members of the gay community because the movement for LGBTQIA+ equality also tells the story of "straight people being liberated from their prejudices and their fears." I'm excited to educate myself with more work honoring the LGBTQIA+ equality movement, namely Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution.
July 14, 2018
It's difficult to state the importance of this little book as it marks a watershed moment (one of many admittedly as social change is never brought about by one event) in the history of the LGBTQ+ community.
Miller's essay and the attendant commentary, preface, afterword and appendices highlight what it was to be gay in the US in the late 60s early 70s and show how far attitudes have changed and sadly how they haven't.
This should be one everyone's read list.
Miller's essay and the attendant commentary, preface, afterword and appendices highlight what it was to be gay in the US in the late 60s early 70s and show how far attitudes have changed and sadly how they haven't.
This should be one everyone's read list.
September 4, 2018
Even though the content of this essay is not as relevant as it was when it was originally composed and published, there are echoes of it still ringing today. Being a queer man this essay doesn't feel just applicable, it feels pertinent, but even a straight reader should be able to appreciate Miller's argument. The essay explores not just gay identity, but the very idea of being an outsider, being an "other" to the world around you and the social pitfalls that come with it. Perhaps the most powerful moment of the essay is when Miller describes the interaction of his straight friend who says he's concerned about bringing his son over worried that Miller might "seduce him" into being gay. The power of Miller's anger, and the conviction of his argument against this miserable stereotype are some of the best writing about homosexual identity I have ever read, and it is also one of the most strongest writings about personal integrity I have experienced.
On Being Different offers a contemporary reader a glimpse of what a whether soul was, and that is most certainly what Miller was when he wrote the article. This essay is a call to readers to not just alter their perceptions about homosexual people, but about what they think they actually know. The only way change, real change, can occur is when people are challenged and Miller's essay challenged a great number of people who thought they knew who and what homosexual people were.
Today they are people who can adopt children, marry, and participate in their local communities without, too much, fear or backlash. And so the lesson of this book is the necessity of great writing and great writers to challenge their readers.
On Being Different offers a contemporary reader a glimpse of what a whether soul was, and that is most certainly what Miller was when he wrote the article. This essay is a call to readers to not just alter their perceptions about homosexual people, but about what they think they actually know. The only way change, real change, can occur is when people are challenged and Miller's essay challenged a great number of people who thought they knew who and what homosexual people were.
Today they are people who can adopt children, marry, and participate in their local communities without, too much, fear or backlash. And so the lesson of this book is the necessity of great writing and great writers to challenge their readers.
September 24, 2019
I'm not sure where to begin except I want to reread this again and again and again. This book is the type of book I immediately want to own so I can highlight passages and write in the margins because some of the lines are so heartbreaking and beautiful. Lines like this:
Some of the passages made me want to sob; how was it ever this bad? How is it still so bad for so many gay, lesbian, bi, and trans people? There is hope, I know it (and things have gotten better), but sometimes I wonder how much longer it'll be for everyone to be on equal footing.
At least there's passages like this to help me laugh in the meantime:
All I can say is please read this book; it's not very long but it's important and well written and maybe you'll learn something.
ps. The views expressed in this review are my own and do not reflect the views of Indigo Books & Music Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. #IndigoEmployee
“Well, yes, I suppose. If I had been given the choice (but who is?), I would prefer to be straight. But then, would I rather not have been me? Oh, I think not, not this morning anyway.”
Some of the passages made me want to sob; how was it ever this bad? How is it still so bad for so many gay, lesbian, bi, and trans people? There is hope, I know it (and things have gotten better), but sometimes I wonder how much longer it'll be for everyone to be on equal footing.
At least there's passages like this to help me laugh in the meantime:
“And that includes the late Dr. Edmund Bergler, who claimed not only that he could ‘cure’ me but get rid of my writer’s block as well. He did neither. I am still homosexual and I have a writer’s block every morning when I sit down at the typewriter.”
All I can say is please read this book; it's not very long but it's important and well written and maybe you'll learn something.
ps. The views expressed in this review are my own and do not reflect the views of Indigo Books & Music Inc. or any of its subsidiaries. #IndigoEmployee
June 21, 2022
An outstanding, landmark essay in LGBT+ history. Millers' words are beautifully honest and bittersweet. Absolutely a must read. The essay runs about 20 pages. The penguin edition contains some supplemental texts and insights.
September 12, 2021
Wow, this is so important. Everyone should read it. Truly inspiring and excellent.
December 18, 2023
A wonderful time capsule of gay rights in the 70s and prior (there were very few of them) and a testament to how things have changed and how they have continued. Everyday is a fight, and I think we owe it to those no longer with us to fight it.
January 8, 2018
Originally published in 1971, On Being Different is a memoir about being gay in America. After reading a scathing article about homosexuality in Harper’s Magazine just two years after the Stonewall Riots, Merle Miller (a successful writer) decided to come out via an essay for The New York Times Magazine because, as he said, “I am sick and tired of reading and hearing such goddamn demeaning, degrading bullshit about me and my friends.” It was widely read at the time, and pushed forward a national dialogue about rights for LGBTQ+ people. It’s an important piece of history for LGBTQ+ people and Americans, and it’s still something that every person—straight or homosexual—should read today.
Read
June 27, 2018I have no idea what to say. This definitely did not fulfil my expectations and I don't think it deserved a book solely to just an essay. The book contains a foreword, the main essay, and two afterwords which takes more than half of the book. I did not learn what I did not know (it was nice to highlight them in fancy sentences though).There was a lot of historical context that mixed everything and confused me. I couldn't see where the essay was going or where it actually came from. I think I'll try other essays on this topic because this definitely created a desire to actually read something I can acknowledge.
May 26, 2019
Written in response to a homophobic article, Merle Miller counteracts with an essay in the New York Times in 1971. Very though-provoking, personal and relatable. Includes a foreword by Dan Savage, the essay, and two afterwords, including one by Miller. A slim book that carries with it a lot of weight.
November 3, 2017
Poignant essay from an older homosexual in 1970 who is grappling with his identity after Stonewall. Very snappy and literate, both cautious and joyous. A great read.
August 22, 2019
4.5/5
This books was only 70+ pages long but at the same time it was so heartbreaking and honest.
The year was 1971; the date was January 17th. Stonewall was a memory not yet two years old, activism had taken the form of local gay liberation front actions against practices such as police harassment and discrimination in employment and housing, the idea of “LGBT” had yet to be thought of, and the slogan “out of the closets and into the streets” was popular. Not the best climate in which to pen an essay for the Sunday section of the New York Times on the dimensions of being homosexual”and yet journalist and editor Merle Miller did it.
The current fight for equality and same-gender marriage started with people like Miller who, perhaps reluctantly, wrote about their lives and feelings before it was fashionable. I have come to realize that, as the book posits: What does it matter who you love so long as you love? Gender equality and marriage equality is so clearly a civil rights issue that I have little doubt that even our right-leaning Supreme Court will continue to support it. It is, after all, the state that issues marriage licenses...not churches, so if some churches cannot find it in their souls to support the love of any two people committed enough to marry, then go to the state and lose the church!
Quotes:
“None of my homosexual friends are any too happy, but then, very few of my heterosexual friends—supposed friends, I should say—are exactly joyous, either."
“A young homosexual friend recently said, "It's no secret that you, that one, has such-and-such color hair, is yea high, weighs thus and so, and so on, but when you keep one part of yourself secret, that becomes the most important part of you." And that is true, I think; it may be the most important truth of all.”
“I was, as you may have guessed, born tired and filled with bile. I”
“I’ve done one and a half of almost everything. But never two of anything. When you do two of something, you are no longer that bright, promising amateur. When you do two of anything, you must be judged, and I could never stand that.”
“I have never infected anybody, and it's too late for the head people to do anything about me now. Gay is good. Gay is proud. Well, yes, I suppose. If I had been given a choice (but who is?), I would prefer to have been straight. But then, would I rather not have been me? Oh, I think not, not this morning anyway. It is a very clear day in late December, and the sun is shining on the pine trees outside my studio. The air is extraordinary clear, and the sky is the colour it gets only at this time of year, dark, almost navy-blue. On such a day I would not choose to be anyone else or any place else.”
This books was only 70+ pages long but at the same time it was so heartbreaking and honest.
The year was 1971; the date was January 17th. Stonewall was a memory not yet two years old, activism had taken the form of local gay liberation front actions against practices such as police harassment and discrimination in employment and housing, the idea of “LGBT” had yet to be thought of, and the slogan “out of the closets and into the streets” was popular. Not the best climate in which to pen an essay for the Sunday section of the New York Times on the dimensions of being homosexual”and yet journalist and editor Merle Miller did it.
The current fight for equality and same-gender marriage started with people like Miller who, perhaps reluctantly, wrote about their lives and feelings before it was fashionable. I have come to realize that, as the book posits: What does it matter who you love so long as you love? Gender equality and marriage equality is so clearly a civil rights issue that I have little doubt that even our right-leaning Supreme Court will continue to support it. It is, after all, the state that issues marriage licenses...not churches, so if some churches cannot find it in their souls to support the love of any two people committed enough to marry, then go to the state and lose the church!
Quotes:
“None of my homosexual friends are any too happy, but then, very few of my heterosexual friends—supposed friends, I should say—are exactly joyous, either."
“A young homosexual friend recently said, "It's no secret that you, that one, has such-and-such color hair, is yea high, weighs thus and so, and so on, but when you keep one part of yourself secret, that becomes the most important part of you." And that is true, I think; it may be the most important truth of all.”
“I was, as you may have guessed, born tired and filled with bile. I”
“I’ve done one and a half of almost everything. But never two of anything. When you do two of something, you are no longer that bright, promising amateur. When you do two of anything, you must be judged, and I could never stand that.”
“I have never infected anybody, and it's too late for the head people to do anything about me now. Gay is good. Gay is proud. Well, yes, I suppose. If I had been given a choice (but who is?), I would prefer to have been straight. But then, would I rather not have been me? Oh, I think not, not this morning anyway. It is a very clear day in late December, and the sun is shining on the pine trees outside my studio. The air is extraordinary clear, and the sky is the colour it gets only at this time of year, dark, almost navy-blue. On such a day I would not choose to be anyone else or any place else.”
June 8, 2021
On Being Different: What It Means to Be a Homosexual is an autobiographical essay written by Merle Miller with a forward by Dan Savage and an afterward by Charles Kaiser. It is an essay that Miller published in The New York Times Magazine two years after the 1969 Stonewall Riots and as a response to a homophobic article in Harper's Magazine.
Merle Dale Miller was an American writer, novelist, and author who is perhaps best remembered for his best-selling biography of Harry S. Truman and as a pioneer in the gay rights movement.
The essay is both personal and discreet at the same time. It is about a boy whose mother had to make do with him since she had wanted a girl, about his stigmatized years in school in a small town in Iowa, and about the next decades spent in guarded silence. Sporadically, remarks are dropped on the new movement, on a short-lived marriage, on the failure of psychiatry.
There's a short coda on reactions after his piece appeared and while Miller is well beyond any Gay Liberating stomp, the statement he has finally made is more likely to reach just those straights that'd imposed a cordon of distasteful avoidance around the homosexual.
On Being Different: What It Means to Be a Homosexual is written rather well. Miller laid out for both his and later generations the obstacles of taught prejudice associated with what we now term a gay identity in a stinging and wide-ranging rebuttal of a deeply homophobic piece by Joseph Epstein that had appeared shortly before in Harper's Magazine. The courage that it took to spell out the details of a subject that was not considered fit for print also created a mirror of the social landscape whose limitations gay people were beginning to successfully challenge, a process that continues in our own day.
This edition provides the original 20-page text, augmented by a thoughtful foreword written by Dan Savage and a challenging afterword by journalist Charles Kaiser. Appendixes help place Miller in context with the texts of a letter Miller wrote to his wife a few weeks before the essay appeared, an obituary composed by an old friend, and notes on Miller's essay by Dr. Frank Kameny.
All in all, On Being Different: What It Means to Be a Homosexual is a wonderful personal essay of being gay – especially at a time when revealing that one is gay was not as accepted. It might be too easy to forget what Miller and his contemporaries endured, what they suppressed, or how a few, a very lucky few, came out.
Merle Dale Miller was an American writer, novelist, and author who is perhaps best remembered for his best-selling biography of Harry S. Truman and as a pioneer in the gay rights movement.
The essay is both personal and discreet at the same time. It is about a boy whose mother had to make do with him since she had wanted a girl, about his stigmatized years in school in a small town in Iowa, and about the next decades spent in guarded silence. Sporadically, remarks are dropped on the new movement, on a short-lived marriage, on the failure of psychiatry.
There's a short coda on reactions after his piece appeared and while Miller is well beyond any Gay Liberating stomp, the statement he has finally made is more likely to reach just those straights that'd imposed a cordon of distasteful avoidance around the homosexual.
On Being Different: What It Means to Be a Homosexual is written rather well. Miller laid out for both his and later generations the obstacles of taught prejudice associated with what we now term a gay identity in a stinging and wide-ranging rebuttal of a deeply homophobic piece by Joseph Epstein that had appeared shortly before in Harper's Magazine. The courage that it took to spell out the details of a subject that was not considered fit for print also created a mirror of the social landscape whose limitations gay people were beginning to successfully challenge, a process that continues in our own day.
This edition provides the original 20-page text, augmented by a thoughtful foreword written by Dan Savage and a challenging afterword by journalist Charles Kaiser. Appendixes help place Miller in context with the texts of a letter Miller wrote to his wife a few weeks before the essay appeared, an obituary composed by an old friend, and notes on Miller's essay by Dr. Frank Kameny.
All in all, On Being Different: What It Means to Be a Homosexual is a wonderful personal essay of being gay – especially at a time when revealing that one is gay was not as accepted. It might be too easy to forget what Miller and his contemporaries endured, what they suppressed, or how a few, a very lucky few, came out.
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