Abby+K.

My Great Uncle was drafted into the Korean War. Being gay was an excuse to not be taken into the war, yet he didn’t tell the truth about his sexuality. He kept quiet and acted as if he was straight and told people he was so. He got use to the idea of lying and blending in like a chameleon while today more and more gay people speak out about their true sexuality. When I was interviewing him for the first time he answered the questions the same way, pretending he was straight. After redoing the interview more information was found about how people shielded the world from what was the truth.  Both my Great uncle and Grandmother were teachers. My grandmother was persuaded by her mother to become a teacher, she originally had gone to school for becoming a social worker but eventually became a teacher after getting married and starting a family. My great Uncle after coming out of the war wanted to become a teacher, he had started as a substitute teacher and was delayed for his teaching license for two or three years because he was gay. His principle had to write to the school board to get them to give a gay man a license. He said to the board that my uncle was great teacher and should have been accepted immediately, no one had solid evidence that he was gay it was just a thought. Just like how today a person can say something that might not be on their “gender stereotype” making people think that they are gay. People automatically think things from one action but don’t necessarily show them self as a whole. A male could play football and still care a lot about what he wears and still be straight. When he started teaching one of his students came up to him and said “I know what your story is Mr. Glazer, your gay,” he simply denied it like any person that was gay would have done. Outside of school he had gone to a place where mostly gay people were, he saw one of his students there and from that found out he was indeed gay. He had to talk to this student to make sure that he wouldn’t tell anybody because at this time period it would have jeopardized his entire career in teaching not to mention his reputation. His father tried to push him to become an administrator because he thought that my Uncle would serve himself better in a position of an authority. His father thought that he had to act “like a man” and not take a passive approach but be controlling and being on the top of the food chain would put out a better reputation for him.  While he was in elementary school and in college people thought about the possibility of him being gay, but it seems to me as if people really thought of being gay as like a disease that people really didn’t want o to know about. People kept it a secret. In elementary school people told him that he was gay because he jumped rope instead of playing stickball, and preferred playing jacks than box ball. I think this contributed to my grandmother being sent to Canada to spend time with relatives for the summer while my uncle stayed home with his parents because his parents probably thought that he needed them to push him in the right direction, that he was more dependent on them for support. His mother had asked him three years in a row if he was a homosexual and every year he denied it, no one really told the truth about himself or herself. They pretended like they followed the status quo. Today when teachers ask a question to the class people often don’t put their hands up for what they really think the answer is they just look around and see what everyone else is doing. People didn’t want to be embarrassed because of what they thought or who they are. When teachers ask a question and you’re the only one on the opposite side you just goo to the other side and don’t really bother with you not showing your true self. Today, not nearly as much thought or energy would have gone into preventing people from finding out about your true sexuality. Multiple times on TV series such as Project Runway people openly told people about their partners and their sexuality. There are places in the world where they are very open to the gay population and treat them as if they were the normal. My uncle only started to become open about his sexuality when he met his long-term partner Sylvester who was a national football player in Canada; he was attracted to the opposite sex and still played football. He didn’t openly talk about his sexuality to his fans because like my Great Uncle is career would have been threatened because the sports team probably didn’t want to be supporting that type of sexuality.  Different gender doing the same activity struggle to become teachers, a girl would face the same problem if she was trying to become a lawyer or a football player at the time. People during the time period of the 1950’s struggled to come out of what the normal people did and what everyone expected their gender to do and what was expected of them as individuals. If a female had been through the same situation at this time they would face the same discrimination not showing their true self because it didn’t follow what was expected. It didn’t follow what the rest of the world did which wasn’t acceptable at all then and still aren’t equal now.  Although today people don’t view a straight person and a gay person as completely equal, we don’t face the challenge of trying to hide ourselves. People willingly speak out about their sexuality now and is becoming more and more accepted. People now are becoming generally more open to people don’t follow the status quo. There are still times when people discriminate against others. Students often facet this by other peers about possibly being gay although when people are open about it and are around people that are understanding people with that sexuality are able to live their lives happily.
 * Hiding the Truth **