We've seen how one individual can fool the government. Who would've thought that the Senator from Vermont was not what they thought he was? Less political ( well, maybe not ) is an incident quoted from a book reviewed in the Chicago Tribune ( 5-20-01 ) , Zuni and the American Imagination by Eliza McFeely, in which one Zuni Native American, We'wha, not only fooled the anthropologist studying the tribe, but the American President, Grover Cleveland, and most of the American government. We'wha, part of a Zuni delegation to Washington was a berdache, a man who had chosen to live as a woman. No one had a clue though photos show her with masculine features and standing a head taller than the other Zuni women with her. She lived with the anthropologist Matilda Stevenson in Washington for six months. ( You can read more of this extraordinary person in Will Roscoe's 1991 book The Zuni Man-Woman. )
Liz Winfeld, writing an essay called "My Radical Agenda" from the Denver Post ( 5-16-01 ) really ought to be read in full, but here are some representative quotes: "I believe that sexual orientation is inherent. We all have one and we are not morally, intellectually, emotionally or in any way superior or inferior because of it. ... [ P ] arents who reject their children because of a non-heterosexual orientation are immoral and their abdication of responsibility to their offspring is criminal. ... Being straight doesn't make you a good parent. Being gay doesn't make you a bad one. ... There's a slogan 'Abortion stops a beating heart.' Here's mine 'Fundamentalism stops a thinking brain.'"
Remember The Ugly Duckling, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Little Mermaid, The Princess and the Pea? A review in The New York Times ( 5-20-01 ) shows that Disney, children everywhere, and political pundits owe a great deal to the spectacularly unattractive, terribly lonely, and quite homosexual Hans Christian Anderson. Jackie Wullschlager's book, Hans Christian Anderson: The Life of a Storyteller, tells how Anderson rescued children's stories from didacticism, injecting real emotion and pain into them ( even as the Disney Corporation eviscerates what Anderson put there ) .
The Houston Chronicle ( 5-20-01 ) tells how a number of American businesses use advertising that taps into the lesbigay market by way of vague inside jokes, references to homosexual lifestyles, or positive exploration of gay themes. Examples: John Hancock Financial using lesbian adoption in "Insurance for the Unexpected," Chevron showing gay employees in a pride parade. But corporation ventures out of the closet are tentative in the U.S. compared to European markets, the paper said. The author concludes that with our disposable income it's just a matter of time ( or is that money ) before ...
That fuss about Popeye and Bluto in that juice commercial, and whether it's gay-themed or just juice-themed, has spread to the Arlington Heights' Daily Herald ( 5-19-01 ) where writer Burt Constable wonders, in response to an article on the two big lugs that ran in USA Today, whether this might "fuel the feud" between the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the Conservative Culture and Family Institution. Constable throws more flammable trash on the fire by suspecting Wimpy as much more likely to be gay and that many suspect Olive Oyl of being lesbian. OK, now what about Mighty Mouse ( an opera queen ) , Sylvester the Cat ( lisps ) , and Bugs Bunny ( his relationship with E. Fudd you know ) .