"Are You a Pansy?", My Gym Teacher Asked Me While Taking Attendance.

When I was twelve years old, in my first year of junior high school, I dragged myself to my first gym class, which I was prepared to hate even before I got there. I hated most team sports (except bike riding and canoeing) and I hated being told what to do.

When I was dressed, like all of the other pre-adolescents, in my idiotic red shorts and white t-shirt, I got in a line of some 60 to ninety other children and our names were called out, to which we responded, "here". When the gym teacher got to my name, he had an additional question he wanted to ask. He told me that my twin brother had been in the gym class before me and had told him that I was a faggot. "Is that true?"

I was caught speechless and I effectively conceded that I was by failing to respond that I wasn't. (It's a common law and Federal Rules of Evidence principle that, under circumstances where one would be expected to deny a charge, a failure to deny a charge can be interpreted as a confession.)

And yet, I couldn't really care less whether others think I'm gay. What offends me is that they believe it is any of their business to ask me about the issue in such an emotionally abusive way. But, in retrospect, the daily and hourly insults, physical and moral, that I suffered from my brother were far worse than any embarrassment resulting from by brother's metaphoric stab and twist identity assassination of that day, and were worse than of any moment that I spent during two years at that junior high school. I fought more with my brother during those two years than with the other hundreds of students combined.

It was not my job to discuss my sexuality with a gym teacher, in private or in front of ninety other children on that particular morning, or on any other morning. And although I could waste my time thinking of things I could have said, yet the moment has passed and the insult suffered.

I was filled with hatred for my twin brother (a strong word, says the African American Political Pundit), but I use this strong word precisely because it states specifically what I mean. I don't know that I can ever forgive my brother for his daily attempts to drive me insane when we were younger, or for his determination to degrade and humiliate me in every way that came to his mind. The best I can do is to forget him and hope he dies before I do so that I can finally celebrate. (I celebrated my father's death by moving to Brazil.)

I don't know that I can ever forgive the gym instructor, whose behavior was unprofessional, discriminatory, and cruel. I wish that I had requested permission to leave the gym class so that I could report his behavior to the principal's office. But, I was more consumed with disbelief that my brother had managed to deputize this asshole teacher, during the first week of school, to collaborate in verbally assaulting humiliating me in front of everyone else. I still feel hatred for the gym teacher and would be pleased to learn that he has died of cancer or been run over by a milk truck that left tire tracks on his face.

I hated gym more than I would have otherwise, and I eventually obtained a letter from my pediatrician to the effect that I suffered chronic medical condition that prevented me from submitting to gym class for the foreseeable future. That was my solution. But it didn't solve the problem of the daily assaults and insults that were visited upon me by my twin brother.

Here's a clue for those who believe that twins are biologically bound to be best friends. My experience tells me that even if the biological myth were true, still environmental factors are at least as powerful as biology.

I was certainly the victim of imputed homosexuality-based discrimination, meaning that one can be discriminated against on the basis that someone else thinks or believes that the victim is homosexual, even if he isn't. Discrimination based on imputed invidious categorization is just as bad as discrimination based on actual participation in a group that is subject to discrimination and protected by anti-discrimination laws.

I was also potentially the victim of slander, since my twin brother's statements were calculated to defile the perception of me in my community, and the gym teacher's republication of the slanderous statement made him (an adult) more culpable than my brother was. Although the gym teacher asked me if I was gay (asking a question is not a statement that would be slanderous), however he repeated the slanderous statement of my brother.

The fact that he made this statement (that my brother said I was a "faggot") in front of sixty to ninety other students provides "direct evidence" of discrimination, which is available only in the minority of discrimination cases. And it is a perfect example of publishing slanderous information to a community (one's peers at school) that is important to the victim.

If the same thing happened today to one of my children, you can bet that I would be pursuing various administrative and legal avenues to vindicate the principle that slander, and discrimination against others on the basis of a belief that they are or might be gay are very serious errors with potentially serious legal and professional consequences.

Note: At this point, I cannot remember whether the word the professor used was "pansy", "faggot", "gay", or "gayboy", all of which my brother called me with great regularity.

A little-recognized fact is that many gay people, people with darker skin than their relatives and people with curlier hair than their siblings are regularly discriminated against by their own gender-identity, skin-color and color-associated-characteristic-aroused siblings, parents and other relatives. Many people believe that they will never be treated better than they are by their own relatives, which may be true in many even the majority of cases. But, in the minority where it is patently false, our own relatives can be our worst enemies, committing crimes and atrocities against us under color of family.