Bad Gay: Episode 10

I don’t like to brag but I have big news. I was elected Queen of the Gays at work! Well, that’s not the official title—but it should be! I work in corporate America and there are rules about taking the fun out of everything, so my title is LGBTQI+ Club Chair, which reads like a sinister brand of red pleather furniture at a sex club. Hmmm…maybe this role will prove to be more fun than expected!

The LGBTQI+ Club is one of a dozen DEI initiatives at my company. I joined it about a year ago after one of the club members organized an outing to a piano bar to sing show tunes. I didn’t realize then that the social gay group had no official connection to the office gay group. So, imagine my surprise when I showed up to my first LGBTQI+ meeting at noon in a conference room and there were no cocktails. No singing.

The most interesting thing about that first meeting—which was focused on an exceptionally dreary discussion about the group’s charter—was seeing all the company gays in one room! And there were a few surprise gays—colleagues who I’d thought were straight—which delighted me.

One surprise gay was a woman who had been a jerk to one of my staff. She was on my people-to-get-revenge-on to-do list. But I crossed her off once she emerged as a surprise gay. It didn’t hurt that she laughed at something I said to break the tension during the debate over the gay charter. So, all is forgiven, mean lesbian!

My main contribution to the first meeting was to ask why the company wasn’t buying us lunch since we were meeting on gay company business at noon. Apparently, no one had ever considered the free lunch question! I may not be the most skilled or competent employee. But I’m expert at bleeding corporate overlords for free meals. So, I volunteered to scream homophobia if the company rejected us expensing lunch.

Even with an injection of food, the meetings continued to be anemic. The group was rudderless, so no decisions got made. We couldn’t elect leaders until the charter was approved, which seemed to need a greenlight from the Supreme Court or God. No one was quite sure.

I have no patience for endless talk and no action. Yet I attended every meeting—tickled by the low-stakes drama (which I stirred up every chance I got) rather than annoyed by the lack of movement. 

At a meeting a few weeks ago, I interrupted a gripe session about our inability to get things done by pointing to a skyscraper in the distance. It was the building where I worked when I first entered the corporate world in the early 1990s. I explained that in those days people still were terrified to come out because you could be fired or worse. Back then, it was unimaginable that my company—or any company—would encourage gays to gather on company time. Even if they did, we would have assumed it was a trap and once we were in the conference room we’d be put in cages and poked with sticks. So, I said in my best after-school movie of the week wise mother voice, even though it feels like we’re not doing anything productive, just feeling safe to spin our gay wheels in a company-sanctioned meeting place is a massive accomplishment.

All the gays, including me, got a bit weepy, which I took as my cue to suggest we sing “I Am What I Am.” (I was determined to inject show tunes into these meetings!)  And then we approved the damn charter!

A couple days later, I received an email asking for nominations to lead the group. I nominated the mean lesbian because it seemed like a good punishment. Then I got the email ballot, but I was distracted and forgot to open it. I didn’t even realize I was a candidate until the results were announced that I’d won.

Maybe it was the emotional monologue that got me elected. But, more likely, it was because I got us free lunch. Regardless, my plan is to have sex scandal and be thrown out of elected office asap.