Why Are My Closest Friends Gay Men?

I often hear single women ask the same question with a degree of puzzlement I share. Yes, I have excellent women friends, quite a large group of them from years ago as well as of the present, but there is something in the companionship of my two closest gay men friends that offers something different.

My first thought is that gay men of my generation, who were closeted for their early years, went through the incredible turmoil and torment of Stonewall and the following years of struggle for gay rights, a struggle in many ways like my struggle for women’s liberation: to be treated with respect as fellow human beings, to be assured of the same rights as people who fit the binary stereotype.

It’s their ability to join the fight and come out on the other side, still with the ability to smile and to love, that I admire, the same ability I’ve cultivated in my own life and admire in the lives of other women leaders. To achieve the difficult, desired results and come out ready to love life without bitterness.

Women of my social class, white, moneyed, educated, haven’t escaped some of this struggle; no women do; but it has not been as harsh and prolonged as the struggle of all marginalized people, of which there are many in this society as is shown by the potent LGBTQ movement.

I don’t find it possible to assign certain characteristics to my gay friends. They are individuals first and foremost. One is a deeply spiritual being, the other places his faith in his garden. One was married and fathered children, the other has stayed out of romantic relationships, and both have come at this moment in late middle age to cherish their aloneness and cultivate their friends. Neither one of them has what most of us would call enough money to live on.

I know that with them I can be comfortable and free. Too often with straight men, there is a set of rules, unacknowledged but still powerful. I may feel compelled to exert my charm, compelled by my own expectations rather than by those of the men. Too often I fail to find any support for my activism. They just don’t get it, especially when they see how well I live. Why struggle? What for? The next vacation approaches or the next expensive dinner out. Upper-class white straight men are still at the top of the totem pole and probably always will be. They have what they expect. I was born into the female version of that privilege but it has never been comfortable for me and I rarely chose my friends from those ranks.

It’s not possible to assign characteristics by gender and so I won’t try. Each of us is an individual and our gender is not a question of choice and does not bestow specific qualities. What binds us together is a shared history of struggle.

In Women LGBTQ