Robert DuSold

So, a bill was recently passed in Florida.. the “Don’t Say Gay” bill as it’s been called. Or the “anti-grooming” bill.. which I’m sure is not a tribute to the beauty secrets of gay people. Although, I think maybe some sort of proclamation is in order for how amazing most gay people look.

There’s been a lot of outrage, and rightly so, at the continued quashing of the gay community through legislation. The ignorance and stupidity, and in some cases hatred.. just bubbles out of the mouths of Republican legislators like they’re chatting about the lovely weather in Florida.

It’s stuff I’ve heard my entire life… from the Catholic Church, from politicians, from Billy Graham and Anita Bryant and Jerry Falwell and movies and TV ….and weirdly, like Cher, it’s still here.

But, I love Cher.

Anyway, I have pretty much been a rabble rouser and fierce advocate for gay rights after struggling with my own identity and especially after watching friends and lovers die of AIDS. That was never supposed to be a part of life. This morning while I was going through stuff to write this I came upon the funeral card for the first man I fell in love with who died in 1992.

Around that time, I was playing a giant, fat God-like cat in the national tour of “Cats”.. I had met Claude while he was in the Broadway company. He was just magic on stage.

When we landed in Topeka, I was asked to put on my drag and visit a kid in the hospital who was in a horrible accident and paralyzed. He couldn’t see the show so I came to his bedside.

That night, before the show, some of the other cat people came in my dressing room and said the show was being picketed by someone no one should have ever heard of… Fred Phelps.

There were signs and chants of “FAGS DIE OF AIDS” and “GOD HATES FAGS” and lots of others. It was horrifying and pretty awful. We were all very concerned for our safety.. and pretty much no one gave a shit there in Kansas. It never stopped the entire run.

At that point, I had had it. On tour.. especially in Florida… I was taunted and threatened fairly frequently. In hotels, in shopping malls.. but being assaulted like that at a theater just sent me over the fucking edge.

Plus my friends were dropping dead.

So, I sent letters and faxes and called every city council person, the governor, the mayor and everyone I could think of to express my outrage.

It would have been delicious if there was social media, but there wasn’t. Actually, come to think of it I’m glad there wasn’t. I had to be very focused and purposeful.

Not like today.

I have an awful habit of waking up in the middle of the night and scrolling on the old iPad while I should be sleeping. It sucks to be awake after a pee and not fall back asleep.

I started mindlessly watch Twitter go by and came upon this:

Which would be lovely if not for this:

I recently had an eye exam, so I’ll do this again… You know, when they futz with the lenses and the optometrist says:

This:

Or this:

Hopefully, it’s a bit clearer now… can you see better?

Now ya do.

So, here’s the deal. Normally, I wouldn’t give a shit what Lin Manuel Miranda has to say about gay people. Honestly I don’t think we’ve met.. maybe we have when he wasn’t famous.

But, things aren’t normal in the theater industry.

I never thought theater would be a forum for unmistakable animus towards gay men. Gay white men especially. Or white women for that matter. It’s getting very Topeka in here. And hypocritical.

But, unfortunately now it is pretty Phelpy.

I have to say the “we see you” stuff is so cliched at this point and sorta bugs the shit out of me. You’re on social media… you can’t see anybody unless they have a picture that they’ve photoshopped of themselves to make them look perfect.

They’re still not there though.

But, underneath the “we see you” stuff.. as seemingly innocuous as it is… is a threat. You better watch your fucking back. We see you. If someone said that to me in person.. which I’d wager none of the sosh-brigade would .. I would certainly take it that way. From the comfort of their living rooms, though, they mean it as a threat.

Sometimes, that threat catches on.

I’m only here to express myself. I’m not here to start a cancellation, or a thumb war, or an obnoxious open letter. I am here to give a voice to people who are afraid to speak out because they know their audience in the show biz… which ain’t friendly at the moment.

I’m also here to just call bullshit on Mr. Miranda and others who pretend to be advocates for the gay community, when they are clearly not. And to appeal to gay kids infuriates me.

I’m not sure if my cyberfriend Lin who sees me forgot that I saw him openly and knowingly blame gay men for .. hold on… “exploiting, diminishing”.. hold on again… “shaming and excluding” him.

Geez, that sounds very Republican to me.

It’s also a hundred shades of fucked up wrong. It’s a Phelps away from making sure we whisper who we are as gay men. Some of us already are.

None of the privileged theater folk who actually had the nuts to attach their name to that screed or movement or whatever it is have recanted their statements… which means they still believe that gay white men are responsible for their suffering.

Or maybe they think most people forgot.

I didn’t.

A lot of this hostility is baking itself into theater from all sides .. the union side especially… theater is a mess at this point for many reasons.

Bobby grew up to be a gay white man in American Theater….

Which tweet is about me?

Because they can’t both be.