The Gay Husband

The Gay Husband 
I had the great displeasure of introducing Jess to an old friend of mine during the pride parade. We were very close until we had an argument about MY gender expression. He somehow thinks that being a gay man in the closet gives him the authority or knowledge to tell a lesbian who she is. He insisted, to the point of an argument, that I am butch. Whatever. I explained to him it really isn't about what he thinks I am and since we haven't had and never would have sex with each other, he really is in no position to call me butch. We stopped speaking for two years over this. I didn't consider being butch an insult at all. He was stereotyping and judging me and every other lesbian for that matter. I really didn't expect to experience that judgment from a gay man. I thought that was the point of Pride. I am proud of who I am as a person and I respect all other people for their strength in just being who they are. I invited him out because some of our friends were worried about him being so isolated. So the first thing he says to me on Pride Sunday at a gay bar was that he is no longer talking to our friend because she is a white girl [he's a white guy] with blond hair and blue eyes who is all of a sudden dating a Puerto Rican guy, like she knows what that's about. What the hell? He is a closeted white male who specifically prefers our brown brothers, judging a friend we have known for ten years, who happens to enjoy the same spectrum of men. Wow. While he, Jess and I were sitting and drinking, he started with the Home Depot shit. He has a habit of calling me a "Home Depot" dyke, derogatorily I might add. Jess sat there aghast. I was thinking "Wow, this is why I stopped speaking to you". He kept going. I futilely tried to tell him what he was doing wrong and not to talk to me that way. He said "Well, that's the way I see you". I was sitting there thinking "I'm being gay bashed at a gay bar on Pride Sunday, the holiest of fucking gay days, by a gay man". I was done. I tried to steer the conversation to something more jovial before I beat the shit out of him or Jess blew a gasket. I tried to tell him vaguely about a project Jess and I are working on. He proceeded to tell me and Jess, whom he just met, that we are not funny and basically what we are doing won't work. Wow. He then proceeds to show me some art he was doing. I cheered him on. You go boy. I was very reserved and contained my complete and utter anger because Jess didn’t come here for that. I was upset and the next day I was embarrassed. If I told Jess what happened, she probably would not have believed me. She was witness to the last straw of patience in what was a fruitful friendship.