Subject: ROBERTS' RULES:Welcome
From: [email-masked]
Date: Tue, 6 May 1997 23:04:13 +0000

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_________________

ROBERTS' RULES
by Shelly Roberts

WELCOME TO THE CLUB.

Dear Ellen,

I'm not normally a gushie, fan in the habit of sending love letters to
join a boxcar pile of memos from other starstrucks. 

But in your case, I'll make an exception.

I know you said you don't wish to be a spokes-dyke for anybody but
yourself. Well, um, gee.I'm sorry to have to be the one to tell you
this, but guess what? You're it. Or at least one of it. Or maybe just
it of the week. It comes with the territory, Girlfriend. Like it or
not. Just ask Candace Gingrich. Or Chastity Bono. And, over time,
they've come to be pretty good at it. Not that you're going to need to
make a living out on the stump making personal appearances on behalf
of initial organizations. Though later, you may want to. Sitcoms only
having a half-life akin the attention span of a contrary two year old.
Or 4300 Nielson families.

And about that word that you're having so much trouble saying without
sounding like you swallowed a tennis shoe? It gets easier. After
you've said it a few hundred times. "Lesbian." "Lesbian." "Lesbian." 

You just have to overcome about 4000 years of bad PR for the word.
Unfortunately for us, in the property settlement over language, the
guys got the word that means happy, and we got the one that means
"Joan Crawford is after your wife." Practice. Practice. Practice.

Sometime in the near future, you will actually find yourself saying it
without automatically lowering your voice and scanning the room.

Then one fine day, though you may not even notice it, you will hear
the word "Lesbian" coming out of your mouth as though it had its own
prideful place in your Webster's New Collegiate.

There's another funny thing that happens to professional lesbians,
you'll find out soon enough. Non-gay/lesbian people audition for you.
People like, oh, say, Presidents and First Ladies, for example, They
already know we're cool. Now they want you to think they are too. I
don't know when it happened. Probably about two years earlier than you
noticed.

Oh, and one more thing before I get to the gushy part.

I know your new girlfriend, Anne, is new at all this. And doesn't seem
to have any problem shouting from the rooftops how she feels about
you. At least until people know how to pronounce her last name. It's
that part about not being a lesbian that gets just a little ticklish.
I am trying to think of even one baby dyke I ever knew, or ever was,
who didn't, with her first, say that. You know, "I'm not a lesbian."
(but my girlfriend plays one on tv). ".I just fell in love with THIS
WOMAN."  I believe, and you can check me on this, that that IS the
textbook definition of a lesbian. It's just an afterthought. And most
of us, having worn that particular suit before ourselves, are letting
it slide.

The Gush:

Here's the thank you that I hope isn't the same one everyone else is
oozing in your direction. Not the one about your bravery. (That was
cool.) Or the great writing. (That was amazing.) Or how you gave
twenty or forty million lesbians and gay men their first real
opportunity to see something true of themselves on tv, and hopefully,
not the last. (You'll be blessed forever, even when you're not
sneezing for that one.) Those are all great. And true. And important
for each of us. And, no, not the part where you are being nominated
for knighthood in England, offered your own postage stamp in several
third world countries. Or the rumor about canonization through the
Metropolitan Community Church.

You see, my dad died before we could ever really talk about what
coming out was really like for me. And my mom, well, she's been kind
of closed on the subject for years. They knew, of course. But they
didn't really KNOW, you know?

Now, after watching the "Puppy Episode" (or maybe it should have been
called the "Puppy Love" episode) depict the frustration, anger,
hesitance, and the fear, the elation, and the joy the way I know it
happens, this Ellen Morgan/De(very)generous fan is thrilled. Despite
the hype, or maybe because of it, you, your writers, your cast, crew,
network, and sponsors let millions of non-gay people share the
experience of what coming out looks and feels like. Reality.  Not some
comic-book, depraved, sexual fantasy. It was a pivotal moment.
Historic.  A world-wide, now shared experience.

Will it change the world as we know it? Maybe. A little.

Brava! 

And, well, there were actually two epoch making events that night. It
was also, as a friend of mine pointed out in her e-mail, probably the
only time in history anything was so clearly understood that was said
over an airport PA.

Sincerely. Yours.

________________________
(C) 1997. Shelly Roberts. All rights reserved.
May be commercially reprinted only in its entirety with written
permission.

Shelly Roberts is an internationally syndicated columnist, speaker,
and the author of the new  Roberts' Rules of Lesbian Break Ups.
(Spinsters Ink.)