The Todd Glass Situation (20 page)

“Oh my God, how old
are
you? You sound like you're eighty.”

“Hello, the year 1962 called. It wants its social views back.”

“Hey, what time is your lynch mob getting together?”

Something I still hear a lot at the dinner table is the old “Is being gay a choice?” debate. Let me give you two quick ways to disarm these people: First, you can simply ask them when they chose to be straight. That one usually stumps them. But if you need more, there's this joke by comedian Danny Bevins: “So if being gay is a choice, that means you can be talked into it, right? I guess you just haven't met anyone persuasive enough.”

Believe me, that will do the job.

One last thing: Not everything is clear-cut. We're all on the fence about certain issues. That's okay. Educate yourself. Discuss the issues with your husband or wife, your friends, and the people you trust in your life. Talk to experts who can bring more than just loud opinions to the debate—facts are our friends.

And to whatever extent you can, try to work through your struggles before talking to your kids. Look at it this way: If you're wrong, and they find out (which eventually they will), it
will undercut your authority with them for the rest of your life. You probably have plenty of wisdom in other areas to share with them; don't mess it up by getting something so important so wrong.

It's okay if you're not all the way there yet, but can't we let our kids grow up in a world where other people's rights are not up for debate? Let's give them the chance to be a 100-percenter from day one.

I was lucky enough to have been surrounded by a lot of warm and kind people who accepted me for who I am with open arms, especially my family. Which kind of begs the question: Why did I stay in the closet for so long?

There are a lot of reasons, but one stands out above all others: From a very young age I continuously heard the word “gay” used as a pejorative term. It was used to express dislike or distaste, a substitute for words like “different,” “weird,” or “out of the ordinary.”

So even though I didn't grow up in a “fuck queers” environment, the seemingly innocuous “gay” remarks have left their scars—the death of my self-esteem by a thousand cuts. And by the way, you don't need a thousand—all you need is to hear it once from someone you respect to leave you apprehensive about your sexuality. I like to use this analogy to help people see my point: It doesn't matter how many times you use an ATM without any problems; you only have to get robbed once to make you scared of using it again for the rest of your life.

That's what happened to me—hearing the word “gay” as
an adjective to describe something in a negative way made me withdraw and hide my secret even deeper. What made it even worse is that these remarks often came from people who considered themselves open-minded, forward-thinking individuals who would argue that their use of the word “gay” didn't represent any ill will toward people who were actually gay. These people would never go up to a gay person and say, “Hey, fag!” But for some reason they desperately want to convince you that somehow there is a difference between doing that and using “gay” as a shorthand for “weird” or as the punch line of a joke. I like to take these people down memory lane. It wasn't too long ago that a lot of good people made similar distinctions between calling someone a “nigger” or “kike” and using terms like “nigger-rig” and “Jew me down.”

I've got to admit that in my lifetime we've come a long way. Using the word “gay” as a punch line or a pejorative isn't nearly as acceptable as it used to be. But there are still similarly contentious words in our lexicon today. I learned my lesson early in my career when I made an easy joke about a waitress who dropped a tray of drinks while I was in the middle of my act. “Oh, I see we've got one of Jerry's Kids waiting tables tonight!” It was a hacky joke I'd heard countless times, one that played on the widely accepted stereotype that Jerry's Kids are clumsy people who can't do things the right way. The joke got a laugh and I moved on. Fortunately, not everyone else did: A comedian by the name of Dwayne Cunningham took me aside after the show.

“Look, Todd, Jerry's Kids aren't stupid or slow. They have muscular dystrophy. They aren't clumsy because they're not paying attention. It's a physical disease.”

You want to know the funniest part about what I said? I was taking an ignorant shortcut. Sometimes it seems easier to use stereotypes to get a point across. Instead of saying “clumsy,” “cheap,” or “lazy,” we look for a group that, for whatever reason, has been identified as clumsy, cheap, or lazy. Not only is this practice offensive, but—when you stop to think about it—it's not a shortcut at all. It's way more work. JUST USE THE ADJECTIVE! It will save you time and effort.

There are many reasons why we use certain words in certain ways. But how and why you chose to use these words in the past is irrelevant here. Once someone educates you or makes you look at something from an angle you weren't privy to before, it's on you to evolve.

It's a situation I see a lot with “retarded.” You don't have to be a language scholar or an anthropology professor to figure out why you should stop using the word. All you need is a little empathy to figure out that using any word that defines someone else's existence in a pejorative way is wrong.

“Not so fast, Todd—what if I'm referring to someone who is actually mentally challenged”? Well, why not use “mentally challenged”? There are a lot of medical terms used to describe this particular condition—let's use the ones that they, their doctors, and their caregivers use.

Yes, you might find some loopholes that let you continue down the path you're on now, especially if you're really looking for them. But why do that? Why try so hard to hang on to something that won't stand the test of time and, in the meantime, is hurtful toward other people? How long are you going to wait before you decide to evolve? Do you really have to say “retarded” at a party and have everyone stare at you in disbelief for you to
get that it's over? I'm not talking about supersensitive, politically correct Hollywood liberals—I'm talking about your friends who simply evolved faster.

Or as one of my listeners, Andrew McClain, pointed out in an email: “I just want to give a big shout-out to all the super-cool, courageous men and women who still call things
retarded
. Keep fighting that fight—any ridicule that you'll face will be worth it, I promise. History will remember you as brave and principled warriors of free speech.”

What do you do when you're around people who still use these terms? It isn't always easy to correct them—many of them love to act like indignant victims of an unfair prosecution:

“What are you, the Word Police?”

No, I'm not the Word Police. I just know something you don't. Let me put it a different way: If you want to pull down your pants and take a shit in the middle of a crowded mall, that's your business. But what you can't do is look at the shocked and appalled people around you like there is something wrong with
them
. And you certainly can't get offended if someone politely points out that there is a bathroom nearby. They aren't the Shit Police—they're just trying to do the right thing.

Sometimes I like to blindside people with analogies. I used to be a big fan of hypotheticals: “So you want to use the word ‘retarded' to mean ‘clumsy'? Well, how would you feel if instead of ‘retarded,' we used ‘woman'?”

The problem with hypotheticals, however, is that they usually don't work. They're gimmicky. People know that you're using them to make a point. When you're dealing with a stubborn person—someone who insists on using “retarded” in a
certain context despite efforts to persuade them otherwise—the hypothetical is going to seem like a full-frontal attack.

So you have to blindside these people. Go into secret agent mode. Let them think you're on their side. “I'm not the Word Police,” you can assure them. “I think it's so funny that you say ‘retard' whenever someone drops something. In my house, when I was growing up, we just used ‘woman' ” (or “bald” or “Mexican” or whatever adjective describes the person you're talking to—you get the point).

Immature? Maybe a little. But if you make it subtle and play it real, I guarantee that eventually you'll get through to them.

A good rule of thumb, whenever you're in doubt as to what a group of people should be called, is to just call them whatever THEY want to be called. Sure, sometimes members of a particular group will adopt the slurs used to describe them and try to take the sting out of them by using these words to describe themselves. Trust me when I tell you this: That's their second choice. If it was up to them, they'd rather that word didn't exist or was never used in a negative way in the first place. Since that's not an option, they've found the second-best way to deal with it.

All of this is especially important if you're a parent. I can almost guarantee you that your kid will hear the word “retarded” used to put someone down, but does he really have to hear it from you?

So you can make the call now and spare yourself the embarrassment down the road. Evolution isn't just a favor to society; it's a favor to yourself.

I was having a conversation with friends one night when somebody brought up the idea of having a father who was transgender. As I started to play this hypothetical situation out in my mind—imagining my dad, dressed as a woman, coming to one of my shows, being introduced to my friends—I think I surprised everyone there—especially me—when I confessed that I would probably be uncomfortable.

There's part of me that's embarrassed to admit that I'd be embarrassed. I've spent a lot of this book preaching tolerance, and it's difficult for me to recognize that I might not be the 100-percenter I hope to be.

But I'd like to think that I would be self-aware enough to realize that the problem didn't lie with my hypothetical cross-dressing dad, but with me. That I wouldn't try to convince him to hide or change who he was just so I would feel more comfortable. That I would seek professional help and learn how to have a kind, caring relationship with him just the way he is. That I would recognize and admire his courage to be himself and hopefully even learn from it.

We're all confronted with people and situations that take us outside of our comfort zones. Sometimes they can be a lot to deal with. But if you can recognize that maybe the problem isn't what the other person is doing, but rather the way you are responding to it, then you'll be helping to create a world that's more comfortable for everybody.

I notice a lot of people get upset about what I call “fake arguments.” One of my favorite ones is the so-called War on Christmas—“You can't even say ‘Merry Christmas' without someone jumping down your throat!”

Let's say you own a store, and one of your employees insists on saying, “Hi, Glenn!” to everyone who walks in:

“Hi, Glenn!”

“Hey there, Glenn!”

“Good morning, Glenn!”

This might not bother you. The employee is taking the time to be friendly, and most people, even if they're a little confused, will accept “Hi, Glenn!” as a nice gesture and move on with their day. But would you be wrong to correct your employee? “You might not want to say ‘Hi, Glenn!' to everyone, because not everyone is named Glenn. You can just say ‘Hi,' can't you?”

And how ridiculous would your employee seem if he snapped back at you? “That's bullshit! You can't even say ‘Hi, Glenn!' anymore!”

Of course you can . . . if you're talking to Glenn.

As a Jew, I really don't mind if someone wishes me a Merry Christmas. I appreciate the sentiment. But “Happy Holidays” is a way of expressing the same sentiment that tries to include everybody—it's not a provocation to war.

Pick any point in history and you're going to find a group of people who are fighting for equality. But the details of each
plight are different, leading some people to insist that you don't compare their movement to yours.

I've heard some people say, for example, that you can't compare being gay to being black, because being gay is something that you can hide. Yes, that particular aspect of the struggle is much easier for gay people. But how about the fact that if you're black the whole world might be against you, but at least you don't have to worry about your parents hating you as well? You've got to admit that the gays have a tougher time in that regard, don't you?

After my
WTF
episode, a lot of people reached out with their stories. I met a guy after a show who started to tell me that he felt like he knew what I had been through because he had a drug problem that he hid for a very long time. Then he stopped himself. “I don't mean to compare what I went through with what happened to you . . .”

It was my turn to stop him, to let him know that it was okay to continue. He was just trying to relate to me. It didn't matter how he was trying to do it. All that matters is the act of compassion. When someone is standing in front of you, trying to relate with you, don't let how they do it get in the way of the fact that they're doing it.

Can we just agree that empathy is not a competition? Yes, some people have a harder struggle than others, but isn't the ultimate goal to not struggle at all?

You already know that I had a hard time at school. That's why when I talk to friends who have kids in school today I'm so happy to hear about all the progress we've made. Sure, bullying remains a big problem, but I think our schools are trying to take great strides toward creating a safer and more nurturing environment for everyone.