In the short story “Brokeback Mountain,” both Jack and Ennis grapple with their identities. As early on as after the first time they have sex, they are trying to deny that it happened. “…once Ennis said, ‘I’m not no queer!’ and Jack jumped in with, ‘Me neither. A one-shot thing. Nobody’s business but ours.'” To me, it is clear that these men feel guilty about the acts they have just committed, as it is very abnormal and out of the ordinary for where they are and “people like them,” hence all the gay cowboy stereotypes.
This perspective on queerness led me to a book I’ve been reading recently, Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley. This is a young adult novel centered on Sarah, a Black girl grappling with integrating into a new, all-white school in the 1950s, and Linda, a white girl struggling to steer away from the views that have been instilled into her and see Sarah as a human being rather than just another Black person. One of the constant themes of the book is Sarah going to great lengths to hide her sexuality, even, at times, trying to deny it to herself because “it’s not Christian.” She even dates a boy named Ennis for a period of time to try and convince herself she is actually straight. she says at the end of her first date with Ennis, “This should be the easiest, most natural thing in the world. Going on a date with a boy. Maybe if I try hard enough it will be.”
Both of these texts use these characters’ denial as a way to bring awareness to the stigmas around queerness surrounding the different characters and the societies they are living in. While on the surface, a high-school girl grappling with integration has nothing to do with an uneducated cowboy, they share the commonality of what could be if they only admitted it to themselves, but the fear of the future. The fear of being judged. Of not being perceived as good people anymore by those they trust and love. They bring another raw, human aspect to what it means to be queer, and what it means to fit that into the other parts of your identity.
~written by SilverFlute