Volume 5, Entry 2: The Hand-Holders

Observing tiny gestures and enduring love

A few years ago, I got a message from a student via Remind. It arrived just as I was wrapping up Therapy Thursday, meaning I couldn’t respond to it until lunchtime.

The message expressed concern for the sender’s boyfriend, who was worrying over his future plans. The boyfriend’s parents were broadly supportive, encouraging him to pursue areas of interest and choose his desired path, but the boyfriend also worried about disappointing those parents. The sender desperately wanted to help but worried about being overbearing and amplifying the boyfriend’s own stress.

“I really don’t know how to help him,” the message ended.

My response was thorough, so long I can’t figure out why the character-restricted Remind allowed me to put it through all at once. I submitted several staples, including open dialogue and making a list, but I also suggested taking that list to the boyfriend’s parents and looping them into the discussion. If the boyfriend involved his parents in his decision-making, I reasoned, he might side-step some of that “I’m letting them down” sentiment since they’d contribute to the process.

When I’m responding to Therapy Thursday shares on the phone, I type with urgency. Students can’t tell that from what I write, but I want to explicitly prize their situation as important. They put something out there, but I ran out of time to address it, so I want to get my support back to them post-haste. It’s the one way I can honor their courage to press send.

Because I rush, though, I often read through the sender’s name. It’s right there at the top of the screen all the time, but my focus isn’t there: emotional labor demands too much attention for details to stick. So it was that I surely read the sender’s name several times but only realized something at the end.

The message was from Jason*.

The message was from a boy.

This shouldn’t have been remarkable, but it was: I hadn’t known before that Jason was gay. He hadn’t mentioned it on his intro survey, and his dozens of previous messages had all been concise answers to Questions of the Day or inquiries about math problems where he’d gotten stuck. This fact had never come out, which meant that his message marked that he kind of just had.

Jason’s message was so casual about it. That’s what stuck with me: he didn’t preface it with an explanation about his identity or orientation. He sought advice for his boyfriend in just the same way that girls do every week. It said that he was comfortable with himself, which is fantastic, but it also told me that he had zero concerns that I would accept him. That embrace went without saying.

Later on, I learned that his boyfriend, Glenn*, was also in my class, just in a different section. His boyfriend never shared during Therapy Thursday, not even once, and we had only a few conversations all year. He did just fine in class, but he preferred getting help and support from Jason.

There was a long stretch in the middle of the year where I wondered whether Glenn knew that I knew. Maybe that was why he resisted sharing? I couldn’t be sure, and I wasn’t going to bring it up. Jason and I never talked about it either; it just wasn’t relevant.

I discovered by year’s end that Glenn did know. Not because either guy ever told me—nothing like that. I knew because of how the two of them walked to class.

A seminar presenter once implored the teachers in attendance to greet students at the door every day, so I’m out there for most of passing period, rain or shine. Thousands of students pass by the room I teach in every day, and I see them, but most have faces I will never recognize. Still, young people are creatures of habit just like everyone else, so I see the same strangers every day at the same time.

This includes countless couples. Each pairing walks with its own rhythm. Some walk silently, shoulder to shoulder, as though unsure what might happen if they looked at one another, while others hang on one another, all but dancing into Health class or AP Physics. Still, others park in the same spots and talk, impervious to the world, time passing according to their own clock in a portable bubble of intimacy. I witness wholesome affection for the most part, not the snogging and PDAs popular media would have you believe. If it’s happening—and I’m sure it is—those kids avoid my little area. Maybe because I’m out there.

Rarely does any couple make an impression on me, but Jason and Glenn did. For months, I would see them appear from behind the building next to ours, walking shoulder-to-shoulder. Then, when their path became a straight shot into my classroom, their hands would slide into one another’s for the final stretch. It wasn’t a long distance—maybe thirty feet—but they held hands for those last moments of Jason walking Glenn to class. They didn’t the entire time, but they did at the end. Maybe because I was out there.

They remain the only young men I have ever seen holding hands on campus.

*****

The first gay men I ever met were at my neighbor Janice*’s house for Thanksgiving.

I didn’t understand at first that they were gay. I didn’t know that term, nor its significance. What understanding I had then of relationships being between men and women was inductive: I saw exclusively that pairing and generalized from there. No one ever told me that.

Before I met Janice’s Uncle Carl* and Sam*, I was briefed on the situation.

“Carl and Sam are partners,” my mother told me. “They live together.”

Nine and in my own bubble, this did not make much of an impression on me. I didn’t get why this required an explanation. What was meaningful about two people living together? Why did I need to know they were “partners” either? We did partners at school. I understood the word meant working together. Business partners. Partner in crime. “Howdy, partner.” This wasn’t rocket science.

When Janice’s mom introduced me to them at the party, the thing that fascinated me was not these two men being introduced together—it was that they both were interesting.

Carl sported a big orange mustache, but his resemblance to his sisters was uncanny. They all shared the same red hair and cheekbones, such that the very first smile he offered felt familiar. My mom always claimed she resembled this brother of hers or that cousin, but it was Janice’s family that confirmed the existence of genetics.

Sam was even more remarkable. He struck me as tall, possibly because we never made eye contact. This is because Sam was blind, meaning he wore the same dark glasses as characters with blindness always did on TV. Until Ben Affleck played the role, Sam was how I pictured Marvel’s Daredevil.

From there, I settled into eating dessert and introducing myself to people. I hardly know my neighbors now, so my understanding of community comes from parties like these. Everyone from different worlds and histories but treated like they’re family from the same point of origin. The buzz in their house is my soundtrack. The people leaning against armrests or dodging one another in the kitchen set the scene.

As do Carl and Sam. I always picture them together there. I remember how I came to understand the relationship my mom had attempted to explain: Carl helped Sam navigate through the busy house filled with talking, chewing, and laughing people. They were partners because Sam needed Carl’s help. My understanding was that of functionality: partners work together, and I could see how they worked together.

It’s good that Sam has Carl to help him, I remember thinking. That’s what a partner is for. It made sense. I was glad they were together.

And they were always, always together.

*****

When I picture Jason and Glenn holding hands, I feel a reassuring warmth. Whether their gesture lasted thirty feet or thirty milliseconds is irrelevant; they did so publicly. For any duration or distance, that strikes me as a victory.

I listened to friends rant about Proposition 22 in middle school. All the delirious, dehumanizing hypotheticals that inspire righteous video essay take-downs today were those thirteen-year-olds’ fresh-off-the-presses rhetoric in 2000. Eighth-grade me never pushed back, even after Janice’s parents specifically invoked Sam and Carl.

That ballot initiative sought to eliminate any loopholes in California’s definition of marriage. It read:

This measure provides that only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

The proposition’s sponsor, State Senator William J. Knight, was unequivocal in his purpose.

“The man-woman family is the best possible family unit,” he said. “The state should not be sponsoring or promoting a second-class unit. [And] what's to stop marriages between three or four people? What's to stop incestuous marriages, marriages between children and adults, whatever?"¹

[[ A high school in Petaluma continues to be named after William J. Knight. ]]

Proposition 22 passed with more than 60% of the vote in favor. That is, three out of every five California voters in 2000 voted to explicitly deny men like Sam and Carl the right to legal recognition of their relationship. And they doubled down in 2008: 52% of Californians voted to ban same-sex marriage that year. Yes, that law was ruled unconstitutional in 2013, but also: it happened. This wasn’t even 25 years ago.

Several students I knew in high school were gay, although most of that I only learned thanks to the nascent social media and blogging sites I cherished. It was rarely spoken of, and when it was, it was with either whispers or derision.

And when it was, the discourse wasn’t positive. My other neighbor, Wanda*, began dating Rosa* from my Advocacy class during junior year. They were the first same-sex couple I saw hold hands in public. They walked with a distinct rigidity. Wanda sported a scowl with her free hand forming a fist, while Rosa’s shoulders never moved. She exclusively stared straight ahead.

Because they were openly affectionate—around school, but especially around the neighborhood—their relationship drew constant commentary from people in my life. Girls rolled their eyes or pantomimed gagging; boys cursed Wanda for “stealing” the incredibly gorgeous Rosa from the dating pool. Even the “tolerant” people I knew seemed antsy around them, muttering about discretion and decency in a way they never did when we passed a boy and girl making out.

I remember passing Wanda’s garage one time. The two were holding onto one another, Rosa entirely wrapped up in Wanda’s arms like she needed protection, but I could hear Rosa crying. Because they had each other and I had no one, I remember wondering why she felt sad. They were over at Wanda’s house so often—every day—that I couldn’t imagine the issue.

They broke up later that year. Wanda’s family moved out, and Rosa married some guy in Washington after high school.

I think about them sometimes. It was only recently that I realized their entire relationship took place under Proposition 22. I wonder what their futures might have been like if they went to school now. Maybe their several months together would have been longer without Knight’s law looming over them. Who knows.

Or maybe the propositions didn’t matter. Maybe the law only codified what was already surrounding them from start to finish, stifling their ability to see a future for themselves. Maybe the social stigma was like carbon monoxide, an invisible assassin.

No one will ever know.

*****

Sam died yesterday.

I found out in a text from my mom. He went to sleep on Tuesday night and didn’t wake up. I had only been vaguely aware of Sam’s illness; we hadn’t run into one another for several years. He’d been in hospice for a while and in a lot of pain. I suspect Carl’s devastating loss heeds that silver lining, but I can only imagine. I wouldn’t know that feeling and likely never will.

Nonetheless, I cried after reading the text. For all my tears, this was a reaction I hadn’t anticipated. I attended maybe two dozen events that he did. We didn’t know each other, not really. He’s Janice’s family, not mine.

Why was I crying in an empty classroom? Why did another wave hit me when I got home?

I spend my days on a school campus where anti-gay rhetoric requires intervention. I watch movies centered on queer characters in theaters without walking through protestors. I list Call Me By Your Name as a favorite movie on my first-day PowerPoint, and no one calls me into the principal’s office. I facilitate a program that says, “All of you are loved”, and I’m paid for that work. I live in a bubble wholly apart from the era I grew up in when all those things would have been inflammatory. Classmates of mine in eighth grade complained to the administration because they thought one of my teachers might be gay. Today, several teachers are openly queer; there’s actual knowledge now, but almost nobody is talking about it.

None of this is monolithic; the world’s no utopia, and hard-earned growth can be undone. I’m claiming nothing to the contrary, merely noting that it’s nice to work somewhere that treats the queer community infinitely better than the world did when I was in school. Every moment of Wanda’s and Rosa’s short-lived romance drew cruel scrutiny; they looked forward to legal condemnation. In hindsight, their eventual separation seems inevitable; they could barely hold hands or make out without someone muttering or glaring at them. How could any relationship flourish under those circumstances?

As I thought about Sam’s passing and Carl’s loss, I remembered the first time I met them in 1993. I’ve known them for more than thirty years. I’ve never seen them apart. That means Carl and Sam were together under Proposition 22. They were together under Proposition 8. They were together when “gay” was the slur du jour of my peers. And they were together before that when it was dangerous to acknowledge their togetherness, not just in some places but many.

Here, in the 2020s when more than half of marriages end in divorce², Carl and Sam were together for more than three decades—much of that under legislative and societal denunciation. They stayed together through all of it. The law diminished them, and people frowned at them, but Sam died while they were still together.

‘Til death do us part.

When that text message arrived, this weight of understanding crashed over me for the first time. Carl wasn’t just losing the person he loved, but a person he’d loved through everything it took to finally reach today’s progress. They played their love story on hard mode, but they made it through. They were together for as long as fate allowed them and far more than society begrudgingly granted them.

How deeply must two people love each other to endure like that?

Sam knew. Carl still does.

It’s heartbreaking and heartwarming.

artwork by Michelle Yee (2024)

*****

There’s this girl, Korra*, who’s been in my class a few times over the years. Great student, accomplished and skilled in several areas, but also someone who sends these really kind notes after Mini-Challenge Days and at the end of each quarter. She’s someone who says little but notices a lot. I could write her a recommendation letter right now; I look forward to the day she asks me to.

Korra doesn’t have my class all year, so there was a stretch where I didn’t see her for a while. Weeks passed without our paths crossing until, out of nowhere, she strolls right past me one day while I’m at the door. I can’t figure out why she’s walking this way, since the classes beyond my room are ones she already took from me, but then I realize she’s not alone. There’s a girl with her.

They’re holding hands.

My first thought when I noticed was of Jason and Glenn. I know I might be wrong, but I will always believe that their hands came together during that final stretch because they trusted me with that gesture of affection. They felt safe expressing how they felt about each other around me. They knew they had my support. Interpreted truly or not, I felt proud every time—of Jason and Glenn for defying stigma, but also of me for facilitating that beautiful defiance. I’ve never felt more conviction about the person I want to be than when those two hands came together in my presence. I want to be a person who creates the safety those two boys felt.

When Korra and her girlfriend walk by, though, I don’t feel that way. Their affection isn’t surreptitious. Her girlfriend is always laughing and grinning; they’re always mid-conversation in the most casual way. And Korra, who still enters my classroom with a shy smile, takes every stride with confidence. She’s beaming the entire time. She’s so happy that she never even notices me—it’s only after she’s dropped her girlfriend off that we acknowledge each other. That, too, makes me happy every time.

In the days since getting that text about Sam’s death, a part of me has wanted to say something. To note what it was like for most of his life, to commemorate and champion the kind of relationship that could endure through all of that. Korra was born just before Proposition 8 passed; she was five in 2013 when the Supreme Court overturned it. Most of her life has been spent outside the era when her budding relationship might have been a non-starter. I want her to cherish being alive now when she can walk arm-in-arm with her girlfriend and feel safe because it wasn’t always that way.

But the more I think about it, the less I want her to think about that. Her wholesome affection would have made waves in 2004; that it only ripples in my heart in 2024 marks incredible progress. Walking her girlfriend to class should be unremarkable; the interlocked hands of Jason and Glenn shouldn’t make a permanent impression. They should be ubiquitous, not courageous.

Someday, I’ll tell her. I’ll tell Korra that seeing her on cloud nine makes me happy every single time. It makes me happy for her because I think the world of her and I want her to be happy, but it also makes me happy for her because I know that she might not have gotten to glow like that if she’d been born in a different decade. I’m elated that she was born when she was. I think she’s elated, too. Today, I will smile when I see her and greet her with extra warmth. She won’t know why, but I will.

I’ll also ensure that every time I leave the classroom, my rainbow EGUSD PRIDE lanyard is visible hanging out of my pocket. That gesture won’t be for Korra; she doesn’t need to see it. The lanyard will be for the students who still don’t yet feel safe, for the ones still smelling the foul stench of a cruel past’s dying gasps, for the Jasons and Glenns who wish they could show a little bit more of how they feel, and for every kid on the fence about whether they can be who they want to be or love who they want to love. It’s the tiniest gesture, but every little signal matters. I want my acceptance, love, and support to be visible all the time because I want them all to feel like Korra does every day. I want their loves to share the casualness of hers.

But I also show it for others who will never set foot on the campus. I wear it outside my pants because I know so few did when Wanda and Rosa dated and when Carl and Sam first came together. I can’t erase what they went through, but I can do my part to improve the present and future so the Korras and Jasons of the 2030s don’t even give a second thought to whose hands they can hold.

I will always admire Carl and Sam for what their relationship outlasted, but in 80 years, I hope no one invokes endurance when recounting Korra’s love story.

That would be a happy ending.

---

In addition to all the names, several details in this piece have been modified. Because Sam’s death is so recent, I didn’t feel comfortable reaching out to the real Janice about using her uncles’ real names or the actual circumstances under which I met them. I sought advice on how to proceed with this piece, and this is where I landed. If I ever get permission to adjust the story back to its original version, I will—and I will make an announcement.

Huge thanks to those who helped me with this piece. In particular, I’m grateful to Alyiah Gonzales who found time to be my sensitivity reader and helped ensure this honored all the communities and individual stories I highlighted. But to all the others who offered advice and support, I appreciate your guidance as well.

Lastly, thank you to Michelle Yee for contributing artwork for the piece. We plan to feature an original piece with one newsletter per month, with “The Hand-Holders” being the first one. We’re still working out our timelines and process, but I’m excited to add her work to mine.

1. https://projects.journalism.berkeley.edu/prop22/stjohn.html

2. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/divorce/divorce-statistics/