I had many reasons to enjoy a successful and meaningful career as a gay diplomat with the United States government. I traveled widely and enjoyed the company of other diplomats, foreign professionals and international businesspeople.
I had intestinal parasites, robberies and anti-American types who pointed guns at me and threatened me with knives. My worst and longest lasting fallout came from several Washington encounters with Jesse Helms, a member and later Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The joy of sexual relationships largely ended for me in July 1994 when GOP North Carolina senator took the Senate floor and CSPAN cameras to out me as “an activist in the homosexual movement” and for illegally, according to him, “promoting the gay agenda” in the federal workplace.
The senator prided himself on his bias against the “disgusting” LGBT community. He opposed gay and lesbian presidential nominees to federal posts requiring Senate approval. He expressed outrage that “militant” homosexuals, like me, be considered fit to work for the U.S. government. He also opposed straight political allies of the LGBT community.
Many high level federal members of the LGBT community in Washington feared Helms and refused to come out of the closet in the highly politicized government workplace. I was not one of them. My late father, a Korean veteran, served with the Alabama National Guard during the violent civil rights struggle in the state.
The courage of the Alabama Guard and my late father in backing down the Ku Klux Klan at the historic civil rights events , including the third Selma march in 1965, were strong examples to me where taking a stand against injustice was right for people and history.
Though I was out to my friends, coworkers and family, I was not out to the world until Jesse Helms did me the honor on CSPAN. This “honor” changed my working relationships with other diplomats and civil servants. They considered me a professional embarrassment and unfit to serve abroad. I was a mistake and, since senior diplomats dared not cross Clinton administration policies on gays and lesbians, they would not fire me. They would let Helms do the dirty work. Former trusted colleagues became just that “former trusted colleagues.”
Anonymous notes on my desk and telephone calls let me know management would find a way to support and satisfy Jesse Helms in getting rid of me. Supportive secretaries called me at home after work and told me of a management plan to accuse me of a violation of a federal workplace policy the next day. “Call in sick,” they advised, “until the plan falls through.”
A fax by a supportive coworker named another coworker with an intention of documenting a sex in the workplace case against me. “I strongly urge you to watch your back,” she wrote.
My long-term relationship with a Hong Kong medical doctor began to suffer in the bedroom and at social functions at Washington embassies and clubs. I sought medical help from a Nigerian psychiatrist and received a depression diagnosis.
Though I was superbly qualified for my diplomatic position, I could not understand why the government would support Helms and aggressively work to end my career. . That was the power of workplace bigotry in the 1990s. I became confused, angry and emotionally upset.
The depression affected my relationship with my partner. During a bitter fight initiated over Helms and the nightmares I began having about the bigot, I ended our relationship and moved from our suburban Maryland home to live with friends in Georgetown. I tried to ignore Helms, turn the page, and move on. If only events and depression would have let me.
When I went to my favorite DuPont Circle restaurants alone, I could not eat. The many happy gay and lesbian couples at nearby tables further depressed me. Though I could see the happiness, I could not enjoy friendships and relationships of my own due to the depression over Helms and my hostile workplace.
At the office, long and difficult work assignments disappeared from my desk and I was forced to stay late to recover my lost work. Leaving my office one evening, I found my car vandalized. In desperation, I screamed aloud for no one’s benefit but mine.
I felt isolated, alone and frightened by constantly having “to watch my back.” I could not focus on a movie in a theater or a play at the Kennedy Center. If I invited a gay friend to a concert, I found conversation, formerly enjoyable, impossible.
The situation at work was not just chilly but frozen in fear and bias due to the horror colleagues had that Helms might target them for helping me promote the gay agenda in the federal workplace. The silence was deafening.
I learned the wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends,” he once said.
Helms-related nightmares and telephone death threats late at night disrupted my sleep and concentration at work. One strange man called late at night and claimed to have worked with me earlier in my career. He had a package he wanted to mail me. He said it contained important information on the LGBT movement for justice in the federal workplace.
I did not recall the man and his call came during the Unabomber mailings. I was suspicious of the call and any potential package that might arrive. I asked him not to mail any packages to me.
“Who should I mail it to?” he asked.
If it were truly important, as he stated, I suggested he send it to the White House. I figured if the package were dangerous, the Secret Service would intercept it and arrest the sender.
During free time and weekends I tried to make new friends and find romance, if only briefly. I sat on a bench at the famous DuPont Circle fountain and watched others without energy or interest to pursue or to be pursued. I feared a failed relationship and ruining another man’s life with my Helms problems. I felt no one would understand my complicated personal and mental situation. For the first time in my life, I was completely alone.
I had a few one-night stand sexual encounters that resulted in abuse, unsafe sex, and drugs. I eventually placed my sex life on hold until I recovered from depression. It took longer than I expected as I continued to work with my Nigerian psychiatrist.
Eventually my dreams turned to a sexual nature. They went like this. I would meet a nice looking international man in a restaurant or gay bar. We would strike up a conversation, determine sexual compatibility, and return to his apartment. In bed, as my lover and I became passionate, I looked into his face and it was the face of Helms. Jesse was violating me in my dream as he had violated my career from the senate, my psychiatrist offered in explanation.
The Helms dream would not stop and I dreaded sleep and the loss of consciousness that brought me into bed with the hideous and hateful Helms. I explained this to my psychiatrist and he offered stronger sleeping medicine. I took the medicine with little success in alleviating Helms from my mind.
In order to rid myself of Helms and the devastating depression resulting from his bigotry, I sought help from church groups, gay support groups, and physicians who suggested I travel and gain new experiences to displace the horrific Helms experience on my sex life and professional career. Thus, I became a workaholic to defeat the demon of Jesse Helms.
I tried to displace Helms but found more disappointment in abusive one-night stands. One such encounter in Ireland nearly resulted in my death by an Irishman who was in Dublin for his gay sex weekend. “I am not a queer like you,” he said as he beat me before leaving the hotel room.
My desire to have Helms out of my bed and my mind caused me to make desperately bad relationship choices. Drugs, unsafe sex, and verbal and physical abuse characterized these choices.
Though it is more than 20 years now, Helms is still in my bed and in my mind. Perhaps the bigot will reside in my mind forever. It is a scary thought that causes me, at times, to consider suicide. The empty space on the other side of my bed produces the same thought.
Considering the record slow pace Congress has taken in advancing laws to prevent workplace discrimination against LGBT workers, if possible, the pain, suffering, loneliness, and depression I experienced has no doubt been multiplied by hundreds if not thousands of other LGBT workers at all levels of employment. I am a suicide survivor but I have to survive it every day.
The lack of political leadership to prevent employment inequality is hurting innocent people economically, health wise, and relationship wise. The results of discrimination include suicide, mental illness, poverty, acts of gay-on-gay and gay-on-straight violence, unemployment, underemployment, addiction, and loss of happy and meaningful relationships and lives. This enormous cost to our economy and loss of contributions by talented and educated LGBT workers must end.
Jesse Helms is long dead. His legacy of employment discrimination must die also. I have tried to kill my career rapist Jesse Helms in my dreams. It must be done legally with laws to stop LGBT discrimination in the workplace and in the halls of Congress where the Helms legacy still haunts Capitol Hill and damages lives across the country.
Human Rights Advocate Jim Patterson is a writer, speaker, and lifelong diplomat for dignity for all people. In a remarkable life spanning the civil rights movement to today’s human rights struggles, he stands as a voice for the voiceless. A prolific writer, he documents history’s wrongs and the struggle for dignity to provide a roadmap to a more humane future. Learn more at www.HumanRightsIssues.com
