Gay Culture Thriving in the Heart of Texas?

That's what the story, "The Lavender Heart of Texas," in the current issue of Time Magazine says. Even more surprising to me, someone who still associates the city with the 1980's television show featuring oilman J. R. Ewing, the hot spot appears to be the Big D itself, Dallas.

Gays have played an important, less noticed role in Dallas' evolution. Over the past decade, a large and politically powerful lesbian and gay community has emerged. Both the Dallas sheriff and the county judge--an Old West title meaning chairman of the county commissioners--are openly gay. The district clerk is gay too, and Dallas is home to what is said to be the largest gay church in the world, the Cathedral of Hope, which has 3,500 members, a full choir, a violinist and long-stemmed roses in the bathroom. Dallas' fund-raising dinner for the Human Rights Campaign, the Washington-based gay group, is the largest in the nation, drawing 3,300 and raising more than $1 million for HRC and local gay organizations. And according to the gay group Lambda Legal, Dallas' is the only school district in Texas that includes teachers in its antidiscrimination policies.

So how gay is Dallas? Gay population figures are difficult to estimate because even accepting communities have a closet. But according to the Williams Institute, a gay think tank at UCLA, Dallas has the ninth largest concentration of same-sex couples in the nation. As the Dallas visitors bureau gurgles, "[Dallas] has left behind stereotypes of big-haired women and rowdy cowboys--that is, unless you count sassy drag queens and strapping gay rodeo champs."

This is not the Texas of the American imagination. Or is it? Ensorcelled by strivers and status, Dallas has always tried hard to be sophisticated. And the city knows a mathematical equation about American city life: urban sophistication requires gay civilization. Gays have gentrified once crumbling neighborhoods like Oak Lawn in Dallas; many gays have relocated to the city to work at companies like American Airlines that have a significant gay customer base.

Ironically, Dallas is believed to be the next destination for President Bush once his term is mercifully up, and that is also where his presidential library is expected to be built.

I wouldn't expect to see a rainbow flag flying from that building, but fortunately there are already plenty of GLBT friendly spots in a thriving gay community down there.

Click here to read the Time magazine article.