On one of my hold-my-breath-until-we-land flights a few months ago, I was the last passenger to enter the plane (my normal routine) and sat next to a nice-looking man who barely looked up.
But I looked him up and down, gauging how well the flight would go. Not garrulous, check. Not nervous, check. Not a drinker, check. All good to go.
But as I placed my purse under my seat and opened my book, I took offense. Perhaps this man – mid-30s – dismissed me already for being one of those things: a talker or a nervous flier or worse, just an “older woman” who was – dismissible.
The patients’ job in intensive psychotherapy is to ask why.
Why do I seek out women who are devoid of the capacity for love?
Why do I veer from an extreme identification with the middle class to an extreme identification with the poor?
Why do I force myself to fail economically just as I get closest to winning?
Why do I sometimes behave as if I hate myself?
I first grappled with the problem of internalized stigma during the early days of the AIDS epidemic when I wondered if the AIDS was God’s judgment.
None of the intellectual and political constructions that served me as gay activist in the 1970’s could defeat the internalized homophobia unleashed by AIDS.
I watched men die from grief, self-hatred, and fear and I was nearly one of them.
On one of my hold-my-breath-until-we-land flights a few months ago, I was the last passenger to enter the plane (my normal routine) and sat next to a nice-looking man who barely looked up. 
Art by Rob Goldstein 