A Sister Who Misses Her Brother

The Uncanny X-Men is a comic book produced by Marvel Entertainment Group. The X-Men are a group of mutants with superheroic powers, hated by humans who fear them due to their evil mutant characteristics. In issue #317, there is a very moving letter sent in by a sister who misses her brother:

Dear X-Men Creators:

Recently, my nineteen-year-old brother died, after a long battle with leukemia. He was quiet and kind. He was an honour student. He lived with my parents, and hardly left the house, except for a few classes at a college nearby. He read comic books. My parents were always concerned about him, fearing him to be anti-social. As he grew closer to death, I became increasingly aware that I never really knew him. Before he died, I tried to challenge that, at least for myself. I want to share with you something that I learned.

After long, sad discussions, at home and at the hospital, about how unhappy he was and how glad he was to "just die", my brother finally told me days before he died that he was gay - deeply in the closet, but gay nonetheless. He was ashamed, it was as if he was confessing a deep sin, needing some kind of absolution so he could die. Despite the other pain he was obviously feeling, I could see the self-loadhing in his face; he hated himself because he was gay.

I asked him if he ever loved anyone. He told me he couldn't. I asked him what he meant by "couldn't", but he was unable to put it into any other words than "just couldn't". For the first time, I saw my brilliant little brother paralyzed by fear. Of what he was really afraid, I don't know. Maybe he was afraid of being hated by my parents, burning in Hell, being teased by society or just losing the few friends he had.

For reasons I can't remember, he told me that his sexual orientation was one of the reasons why he had always liked the X-Men - because they were mutants, hated and feared by society for just being what they were. I asked him which characters were gay, thinking after he was gone, maybe I'd learn about my brother through them. He said he didn't know of any gay characters in the X-Men. It didn't matter to him, he said. I could see why.

He was the blue-furred Beast that people glared at. He was Rogue, afraid to touch other people. He even told me he was the Iceman, bragging to his friends about women that he lusted after, but really insecure deep down inside.

Now that he is gone, I have his comic books. I don't know enough about comics to know if there are any gay or lesbian characters or stories about homosexuality out there, so I can't tell you how rare I think your work is. I do know that I've seen in the few issues of your magazine that I've read that you've had the courage enough to stand up for gay rights, at a time when no amount of political correctness would compel you to do so. I've seen your sympathy for AIDS victims with your Legacy Virus stories. I've seen letters from gay people expressing how important your book is to them.

I've also seen letters in your magazine from bigots masquerading their hatred as social science, when science is clearly crying out to society to recognize that sexual orientation is beyond one's control. I also see hatred on the faces of mutant-haters in your book, as scary as that which we see on the faces of homphobes in our world. I also see now that there are thousands of gay, lesbian and bisexual people in this world who must be suffering like my brother was; the suicides along should be evidence of that.

Given that suffering, I know that my brother's homosexuality was not his choice. I never consciously chose to be attracted to men. I can't believe that my brother did either, not with the pain he was going through. He was a mutant. And like mutants in your world, he needed someone to stand up and show the world that his people are good and caring and most of all - human beings.

I thought about signing this letter, to let people know that I was proud of my brother and loved him, and that he was gay. I couldn't bear to think what he would think of me, though, for exposing myself in a way he might have hated. Maybe you have more courage than I do. Maybe one day you'll have the strength to add a gay character to your books or, even better, to reveal that one of your established characters was gay all along.

Maybe "mutants" adequately embody all the differences of humankind to get the point across symbolically. I just know that if my brother had seen someone act out of courage and stand proud, because of, or despite the fact that he was gay, then maybe his life would have been happy. Maybe he would have fought for life rather than resigned himself to death. Instead, he lived in torment. He never felt that it was okay to be gay. Let's say it for what it was: he never thought it was okay to love the way his heart told him to.

I do know in my heart that he felt you understood some of what he was going through. I thank you for that understanding, and I thank you for listening. Be proud of yourselves. You're sending out an important message.

Best wishes.

A sister who misses her brother.