Do you believe in fairies? (last word).

I was recently speaking with a power couple from Los Angeles who I was hoping would donate to Gender-PAC. Neither was saying very much, and I finished with the distinct impression I had blown it. I was disappointed, as these are two men whose work I respect. Gender fights is such a new idea that it sometimes takes more than one presentation for people to connect with it. Yet I like to think that the idea of ending discrimination and violence caused by gender stereotypes is something everyone can get.

We sat together in an awkward silence, and then one of the men turned to the other and said, "Well, this explains why I was so humiliated when my mom used to make me hold her purse while she searched for change at the register." Then the other replied, "Yes. I used to cut school whenever we had baseball in gym because everyone teased me for `throwing like a girl.'"

Suddenly they were having a great conversation with each other as if I wasn't even there. Here were two loving, sophisticated guys who support gay rights, feminist causes, and AIDS work but had never had a discussion about gender, even with each other.

Which is true for so many of us. We've finally learned that it's OK to be gay, but we're still not sure it's OK to look and act gay.

Last month I did a similar presentation for a group of hip 30-somethings in New York City. Most of them looked like they worked out a lot, and all of them were ready, willing, and able to discuss my gender issues.

But when I asked about their gender issues, I got blank stares. "So how many men in this room are gay?" I asked. Every hand in the room went up.

"How many men in this room are bottoms?" I asked. Every hand in the room went down--very, very fast. Then they all broke out laughing.

"So we do share some gender issues," I said. "Either that, or none of you is going out on a date until at least one self-identified fairy moves back into Greenwich Village."

We went on to have a great discussion about the challenges gay men have in conforming to gender stereotypes. It turned out that even the buffest guys in the room had been teased at school or had butched it up at work, and all of them were embarrassed to admit publicly that they' sometimes played catcher instead of pitcher in the bedroom.

Gender was like a second closet they hadn't come out of.

The reason it's so important we come out of this particular closet is that gender is where people learn to hate us. Boys learn early they'll be attacked or punished if they don't grit theft teeth like Clint Eastwood and hulk around like Vin Diesel. They learn to hate anything in themselves that might be considered unmanly. Then when they finally do meet someone who's gay, they're ready to exterminate them. No wonder crimes against effeminate gay men and transgendered women are so violent and personal.

A national gay rights leader once told me, "We love your message, but we can't work with you yet." When I asked why, I was told, "Our parents are just getting used to the idea that theft sons are homosexual; they just don't want them to be fairies." And I thought, There it is: No father wants a sissy for a son; no mother wants a dyke for a daughter.

It's what I call the Eminem Exception. Eminem explains that he doesn't call people "faggot" because of their sexual orientation but because they're weak and unmanly.

Unmanly men. Unwomanly women. We need to tell young people that it takes courage to be all of who they are. We need to tell mothers and fathers that it's OK to have whole kids.

To do that, we need to own our private sissies and to claim our inner dykes. We need to come out of that gender closet.

Oh, yes. And about that Los Angeles power couple? They donated $5,000. Now they too are helping spread the word.