Tarazi says he would not wear a pink triangle for gay rights to a Palestinian cultural event or a Palestinian kaffiyeh to a gay pride march. He seems to find it difficult enough to defend one controversial cause at a time, let alone to argue successfully for two very different causes with different constituencies.

Being subject to two forms of discrimination has made him more conscious of prejudice, he says. "I'm paranoid. I'm oversensitive about both of these issues," he says. But he adds that he is not quite as sensitive to homophobia because he thinks gay people in America are now less vulnerable than Arabs.

This separation of causes is more than a matter of convenience or taste, though. Tarazi notes that the Palestinian culture he admires in many ways also includes very traditional views of homosexuality.

A friend and fellow student of Arab culture, Sandra Williams '89-'90, says, "Trig is just never afraid of being himself and being outspoken and kind of wild." But she adds that he keeps down his references to gay culture among SAS members. "Some come from very traditional Arab families," she notes.

Tarazi says he sometimes worries that his two identities are headed for a collision. "There might come a day when I might help lead Palestinians to statehood and then realize that I might not be welcome in that state," he says. "That's always in the back of my mind."

"If I'm going to go into the PLO, I can't be openly gay," says Tarazi. He observes that no government in the world would accept an openly gay politician without prejudice.

Rather than give up a political career, Tarazi says he would underplay his homosexuality. "I don't want to lie about it, I don't want to hide it, but it's not something that defines me," he says.

The senior's eclectic set of opinions also includes "Republican leanings" on economic issues--though as for the Republicans themselves, he says, "when it comes down to specifics, they've been disappointing." He prefers the Rev. Jesse Jackson's views on gay rights and Israel. But Tarazi says he learned from his immigrant parents a belief in minimal government and a market society in which hard work pays off.

Roommate Eric Kaplan '89, a former Lampoon vice-president, thinks Tarazi uses his outrageous sense of humor to ease the tension of these conflicting loyalties. For example, he says the humor of wearing drag may appeal to Tarazi because it mocks and exaggerates conventional roles.

Without humor, Kaplan says Tarazi could become a dogmatic "Trotskyite intellectual" with no real personal life. "With a sense of humor, you can live with the contradiction and be optimistic that it won't turn into a tragedy," he says. "The best leaders are not going to be the people who are so totally one-sided and have no zest."

Kaplan says Tarazi is not religious, nor does he "get misty-eyed about the orange groves of Palestine." Perhaps because he challenges traditional mores personally, Tarazi takes a very secular view of the Palestinian cause, says Kaplan.

"Trig is motivated by a very strong and--to me--sometimes simplistic sense of fairness," says Kaplan. "He feels his people have been humiliated in the eyes of the world."

Tarazi was born in Kuwait, a month after the Six-Day War, in which Israel occupied his parents' native regions of Gaza and the West Bank.

Three years later, the family moved to the United States at the invitation of relatives who had been stranded there because of the occupation. Throughout Tarazi's childhood, his parents never told him why they moved to the United States or even that he was Palestinian.

"I grew up in a family that wanted nothing more than to forget," says Tarazi. His mother "felt that being Palestinian was like a disease, that you try not to give it to your children," he recalls. Tarazi thought for many years that his family was Arab simply because he spoke Arabic at home.