Hello and welcome everybody to Pride weekend 2009. I can’t imagine the reader of my blog who doesn’t already know the term Pride, the schedule of events, or the many ways in which they will intoxicate themselves this weekend, but sadly I predict that many readers have no clue why.
This year, be different. Have just as good a time, but also know how it came to be.
Forty years ago a little riot broke out in Greenwich Village in New York. In those days, police raids on gay bars were frequent. They weren’t there to break up fights or to check for drugs. They were there to bust people dancing with members of the same sex and cross-dressers (though somehow men wearing makeup were seemingly not an issue). Normally, patrons would go along with it, a few would be arrested, and the bar would reopen later that evening. On the night of June 28, 1969 things went a little differently, however.
It’s that riot that is now commemorated each year. Although “Stonewall” doesn’t necessarily mark the first time a gay man or drag queen stood up for themselves and it certainly wasn’t the largest or most impressive protest in the history of the gay rights movement, it does hold a special significance in how it inspired people not just in NY but all across the globe to begin standing up for their right to be who they are openly, and to be proud of it.
It’s the tireless work of gays, lesbians, transgender people, straights, and many others that has created the environment we have today. Where gay bars have windows. Where men can not only dress in drag but there are television shows about it. Where women are not required to have on at least three pieces of feminine clothing (Although ladies, I do encourage you to. I’ve been fooled one too many times for pointing out cute boys that turned out, in fact, to be lesbians with better hair and clothing than myself.) Living a queer life today is a far cry from the the way things were forty years ago. But our world is not yet perfect.
Tomorrow, when we all gussy up in our finest summer gear to march among our fellow celebrators of queer culture, don’t forget all the work that has gone into making it possible. And on Monday, when normal life resumes, do something a little different:
Stop discrimination dead in it’s tracks each and every time you see it.
Call your representatives and demand marriage equality; an inclusive, nationwide Employment Non-Discrimination Act; the passage of the Matthew Shepard Act.
Come out. To everyone.
And for god sakes, people, this one is really important:
Come together as a group. I really don’t understand why but we have an environment right now where all the different colors
of the rainbow are in separate corners of the room, backs to each other, with their arms crossed. The next person I see judging another person for dressing differently, talking differently, loving differently, or having a different color skin – I’m going to smack them from here to Perez Hilton (too soon?). We all have one common goal – to be ourselves unashamedly. We all know what it’s like to fail to live up to that dream. We should all be together because then we become the majority.
Now get off the internet you dork and go have a vodka soda (low cal, helps you keep your figure), do your hair, listen to some Lady GaGa, and get the heck out because it’s time to live it up for the weekend!
Further reading:
Wikipedia article on the Stonewall riots
In just a few short weeks on March 5, the California Supreme Court will begin to review the legality of Proposition 8, a ballot initiative that amended the California State Constitution to revoke marriage rights from gay and lesbian couples. The court then has 90 days to come to a decision. It is now SO important that people come out of the woodwork in overwhelming vocal support of gay marriage rights and denounce Proposition 8.
This week is Freedom to Marry Week and in various cities around the nation protests will be held throughout the week to support the rights of ourselves, our friends, our family, and our neighbors. On February 14 in Chicago teams will march while gay couples head to the Cook County Marriage License Bureau and demand to be married. We need as many people as we can get at these events!
Please, please, please: join the Facebook event (details below), tell your friends, blog about it, put the information out there in as many spots as you can find. This is a crucial time for an important cause!
Facebook event (for Chicago): http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=123437705110
Facebook group (where I can nag my friends, please feel free to join!): http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=53940967030
How you can help:
- Go to one of the protests, no matter where it may be!
- Invite ALL your friends to the event for your area, and to the group!
- Put up posters and flyers: http://gayliberation.net/pdf/2009/0214free2marryday/Flyer,%20color.pdf
- Call, text, email your friends.
- Organize a party to make picket signs.
- Organize a brunch party for immediately before the protest so people can meet in one place and travel together.
- Write a blog post, tweet about it, put it on your FriendFeed, share it on your other social networks.
I came across this one through an email at work. Get To Know Us First is a group sponsored by POWER UP in California. They are producing 30-second television spots that feature families of same-sex couples. I really like the direction that these ads take because they show people who are otherwise unexposed to homosexuality that these families are real and that they are just as normal as any other family. I really think that one of the biggest hurdles to achieving acceptance and equality is ignorance and this campaign attempts to educate people and overcome that problem. It’s just another of the many ways that homosexuals need to come out and speak out -- to change the opinions of our friends, families, and neighbors for the better.
As a teenager, I, like many homosexuals, struggled to accept and love myself for who I was. The world makes it incredibly difficult to believe that being gay is okay. The idea that “gayness” is something to be ashamed of has become so ingrained in American culture that it is almost impossible to avoid encountering some form of bigotry each and every day.
Only when I finally came to believe in, accept, and be proud of myself did I begin to see that changes were happening in the world around me. Being gay was becoming more and more socially acceptable. I even stopped fearing that I would be killed for being gay (yes, this was a fear that I lived with for years.) I still never imagined that I would one day be allowed to marry.
Then in December 2003, in a twist that I really never thought I would see, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled that gays could not be denied the right to marry. The emotions that were stirred in me were strong. My heart swelled with hope and my eyes teared. Thinking back on it still causes those same feelings to resurface today.
Five years later and relatively little progress has been made though. On the contrary, a lot of steps backward have been witnessed. DOMA still prevents any union between same-sex couples from being recognized federally, a handful of states have constitutional amendments outlawing gay marriage, and what is arguably the most progressive state in the nation has claimed a first: stripping rights from a minority that were previously afforded to them.
At the same time celebrities are coming out, television shows and movies are regularly featuring gay characters, major corporations are enacting by-laws protecting gay employees and offering domestic partner benefits (links go to companies that scored 100 on the HRC Corporate Equality Index for 2009), and gay-straight alliances are becoming commonplace in schools.
So why is it, then, that the gay rights movement has moved at a snail’s pace? Why is it that five years later only two states offer homosexuals the right to marry while so many states have been able to quickly outlaw that capability? It’s because we are too lazy.
A few months ago, after Proposition 8 passed and gays in lesbians in California stripped of their rights, half a million people around the country came out in protest. Chicago alone saw 10,000 take to the streets. Finally people were upset and demanding action. What happened that day was amazing. People of every orientation, race, religion and background imaginable were out in full force fighting for what is right. Not only was it empowering but it was emotional. I struggled at times to hold back tears. I was full of happiness, pride, comfort… outrage, anger, and motivation.
I looked around at my friends who came with me as we poured out onto Michigan Avenue. Everywhere there were chants. “Gay, straight, black, white same struggle, same fight.” “What do we want? Equal Rights. When do we want it? Now.” “Hey Hey, Ho Ho, Homophobia’s got to go.” Shoppers in stores along the Magnificent Mile came to the windows and drivers stuck in traffic cheered instead of getting angry. It seemed that maybe things would start turning around.
Two months later, on January 10th, Chicago’s DOMA protest drew barely one hundred and garnered no news coverage.
Some chose to sleep in because it was snowing. Others stayed home with hangovers. Quite a few people didn’t bother to take the day off from work. Out of over three hundred people that I invited personally only three showed up, and quite ironically, all three were straight.
I was there with my three friends and a small handful of others. We all had picket signs. We also were covered in snow, cold and drenched, feet soaked from road slush and ourselves very hungover. But for the few who made it that day we realized that equality mattered more than a few extra winks of sleep.
What I want people to understand is that for progress to happen we have to fight for it. Politely but steadily and without wavering. The single reason why bigots have been able to make so much progress is because they, not we, have been organized and committed to their mission.
On the eve of a “change we can believe in” it is important to remember that the changes we want don’t happen while idly waiting for them.
- Educate people through casual conversation.
- Stop people when they call things “gay” or use the word “faggot.”
- Attend events like the protests that have happened. Attendance get media coverage and media coverage reaches far and wide.
- Absolutely under no circumstances support anything or anyone that supports bigoted views.
- Fight not just for your own rights but for those of others.
- Leave your comfort zone, push the limits.
- Come out – to everyone.
When I was in kindergarten I had my first crush on another boy. It was at this age that I began to know I was different, though at that age I had no idea why.
When I was in first grade I wanted to kiss a boy for the first time. I did it in front of friends, and without knowing that it wasn’t normal. They all said “ewwww.”
When I was a young teenager there was a gay bashing in my future high school. Matthew Shepard had been brutally murdered a few years before. AIDS was an epidemic that punished gays. “Fag” and “queer” were slurs thrown with hatred at the kid down the street who pierced his ear.
This is what I knew about homosexuality. This is the fear society placed in me so I would adopt to their non-inclusive standard. These are the things that caused me to hate myself for years and years, and to hide.
In late elementary school and early middle school I had a huge crush on a friend. I still wonder, when I think about it, if he did too. I was always too scared to do anything about it.
When I was 16 I had a girlfriend.
Truth be told, I really liked her. Shortly after we met we went to a corn maze and, while running around finding our way out, I actually felt my heartbeat increase and a bit of a crush form. After going on a date with her I would return home and look up guys online.
When I was almost 17 I came out to myself.
It was my guilt about leading two lives (the one with my girlfriend and the one online) and how it would make my girlfriend feel that finally got me to confess to myself one night that I was, indeed gay. Coming out to myself was (somewhat obviously) one of the most liberating experiences of my life. I don’t even know how to draw the parallel for someone who hasn’t gone through it. All I can say it is a huge relief to one day decide to stop hating yourself, decide to stop pretending to be what you are not, and to for once have a tinge of pride about something that is such an integral part of your person that it can’t be denied.
When I was 17 I started talking to other gay guys.
It was scary, but one day I signed up for “Hot Or Not Meet Me” (in many ways a prequel to modern day social networking) and began talking to gay guys online. I was careful though. I was still afraid for myself. I was still far too scared to let anyone close by know that I was gay. I was certain that, if anyone found out, I would die. Eventually, one day, I braved it and started talking to someone close to home.
And thus, at 17, I had my first boyfriend.
The thrill of that first date, the first touch, the first kiss and romance and the first time your body presses up against someone you thought society would never let you love, well, that feeling is something I don’t think could ever be lost. First love must always be astounding, but for me it was something bigger. I was for the very first time in my life living my life the way I wanted to. I was no longer afraid that I was going to go through life lonely. In my newly idealistic mind the world was suddenly ok. Comfort. Peace. Happiness. Warmth.
Crash.
The story of my outing has been told. It’s neither a happy story nor one that I want to retell. It is a dramatic story, an opera, a comedy, a made-for-tv movie and a box of tissues. It was also the cause for strength, independence, and a new meaning of self for me. I wouldn’t change it.
So from late 17 until I was 20 I was in love.
So much happened through these ages. I grew. I was forced to grow. Rapidly. I also made some major missteps that anyone on their own, so poor and so lost, would probably be expected to make. Though I was having a hard time coping, still, I was finding a way to mentor. Through a base of internet friends I gave love and it poured back. We shared stories of coming out and what it meant for us, what our families though or what we thought they would think. We encouraged each other. Some of the bonds formed then are going to last for the rest of my life.
Still to come:
- 20 through 22: The crazy years.
- 22 through 24: The “I must find love” years.
- 24: How I came to finally, after almost a quarter century, be comfortable and happy on my own.
