During my college years, I
spent a term or two as the co-director of
the LGBT student organization (in the interest o gender parity, we had
one male and one female co director), and when we weren't engaged in
activism like getting the university to pass a non-discrimination
policy regarding sexual orientation we would occasionally put our
chairs in a circle during a meeting and share coming out stories.
Usually it was when someone new joined the group, and it was something
I enjoyed. There came a day when I realized that I'd heard everyone's
coming out story at least twice, and that I just couldn't listen to
anymore coming out stories.
Well.
After a week of seeing what staying in
the closet can do to someone, it's been something of a relief to spend
this week celebrating the act of coming out
of the closet. I didn't get around to posting or re-posting my coming
out story again this year. But there were so many others
posted that it seems appropriate to start out
this round-up sharing them, because they may have been missed in all
the other diary posts this week. And they should be read.
Alert:
Actually, before I start the round-up, I want to mention something else
that's important. My friend Keith, who spearheaded the LIFEbeat
campaign,
has been following the story of Michael
Sandy all week. Sandy, a black
gay man, was attacked in a gay
bashing incident last Sunday; hit
by a car after being attacked
and chased by at least two white males.
Three men have been arrested and charged with the attack. The men lured
Sandy to the Howard Beach area and attempted to rob him, as part of an
internet scheme targeting gay men. Sandy was hit by a car as he was
trying to escape being robbed and beaten. After he was hit, one of his
attackers dragged him back to the side of the road in order to rifle
through his pockets.
Sandy
died yesterday, after his family
decided to remove the respirator that was keeping him alive. Police are
considering elevating
the charges against the suspects.
Black LGBT organizers and activists will hold a rally on Monday to
demand
an end to hate violence in the city and to hold city leaders
accountable. The
rally is scheduled to take place at 5
p.m. on Monday at New
York City Hall. The rally is being sponsored by People of Color In Crisis,
the New York State Black Gay Network,
Gay Men of African
Descent,
the New York City Anti-Violence Project
and the National Black Justice
Coalition.
If you can, come out. Be there.
- Rsevern
[DK] started the ball rolling by asking for coming out stories and linked
to her own. Queer Kossacks did
not disappoint.
- Like I said, I didn't get
around to posting my coming out story, but bulk of it is here
and there's a little bit more here.
While the story of knowing that I was different goes back to
kindergarten, it wasn't until 12 or 13 that it became a coming out
story. That was 1982. Suffice it to say the story of a skinny,
effeminate, nonathletic, black gay boy coming of age in the south
during the Reagan era is not
always pretty. But I survived.
- Not only did I survive. I
celebrated NCOD by dancing with my husband in our family room, after
putting the kid to bed, to a
song that made me think of him
when I heard it and that had me smiling and tearing up at my desk
earlier that day. I celebrated a life that I didn't think would be
possible back when I was coming out. I guess we have another
to
add to "our songs."
- Azrefugee
[DK], prompted by a co-worker's expounding on gay marriage, shared a
coming out story that began at the age of 18 with meeting her partner,
and ended 21 years later with the loss of their house and and land to
her partner's family -- a family that didn't care for her partner
during her illness -- because they lacked the rights and protections of
marriage. The co-worker "got it." To quote from the diary, "Coming out
enables people who don't get it to become people who
understand us on a human level. It turns a subject they know nothing
about into a subject they know about personally."
- Arizona, by the way, is
facing vote on an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state
constitution. The amendment faces strong
opposition.
- Pamindurham
[DK] posted diary on the recent news that 70%
of non-gay Americans know someone who is LGBT.
It's chock-full of other information too.
- SoCalLiberal
[DK] shares a coming out story to underscore why an event like National
Coming Out Day is important. Another quote: "It's important that we use
this day to recognize the brave men and
women who have been willing to risk themselves just to be who they
honestly are. On Kos, it's important that heterosexual
Kossacks
reaffirm their support for gay rights and gay people and it's important
that gay Kossacks reaffirm who we are."
- Dreggas
[DK] posted another story of coming out in a small town, as bisexual.
- Terrypinder
[DK], who posted a diary about turning 25 and coming out as bisexual
(in high school), was being conceived around the time I was coming out.
That means I've been out for something like 25 years.
- Another reason coming out is
important? What happens when we do it together, in numbesr? Drudolph
[DK] posts about a report that says the number of same-sex couples who
identify themselves as such has increased by 30% in the last 5
years. The six of the eight states facing anti-gay marriage
amendments and ballot initiatives -- Arizona, Colorado, South Carolina,
Tennessee, and Virginia -- had increases above the national 30% rate.
- Some of those couples are
also parents. Check out This story about coming out as a forty year
old, married, father of two at GuyDads.
- Zanseattle
[DK] posted a diary about how his partner proposed (it involves a comic
book) and includes a quote that probably sums up what a lot of same-sex
couples would say about why they're moving forward with weddings, union
ceremonies and/or raising families: "I'm tired of waiting for the world
to catch up."
- Speaking of proposals, I
dare you to watch
this one
and remain dry-eyed. I couldn't. And remember folks, this is how we're
going to destroy civilization and the world as we know it. Stop this
from happening and you save
the world.
- Kissfan
[DK] offers an interesting trip through one of the most popular
gay-bashing passages of the Bible.
- Gerry
Studds, the first openly gay person elected to congress and whose name
has been invoked a lot in the last couple of weeks, died
today
after collapsing while walking his dog. Doctors determined he had a
blood clot in his lung. CNN referred to "his husband" in its report.
- CNN isn't alone in trying to
figure out the right language to use when it comes to gay couples. Junglered1
[DK] points out that after swearing in the new AIDS czar -- a gay man
-- Condoleeza Rice went so far as to acknowledge his partner and "mother-in-law"
in her remarks. And in front of the first lady, too.
- Condi's slip of the tongue
may anger
some conservatives
who assume it means Condi's forgotten that gay marriage isn't legal in
most states. Of course Mark Dybul's partner's mom isn't really his anything
"in-law." But "Mark's partner's mother" is a bit of a mouthful, and
"Mark's friend's
mother" is just as much of a mouthful and less honest about their
relationship. "Mark's husband's mother" suffers the same problem, since
Dybul can't have
a husband legally, and both the Bush administration and the Republican
party are working to see to it that he never can.
You can't blame Condi for being confused, but there's no good
alternative is there? I'm sure conservatives would rather she didn't
acknowledge Dybul's partner or mother-in-law, or that the Bush
administration hadn't appointed a gay guy in the first place.
- And if you think
I'm going to say about Condi
what you think
I'm going to say about Condi,
you're crazy.
- If nothing else, Condi is
among the 70%
of Americans who at least know
someone whose LGBT. And knowing someone gay makes some people more
likely to support equality. In
that sense, it's catching. See what the honesty, integrity and
self-respect it takes to come out leads to?
- Good thing Dubya
steered clear of Foley
all this time. This equality stuff is contagious. Get too close and
next thing you know, he'd be dancing at Mary Cheney's wedding.
- Because gay
marriage isn't as scary as it used to be.
- Maybe that's because
supporters of same-sex marriage are actually allowed to roam
the streets and knock on doors
to campaign in support of their cause. With the support of the ACLU, of
course. Dontcha see? Some of those door-knockers are probably gay
themselves. Maybe even gay couples. Now, if people in the good state of
Virginia open their doors to those canvassers, even more
people will know at least one person who's gay. And you know where that
leads, right?
- I guess the folks at the
ACLU don't have the good sense to know what everyone else does, or at
least what the letter writers at AOL's Worth Repeating know: Gay
people should stay indoors. And
I quote, "if
gays people can't control themselves in their relation, at least they
should kept it silent and anonimous until we find the way to correct
that antinatural sindrome.. displays of this culture is dangerously
inmoral and invite youth to sin.. nothing against this culture that is
not explicit stablished in the bible.. the action shoud be repent and stay indoors
until things are corrected...". My favorite, though, is the one
who claimed homosexuality was " a sickness that God never intended to
occur" and
"a sickness that God will never
cure." Can get this guy on the
phone with Exodus ministries?
- And it doesn't help that Rhode
Island lesbians get married in Massachusetts
without the world ending or so much as a hairline fissure in the
foundations of western civilization.
- Next thing you know, if QueerCents
is right, they'll be asking for the right to make medical decisions,
inheritance rights, the right to share pensions, medical benefits,
etc., and without meeting the requirement that their union be able to
produce biological offspring from both parents. Just like we require of
every heterosexual couple before issuing a marriage license. Right?
- And if they don't get it,
maybe they'll start boycotting
heterosexual weddings,
and maybe even stop underwriting heterosexual marriage with wedding
gifts, pensions that don't go their same-sex partners, social security
a that same-sex partners can't inherit, taxes payed because same-sex
partners can't file jointly if it helps them, etc., when everyone knows
that stuff outweighs any economic
benefits of same-sex marriage.
- If somebody doesn't come up
with a rational
basis for banning same-sex marriage,
then there's a possibility that someone might come up with a rational
argument for why
same-sex marriage is good conservative policy.
Like this: "It will respect individual rights while minimizing the
oppressive
intrusion of the state into the lives of a minority of its citizens."
- The Same QueerCents post
reminds us that Codi once suggested that marriage is simply about
finding "somebody
that you'd want to live the rest of your life with." Can't blame her for being confused. This is a woman who once referred to president Bush as "my husband".
Silly Condi. Getting hitched is for kids. Period.
- Because everyone knows gay
parents "deny their children the fundamental necessity to have a mother
and a father." So what happens when Abigail
finds a parenting arrangement that offers an
openly gay father and an openly lesbian mother?
My guess is that the right wingers will get right
back to us on that.
- Republican Rep. Chris Shay's
must know someone gay, after all he's taken the bold step of declaring
that sodomy
is not torture. So, either he
knows someone gay, or he knows something he's not telling.
Right?
- I know I spent last weeks
round up talking to closet gay Republicans, but they still don't seem
to be out of trouble yet. So, maybe it's time for a National
Coming Out Day for Gay Conservatives?
Reports suggest there are enough of them to support it, at least the
first year.
- And if it works, there won't
be anyone left for the
purge that your
party's Christian right base is clamoring for.
- And, really, isn't coming
out a better, healthier option than crawling
into a bottle?
- Isn't it better than the
"dreadful, pathetic days of no-win choices" that one former
closeted gay Republican staffer
describes, like not being able to socialize and not reporting a hate
crime that leaves stitches in your scalp and threatens your life
because "what closeted chief of staff to a leading anti-gay
conservative congressman would ever report something like that...?" He
also asks, "Is it really worth it?" Is it?
- Unless you want to known as closet
Democrats.
That's what Cliff Kincaid called you. Do you want to let him get away
with that? I mean that's gotta be even worse than being called a
closeted gay Republican. Right? Being called a Democrat's gotta be a
bigger insult that being called
gay.
- They might just have to
settle for taking down Jim Kolbe for that camping
trip with congressional pages 10
years ago. And can someone please explain to me how Kolbe's problems
are the fault of "Gay
Liberals’ own hatred"?
Of whom? Not themselves, I guess, because there aren't many liberal
gays working for a party pretty much owned by people who despise them.
- Former Washington
Blade editor Chris Crain, now
blogging as an expatriate, says Kolbe should also come under fire for
his weak
attempt
at corrective action when he learned how Foley was carrying on with
pages. Crain also makes a case for why someone should ask
the question when it comes to
sexual orientation, at least in cases like this.
- And if that's not enough, toss
them Dennis Hastert.
He's rumored to have some youthful
indiscretions in his past,
according to Last
Lemming [DK]. State
Rep Mark Cohen Dem PA
[DK] say's it's Hastert's fault you're in this mess in the first place,
for not having a "sit down" with Foley years ago. And just because he's
a Dem doesn't mean he's wrong. After all it's progressive that actually
want you to be able to come out of the closet along with the rest of
us.
- Todd
Johnstonhas
more, by the way, on why Hastert's sexual orientation matters,
including collusion between leaders on the far right, behind-the-scenes
threats from "the real power brokers," and the possibility that
Hastert's orientation could be "used to manipulate the balance of power
in Congress." You mean closeted homosexual might
be susceptible to political blackmail, or worse?
- Of course, Hastert may be a
red herring. Foley too, if A
Proud AZ Liberal
is right that the whole mess is a diversionary tactic to make sure no
one pays attention to what's really going on and what kinds of bills
have quietly made their way to the president's desk.
- As an aside, it's worth
nothing that if the response of conservative bloggers is any
indication, Condi's gone from being their Madonna of black conservatism
to just
another affirmative action hire:
"Since when is gay marriage legal throughout America? It isn't. But it
tells us a lot about Rice. She's not qualified for most of the jobs
she's gotten, but she's no dummy." But she's not qualified for her job,
and the mother-in-law slip-up just proves
it.
- After all, colleges are now
considering affirmative
action for gay students. Sounds
kinda strange at first until you consider that LGBT youth are still
often kicked
out by their parents and cut off
financially when they come out or their orientation is discovered. They
can get kicked out of school too, whether high
school or college.
Organizations like the Point
Foundation
have been giving scholarships to gay students for a while now.
Conservatives hate the idea. Maybe that's because fewer kids might wind
up like Zach.
- They're already getting way
too much encouragement as it is. The Philadelphia School Board not only
sponsored a Gay History Month, but stood
by its decision over the
objections of parents. These may
be the same parents who heckled
a lesbian student to the point of tears
for daring to speak at a school board meeting about Gay History Month.
That same lesbian student was later heard to say, "At first, it hurt
me. But then I stopped crying because I realized that
these people don't know me and I don't know them. But I
would hate to be their child, having to come out of the closet to
them." She's got a point. If she were their kid, they might do a lot
more than yell "boo." And all because of something as simple as a
sentence on a calendar.
- And even second
grade teachers are coming out of the closet.
So, kids are learning younger and younger that gay people exist.
Imagine!
- It won't be long before
parents have to face their kids coming out in scenes like this
one.
- Next they'll be learning
that gay families exist too. Oh wait. That's already
happening in Minnesota. And
according to the article, the opposition is a group
of black mothers. You can
imagine I'll have more to say about that
later.
- If we're not careful, they
might actually get the answers to questions that retiring
queerspawn activist Abigail Garner
says they're asking the kids with gay parents.
- Now we have lesbian
moms writing for respectable
conservative papers like the Wall
Street Journal, and publishing online
memoirs about the decadent
business of, um, raising kids. If this keeps up, we might all have to
take lessons on how
to respond when meeting lesbian moms.
- Is it any wonder that 13
is now the average age for kids to come out?
(Man, I did it when I was 13, in the early
80s. I guess that makes me a gay
prodigy.)
- And when these kids come out
and start gay/straight student alliances in their schools, the
ACLU helps them out.
- In Britain, they've even taken
to the internet, using Facebook
to bash a Christian college that encourages them to suppress their
sexual orientation.
- Now, what kind of example
does it set for kids if gays won't sit still for even a verbal bashing?
It starts with a gay/straight student alliance, and ends with uppity
queers chasing off homophobic gay-baiters.
- After all, look what
happened at Yale where students weren't frightened away from
participating in National Coming Out Day by an anti-gay
email and postering campaign.
- You know what the end of
this is? If more gay people come out, then more people know someone
who's gay. If more people know someone who's gay, then more people will
support equality for their gay friends, neighbors, family, coworkers,
etc. If more people support equality, then there's a chance more gay
people might end up getting married and raising families. And in that
kind of atmosphere, maybe fewer will end up like Michael Sandy or
Matthew Sheppard, who was gay-bashed
eight years ago this week, and
whose Mom is now launching
a Get Out the Vote campaign at
the foundation named for her son.
- Given all of the above, if
all these people start voting, what kind
of world do we end up with? A world without someone to hate, if we have
the courage for it? A world where, as plf515
[DK] puts it, "There is no them. We are all us"? If we're lucky...
What kind indeed. Maybe a world
with more Michael Sandys and Matthew
Sheppards living happy, healthy lives with their families and
in their communities. And loving. Because that's really what it's all
about anyway.
I don't know if Michael or
Matthew would have wanted a life like the
one I ended up with; complete with a wonderful partner and a beautiful
son, two relationships that revealed to me a capacity to love that I
didn't know I had before. When I came out, I didn't know if this was
the life that I
wanted. And it didn't matter anyway because I didn't think it was
possible then. I remember once when I was in high school, I upset my
mom with an offhand remark that I'd probably never marry or have kids.
And when I was in college, my mom visited my apartment and upon meeting
my new kitten said "I suppose that's the closest thing I'm going to get
to a grandchild out of you."
Well.
Time proved both of us wrong.
But it had help. It had help from the
folks who fought back at Stonewall, and it had help from everyone who's
ever come out and taken a stand for their own equality. It's had help
from everyone who's ever come out and fought for every gain that LGBT
people have won in the last few decades. The life I have today didn't
just become
possible. It was made
possible by countless people who believed it should
be possible. And in most cases, the first step was coming out.
So now what do I do? The best I
can offer is to do what I can to "make
it possible" for those who'll come after me to be out and to be able to
choose the lives they want from the among the full range of
possibilities anyone else has.
There's a lullaby that I heard the
Flirtations sing a long time
ago, called "Everything
Possible". I used to sing it to
Parker when he was a baby, and I think it sums up what I'm trying to
say. The chorus goes like this.
You can be anybody you
want to be
You can love whomever you will
You can travel any country where your heart leads
And know I will love you still
You can live by yourself, you can gather friends around
You can choose one special one
And the only measure of your words and your deeds
Will be the love you leave behind when you're done
There are girls who grow up strong and bold
There are boys quiet and kind
Some race on ahead, some follow behind
Some go in their own way and time
Some women love women, some men love men
Some raise children, some never do
You can dream all the day never reaching the end
Of everything possible for you
I don't think I can add
anything more to that.