Several years ago, I was asked to speak at an event at the Santa Fe Mountain Center about my experiences within the LGBT community. It was around National Coming Out Day on October 9, and I had the honor to be asked to speak as one who came out as a Straight Ally, what it means, and what its implications are. Since then, I have been told to share my words with a broader audience. Perhaps the Kos is just that platform.
I have lived a life full of exceptional experiences, as any of us have. I received an amazing email the other day that said, "Countless things can happen in an entire lifetime, or even in a single day. Yet, I can assure you that no matter what happens or will happen in yours--the challenges you face, miracles you experience, or the many love stories that weave through your life--when you are taking stock of your life, the thing that will drop you to your knees in shock and awe ...will be that you got to be you!"
What I am is not really important to this story...But who I am has changed dramatically because of the encounters I have had in my life. Although some may consider it analogous to being "raised by wolves," I was indeed "raised by hippies." I have a beautiful picture of my mother putting daisies in the gun barrels of the National Guard during an anti-war protest. She, however, married into a staunchly military family--although my father was a pacifist for his own reasons. My grandfather on my dad's side was a decorated fighter pilot in World War II and the Korean War. He flew reconnaissance missions, and one of his greatest memories was flying over the Himalayas. My dad's older brother, my uncle, was a decorated war hero in Vietnam. He was in the Army and flew helicopters, but I don't know much about his stories. My grandfather died around the time my youngest turned 2; my uncle died when I was eight years old. He is buried in the National Cemetery in Denver.
My uncle is really where this story begins. Although my mother protested the war, she supported the troops. She distrusted a government that would send so many off to fight an unjust cause and change their lives forever--if they ever returned at all alive. My father's family looked upon military service as the greatest duty one can serve for one's country, and it was pretty much accepted that both my uncle and my father would one day be in the military. My uncle was six years older than my dad, and all he told Dad was "Don't go to Vietnam." So, Dad joined the Coast Guard and served honorably.
My uncle, with all of his medals and decorations, was also gay. He didn't come out as gay until my parents were married. Being brought up in the Church of Christ, he didn't know how his parents would handle it. Both Grandma and Granddad said that no matter what, he was their son and he was proud of him. They referred to his orientation as a "lifestyle," and one that should never be judged; I now chalk that up to a generational understanding that was compassionate and loving. My uncle contracted AIDS in 1988 and died about a year after being diagnosed, although my recollection was that it was a much shorter time. I was eight years old, and had just turned nine when he died, so my memory is a bit foggy. He was given full military honors at his funeral.
While my uncle was dying, my parents made it very clear that I was not supposed to mention that my uncle had AIDS. They told me if anyone asks that I should say he has cancer. My family was very clear that lying was right up on the list of absolute
"no-no's" next to stealing. When I had asked them why, they said, "When you lie, you rob someone of the truth. And that is something you can't give back at any cost." So to hear them say to lie was in its own sense devastating to me. One day a friend asked me why I had been gone from school so long. I said I was with my family in Colorado seeing my uncle. She asked why I was seeing my uncle. I said because he was dying. She asked from what. I said AIDS. In just a few days, parents were calling the school, wondering if it was safe for their children to be in the same class as me. People who used to be my best mates out on the playground ran the other way when they saw me. It hurt, but not nearly as much as the thought of betraying my uncle by lying about what was taking him away from me.
In middle school, we had a guest speaker come speak to the whole school in an assembly. I went to a small private middle school, and the entire student body could fit in the gym in the afternoon, grades 6-12. The speaker was a woman who had been diagnosed as having AIDS after living several years with HIV. She asked if any of us had known anyone with AIDS, and many of us raised our hands. I was of course one of them. Shortly after that assembly, some classmates of mine were making several homophobic remarks, specifically relating to being gay with AIDS. I told them to shut up; they had no idea what they were talking about. They turned on me and said, "Yeah, and you do?" I said, "Yes! I do!" They asked how, and I said my uncle had AIDS. One of them said, "Yeah, but was he gay?" And I said Yes. Thinking back on it now, I really do wonder if I should have outed my uncle who was not even alive to defend himself, but it did feel good to shut those guys up for a few moments.
In high school (I went to a public high school), I had a very good friend--and it pains me that to this day, I can see his face but for the life of me I can't remember his name. We hung out every lunch period two and a half years. I used to find him at the bus drop off and walk with him to the cafeteria in the mornings; I also used to try to find ways to walk him to and from PE, even though it made me late to some of my classes. I felt like I needed to have someone walk with him because he was beaten up almost every day on the bus coming to and from school, and he was also beaten severely in the gym locker room before and after PE. He was attacked so frequently because he was gay. It got so bad that he finally transferred schools. At that point, I went to the principal and asked very angrily, "Why did my friend have to leave? Why didn't you kick the kids out who were beating him up?" The principal listened to me, a little shocked, and said that I was just too naive, and that I just didn't understand the complexities of the situation. I said I understood just fine. We had a zero tolerance policy against fighting when it was between rivaling gangs, but apparently a kid who had no real way to defend himself, and whose only "crime" was that he didn't like girls could get beaten up and driven off of the campus because "he made people uncomfortable." I said the word for that is double standard. And even though it was really two words, it didn't make the situation any better.
I graduated from high school in 1998. My senior year in high school, I had the opportunity to be a foreign exchange student in Germany on the Congress-Bundestag Scholarship. So I graduated "in absentia." While I was in Germany, I learned that I had been accepted to the University of Wyoming. I loved Wyoming. I made a small circle of friends who included many foreign exchange students from Wales, France, India, Kuwait, and Nepal. I also made friends with a young man named Matt. Many from my generation and slightly older may remember seeing his name in the newspaper and on national television; he was Matthew Shepard. Not too long ago, his mother, Judy, was in Congress again fighting for civil rights for the LGBTQI community. Her son and my friend, Matt, was brutally murdered in October, only a day or so before National Coming Out Day. He had been targeted for being gay, and lured out of a bar by two sociopaths (and I know I'm not a therapist but I can't think of a better term to call them). They drove out into the Laramie wilderness just a few miles outside of town. (And that year in October, there were many days when it was bitter cold, and on that night it was too cold to even snow. When you breathed, your breath would hang in the air for a blink or two, and then fall--an experience that I will never forget)...And out in that wilderness, they took Matt's shoes, pistol whipped him and tied him to the fence post to die of exposure. He was found just barely alive the next day morning by a patrolwoman who thought he was a scarecrow. Matt died in a coma six days later.
In the trials of the individuals involved, it was made perfectly clear that the motive was entirely homophobically driven--there was no other reason for them to have murdered Matt in such a torturous way, except because they were afraid of what they didn't understand. During the trials, the campus was visited by the Kansas Westboro Baptist Community. (For those of you who don't know about them, I'm sure you can find many references throughout the Kos. They are a hate group pathetically disguised as a religious organization.) The Westboro people came to the campus with their signs full of hate. The University's LGBTA decided that they were going to do a counter-protest. They dressed themselves up as angels with huge cardboard wings. They stood in front of the Westboro community so that the hate-filled rhetoric of the hate group could not be read through the wings of the angels. When I heard about the counter protest, I found the president of the LGBTA. I said that I wasn't part of the LGBT community, but I would like to stand in the wall of the angels. He got so excited, and within moments, I was surrounded by a small group of faces (I never did catch all of their names), all working together to make me a costume. To this day, I am proud to say that I was an angel for Matt, and also for my uncle. When the Westboro people left the campus, we took large buckets of soapy water and ritually cleansed the sidewalk where they had stood.
When I became a teacher, I first heard about Gay-Straight Alliances on school campuses throughout the district. I found the sponsor at the school where I first taught, and asked very kindly if I could support the group. He said that since he was looking into retiring at the end of the school year, he would need a sponsor that would continue the group after he left. And even though I no longer teach in that same location, I am still the proud sponsor my school's Gay-Straight Alliance. I am affiliated with the public school district wide Safe Zone professional development team, and every time I go, I hear and learn about news ways that discrimination is enforced, and how even the smallest act of resistance to discrimination creates a positive ripple effect. I think back to the weight of my angel wings, and the defiant silent smile I held while I stood in a line of other angels when I think of a single act of resistance.
I have experienced a lot of the brutality that those within the LGBTQI communities face. I am just one person. I am not a part of the LGBTQI community at all. But I do know that any time any person is oppressed and discriminated against, it destroys humanity. I look at what is happening right now in Arkansas and Indiana, and my heart sinks. I have seen what such hatred has done to my friends and to my family. I do not wish to live in a world where it can be condoned to be on the wrong side of history. So I stand proudly and say that as long as there is discrimination and oppression, I will stand in fervent opposition.
We are now in the month of April. National Day of Silence is coming up, and I know that I am not the most silent person...So in honor of coming out, I will say this: I am a straight woman who shares my bed with my dogs and my husband. I am a self-confessed nerd who can quote every line from every episode of the Star Wars movies and still believes that the best Star Wars movies are the originals, and cries when Luke Skywalker removes Darth Vader's mask at the end of Return of the Jedi. I have a shower curtain and bath mat set in my bathroom that make it look like the transporter room of the Star ship Enterprise, from The Next Generation. I really want a T-shirt that has Captain Picard with an angry face saying "There are four lights!" (And I know all the TNG peeps are giggling, remembering the dark episode where Picard is tortured by the Kardassians). I proudly lounge around the house in my Wonder Woman footed pajamas while listening to Motown. I absolutely love chocolate and think that the best meal always begins and ends in dessert. I am an absolute bibliophile and will read anything. I collect books on my shelves and not in a Kindle because I love the feel, smell, and comfort that goes along with curling up with a book on the couch with a cup of tea and a plate with 2 shortbread cookies. :) In many ways, I am a hobbit who loves to be home surrounded by all everything that is comfortable, but have a sense of joy and excitement when I am called to an adventure.
I wonder sometimes in all of my own life's traverses, how I ended up where I did, but I am so grateful and blessed that I have been encouraged to always speak out. My favorite story growing up was The Lorax. I loved the idea of speaking for the trees, for the trees have no tongues. I will never speak for any person who has the strength and the words to speak for him/herself. But when any has been silenced in fear, when any one person shrinks into the shadows of invisibility as a means of avoiding or stopping the pain, I will stand with him/her and share my own strength. Together we can all speak out. Together we can all say that there is never a time when it should hurt to be yourself.