Tag: gay

This One Goes Out To All The Queers

I fucking love you. I hope you’ve realized it already but if you haven’t let me tell you how special you are. In our society there is a lot made of the normal mode of being, which is to say heterosexual. As a queer person you firmly encompass a group that sociologists and philosophers like to term other. In a cookie cutter world (I’m not anti-hetero, I have straight friends) what a wonderful thing to be.

Chances are as queer folk you’ve felt at some point as if you are on the outside looking in. This can feel isolating at times, but it gives you a perspective that few hetero folks will ever have. This different way of seeing and interacting with society is why I love you. It’s for this reason that I wouldn’t want to be anything but queer. I love the insight and the way it sets me apart from most folks.

Let’s be honest. You will always encounter those who don’t get it. Worse yet you’ll always be able to find someone who actually says something shitty. Trust me, I’ve been called a faggot but there’s something very important to remember about these interactions. These people are afraid of what you are.

There’s probably a variety of reasons for this. People straight up (pun partially intended) fear what they don’t comprehend. There are also people who can’t handle their thoughts. Perhaps they are struggling with the fact that they really are queer or maybe its something way smaller like seeing some other person of the same  gender and finding something about them attractive. These are normal things for people to feel but some just can’t handle it. These people are failing to accept something about themselves and not only will they try and mask their thoughts with derision and hatred towards others, they will simultaneously dislike you because you have accepted what they won’t. You being the best version of you is a threat to them.

This isn’t your problem, though they sometimes do their damnedest to make it yours. Hold your head high and be fucking proud my beautiful gendered and agender family. You are part of a diverse and colorful tapestry of the world.

If you believe biology shapes us then we are a wonderful variant meant to define the nuances of life. If you believe nurture holds sway then we are simultaneously a part of and yet a defiant and proud offshoot of our parent culture. Either way if society thinks life is simplistic and deterministic then allow us to show them otherwise.

Even among our wonderful queer family we have many nuances. We are gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, agendered, transgendered, transsexual, asexual and even more. All I ask of you is to fucking love who you are because you are gods damn beautiful. Bloom, like only you can do and fuck the rest of the world. At the end of our lives we aren’t going to care that we played by the rules and fit in. And we certainly aren’t going to care what some muggle said to us as we crossed the street. Rather, we are going to care that we were out on that street in the first place, that we lived our lives by our rules, cared for those around us, and that we went after what’s important in making us whole.

So please, more than anything else, love who you are because who you are is amazing.

Postscript: Case in point: The finishing touches to this piece were done between sets at a She/Her/Hers concert in a garage filled with queer folk dancing their asses off. Such a beautiful thing to experience.

How Did Your Sexual Orientation Form?

I think for many people the premise that sexual orientation is not fixed, but can vary with stimuli, will be a difficult one to accept. However, thanks to trans folks (again) we have a wonderful new outlook on the world. Here are a couple of women who might just change the way you think.

https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/the-trans-women-who-become-lesbians-after-years-as-gay-men?utm_source=broadlyfbus&ncid=fcbklnkushpmg00000050

Because Sometimes I’m a Jerk

When I was dating I had this problem with most guys which is that they pretty much treated me as a holder for my cock or a resting place for theirs. I didn’t take kindly to this ever. Just because they would have sex with anything that moves doesn’t mean I would. “Yes, I know we’re both on Grindr but that’s not the bar you need to clear in order to meet me in person schmuck.” So when I got tired of ignoring mouth breathers I would occasionally engage them like this. I wish I had kept more of these.

Notice the over 6 hour silence between his question of “What’s your dick like” and his pondering my lack of reply. Duh! (nobody says duh anymore, it’s kind of a shame)

I actually met this guy a couple of months later because I didn’t realize it was him. He was just as big a knob as his message makes him seem.

Deleting Grindr from my phone was one of the most liberating feelings. If you’re tired of the crap I highly recommend it.

dick_like

The Little Pink Bottle That Could

DSC_3842cThis may look like an ordinary water bottle (I don’t know anything about the bike shop so don’t ask) and you would be correct. However, at one time it’s symbolism extended far beyond its function.

I acquired this sports bottle semi- unintentionally. I had entered a mountain bike race at Kickapoo State Park in Illinois which was put on by a wonderful local group called the Kickapoo Mountain Bike Club. As is part and parcel of mountain bike races (at least in Illinois) the organizers were handing out grab bags for racers part of which was a clear or pink bottle. As you can well imagine, being a guy, I was handed a clear bottle. I took it and began to walk away from the registration table.

Then I stopped and began to think better of my decision. You see, ever since I watched the Giro d’Italia, which is a nearly month long bike race around Italy, I fell in love with pink as a color for cycling. In the Giro the leader’s jersey is called the Maglia Rosa and as the name might suggest to you the color is a brilliant rose pink. The pinkish hue is everywhere; on the cars, billboards, podium, bikes built especially for the occasion and on the confetti that falls precipitously at the finish. Yes, by the end of that twenty-some-odd day race I could never see pink again without seeing it for it’s flashy, race worthy badassery that is on display during that event.

The truth of the matter was I became hooked on the pink bottle as soon as I saw them, but until this very moment I had accepted the clear bottle as a matter of social conditioning even though I didn’t want one. I was about to remedy this. I turned around and asked, “Actually, could I get a pink one instead?”

That’s about all I remember. I don’t really remember the event itself. I think there was a little blood, a shitload of sweat from that good ol Midwest humidity and a mid pack finish for me.

At this point in my life, I had firmly accepted that I was pansexual but it seemed a rather academic point rather than a pragmatic one. I was married so exploring this newly realized identity was not exactly a viable option. I was comfortable with this. Plus, I didn’t solely like guys so being married to a woman didn’t undermine my identity.

If I can offer an aside, It’s important to note that I was also living in a conservative part of the country where being different isn’t exactly accepted. People aren’t wrong when they say the Midwesterners are nice. You can have a conversation with almost anyone on a whim. Just make sure to keep things on a superficial level or you may not like the topic once it shifts from the weather.

I always tell people that the Midwest (at least the rural portion) consists of a thin veneer of nicety concealing a seething cauldron of hatred beneath. At least every other day I had to back someone down from making some kind of horrible statement. Whether it was demonstrating xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, transphobia or what have you. It was tiring to say the least.

In fact, right around this time I remember a coworker/neighbor of mine taking a line of joking, that she started, the wrong way. Through the drags of her cigarette and with a good amount of hatred and disgust she called me a faggot as I parted her company. All of this before anyone aside from my wife at the time even knew that my sexual interest deviated from women.

I should say at this point that there are also some quality people in the Midwest and they deserve their credit. It must be admitted though that the small town mind pervades this geographical area more so than other parts of the country, save for the south perhaps.

I’ve lived in my new home state for almost two years now and I’ve been 100 percent out the entire time and have never had to back anyone down from anything racist, homophobic or the like. It feels like an emotional vacation, but I digress.

So now I had this pink water bottle which I loved, but did I dare use it in rural America? At first I began using it just as a way to haul extra water in my cooler on ride days. So when riding laps at my local trail I could stop by and refill my Camelback. I had to take a few friendly jabs about it but it was easy to say it was my Giro pink bottle even though the color didn’t match the Maglia Rosa. Then I started taking it to work daily as my go to bottle for the day. When anyone said something about it I quickly stated my fondness for it, “Are you kidding? I love pink, that’s my favorite bottle!” All of it was true.

What went unspoken was that in a weird way this became a means for me to push a boundary, admittedly a small one, on gender norms. This was literally the only pink thing I owned because as a man I wasn’t supposed to. If this sounds like bullshit, it is, but I swear to you this dynamic exists and is alive and well. Carrying this bottle was a way for me to signify that I was different.

Yes, I loved the color and I would have used it regardless of my sexual orientation. Even though the color pink has nothing definitive to do with being queer, it became a secret symbol of my queerness. It was a way for me to take that part of me out into public even if no one else knew what was going on. This gender-bending symbolism slowly gave me confidence.

Before I left the Midwest I came out to a few people close to me. It was the next step in my evolution and as weird as it may sound that pink bottle played a role.

Recently, I noticed this bottle was missing from my collection. I had long chalked it up as lost and had forgotten about it until my ex-wife walked into my place with it the other night. I had left it in her car and so it had remained for months.

As I washed it and placed it in the dish rack I realized that I still loved the color. A pink bike or team kit? Yes please. However, the bottle itself had lost it’s hold on me. I still like it but it’s no longer my favorite. It’s a bottle now, nothing more than a utilitarian object with a symbolic past.

I’m out! I’m queer, bisexual, and/or pansexual. I’m a faggot, whatever you want to call it I don’t really care. I paint my fingernails and toenails, I cross dress for myself and for my partners. You see, I don’t have to deal in hidden symbolism anymore. I am my own living symbol and that feels better than carrying around that pink bottle ever did.

 

Coming Out as a Celebrity and Why I Care . . . Now

This is an old piece I wrote for another blog that is defunct, but the message is still wonderfully relevant today (Caitlyn Jenner comes to mind).

“I finally watched the video of Ellen Page coming out as gay. Yes, I know it’s been at least 3 or 4 weeks since it happened but I’ve been reticent as of late to learn about those who are famous. However, watching it helped me to remember something important about celebrities; they are not so dissimilar from other people. Celebrities too have real experiences and the core of what it means to be human is something that none of us can avoid.

The reason this is such a lesson for me is that I have recently taken a dim view of celebrity culture as it pertains to entertainment. I don’t think celebrities are horrible people; it’s just that I think they are people like the rest of us. They have my general respect, but my admiration is earned by actions other than showing up on a television screen.

I see my coworkers devour every piece of celebrity news. These fans know the people, the movies they’ve been in, where they shop, who their kids are, and what they wear. It becomes more than a game, going beyond the fun of “The Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” This stuff is seemingly their life, and certainly their obsession. Sports fans count in this as well. “Did you see who we traded in the draft?”

The public’s fascination with celebrities has real harm because it is often employed as an escape from reality. Many use immersion and vicarious living as a way to anesthetize themselves to many of the things happening around them. After all, most people don’t want to read about civil unrest, the abuse of corporate and political position, or the myriad of ways in which humans are supposedly ending their existence every day. It can be depressing at times to say the least. It is much easier to retreat from the things that really affect one’s life in order to enjoy some sense of calm and even power that can come from being on the inside track of celebrity life. The reality, cruel as it is though, is that ignoring the ills of the world doesn’t make them go away. The larger that socio-economic issues loom, the more the public’s escapism with celebrities increases—much like an ever escalating arms race.

So, when I read about Ellen Page coming out, I thought, “Who cares, so what if she’s gay? Join the club.” I was busy reading the coming out accounts of people that didn’t have the insular effects that money can bring and who aren’t part of the Hollywood culture that allows for and even revels in this type of admission. I was convinced that these everyday accounts were the stories of legitimate consequence, unlike those from media darlings.

Then I watched the video. I’m not sure how it happened. I didn’t even know who Ellen Page was aside from an actress. Nevertheless, perhaps in a moment of weakness or boredom I clicked on a link to open the video.

It was readily apparent from the beginning that I was watching something of importance. Culture and wealth might change certain aspects of how we feel society’s pressures, but here was a woman bravely laying open an aspect of her identity and hoping for something positive and transformative as a result. As I watched her nervously shake I became anxious for her. It was a humbling and informative experience for me and, as identity issues often do, it brought me to tears. Throughout her address the core message of hope, love and perseverance was ever present. This message rang out and not once did she allow it to be overshadowed by her personal declaration. It was beautiful; every part of it. The experience made me realize that when someone decides to forge their identity through self-revelation that it is important to listen regardless of their social position.

Even after this revelation, I will admit that I still don’t care for celebrity worship, but this reminded me that much of what I see isn’t something that those in the spotlight can always control. A large portion of what they say and do is recorded by photographers and writers who then rush the latest tidbits out to news stations and publications. When I think of the gaffs I have made throughout my life it becomes very apparent that I’m fortunate to be free of such scrutiny.

The truth is, I was right all along: celebrities are just people. However, instead of using this fact to marginalize them as I had done before, I realize that it should be used to recognize the struggles they endure and that they too can contribute something valuable to our lives. The next time I see a celebrity in a vulnerable position or trying to communicate in a meaningful and positive way, it won’t take a moment of weakness to discover their message. I will seek it out willingly and with purpose, hoping to expand upon what I know of the human experience. When this happens, like many of the adventures that play on the big screen, it truly will be something to watch.”