Gay Used To Mean Happy
Midway through my junior year in high school, I received a safety transfer from East Side Community High School to Banana Kelly High School. The circumstances don’t really matter for this particular story, but needless to say I didn’t really like myself and did something stupid because of that. That led to some people getting really angry, my momma came to get me out of the school, and I ended up transitioning from a non-regents school to a regents school with 18 months to take and pass 6 regents examinations. Transitions are hard enough for teens, let alone awkward teens that had a history of being bullied. You have to get used to a new bus route, find new people to sit with at lunch, and hope that you know the material your new classes are covering. What usually eases the awkwardness is an immediate friend. One that likes you for you, and who brings you into their circle so that their friends become your friends. One that makes things so much easier with funny jokes and just genuine friendship. Her name was Kewanna.
Kewanna was the first person to speak to me at my new school, as my US History Teacher sat me next to her on my very first day. She bore a resemblance to the great Queen Latifah, down to the secret love for fly women and dope beats. We bonded instantly over our affinity for DMX and beautiful women, and she became my first friend who was a member of the LGBTQ community. She told me stories about her parents, celebrated my relationships, and we just became really cool. Like Bonnie and Clyde-type cool, without the bank heists or the underlying sexual tension. On my 18th birthday, Kewanna bought me a card and put $20 in it. She wrote “something light to keep you fly” and I still have the card to this day. It was a really great gesture by someone that had taken the time to get to know me over my first couple of months at my new school. Towards the end of my senior year, we were on our senior trip talking about college plans and what we wanted to do when we grew up when we saw these two girls from another school. One had braids and resembled Alicia Keys, and the other looked like a stereotypical (and I mean this in the best way) Puerto Rican girl with the door knockers and the white air force ones. Even though I would spend the next almost two years trying to get with Alicia Keys’s twin, it would be the Puerto Rican girl that Kewanna had eyes for that would become even more important. Her name was Jillian.
Heartaches are hard enough to go through, but the people that make things easier are the ones who listen regardless of whatever craziness they have going on. You know the type, hat no matter how bad their shit is your shit is always more important. Jillian was that person. Jillian went to school in Brockport, and she was always trying to see the good in people regardless of the obvious red flags. She, like me, found peace and solace in people that you just knew weren’t good for you. We both developed a soft spot for women that did not really like us as much as they liked the idea of us. In turn, we found acceptance in each other and in our love for love. She was also the first person to call me out on my bullshit and my desire to live my life through these lies, and therefore highly responsible for the person I am now. She taught me to value my truth and to find my voice, and that would turn out to be some of the best advice I ever got. It took many years and many long and emotional conversations, but eventually I got to the point where I liked myself again in large part because of her. We eventually lost touch, but thanks to the power of social media we were able to reconnect. She’s had a rough few years, but is now helping educate kids in Brockport by leading workshops on safe sex and providing resources for kids like us who struggle with their identity as they prepare for college and adulthood. When we reconnected, I asked her what made her decide to work with youth. She said that she remembered how hard it was for us to only really have each other for the real conversations, and that she thought it made sense to be what she was for me for them. Imagine that, no matter how hard her life got she still wanted to be there for others. I shared with her that I had met a classmate in grad school who had a very similar personality. His name was Luis.
Luis was incredibly charismatic, smart, funny, and downright defiant. A rebel amongst rebels, if you will. He was willing to speak his mind, challenge others, and allow himself to be challenged. He was younger than most of our classmates, and he seemed to appreciate that because he allowed himself to soak up all the experience the rest of us had. He shared with me around graduation that he thought I didn’t like him. I told him he reminded me a lot of myself, and that I just wished I could be half as confident at his age as he was now. There’s a picture of me and him at graduation holding up a Puerto Rican flag because we were the only two Latin social workers out of our OML cohort. I grew to have even more love for him when he came to my going away party before I moved to DC despite having what he himself described as a rough week. See, I value the people that are willing to be there for me even when their regular lives are kicking their asses. It’s a trait I cherish because, as social workers, we are constantly tasked with depleting our emotional capital for others. How could I not have love for someone that’s willing to be present for me in spite of their well running dry? That’s genuine love. Now that i’m in DC, we speak via facebook or text and I make sure to send him positive energy consistently. He once told me that that’s all gays ever really need from heterosexual folk; people who are willing to send positive energy so they can navigate the nonsense they constantly face on a day to day basis is all they ask for. He said being gay wasn’t a choice, it was something he was born as. He said a choice would be if he wanted to wear Nikes instead of Adidas. As a person that liked women from delivery, I understood. It didn’t make him any less of my friend, and he’s been my friend for a few years now. He will probably be my Vice President-Elect when I win the White House. I accept and love him, because I was raised to love and accept those who are different from me. Different, like from different countries. Sexual orientation never meant that for me because it never meant that to those in my life. That’s about it. I learned to accept that because when things hit close to home, that’s where you learn how far your love goes. Her name was Tiffany.
My little sister came out to my brother and I when she was 17 years old. It was a really hard thing for her to do and over the last few years its been made harder by her inability to find a church she can attend freely or by the fact that she needs a map to see where she is allowed to go because there were places even in the Deep South that didn’t accept members of the LGBTQ community. She’s a traveler, and she always finds ways to travel to areas where she can just be her. I remember asking her to read a passage from scripture during arguably the most important day of my life so far, and her love for me didn’t let her flinch despite her fear over whether Jesus accepted her for loving who she loved. Her love for me overcame her fear and her own insecurities. When she came out to my Mom, she did so not because she was 100% ready to but because my brother decided it was time. I’ve never been a fan of people trying to take your voice, but my brother believed that she needed a bit of a push. He wanted to help her be her, and now my mom makes jokes with her about people she’s dated in the same way she would joke with my brother and I. She is incredibly grateful for his help. See, my sister has grown up in a Post-Matthew Sheppard world where in most places it is okay to be LGBTQ. My mother recognized that and, regardless of how crazy it initially made her, it didn’t change the way my mom loved her. After President Obama’s sweeping legislation to both legalize same sex marriage and mandate protections for the entire LGBTQ community, my sister said that even if she never wanted to get married (she was never your typical girl when it comes to that) she was happy to know she at least had the option. She also felt happy to know that she was now protected if an employer tried to deny her a position because of her sexual orientation. She felt safe. She felt accepted. And for a person that almost moved to Norway in search of that acceptance, it meant a lot to her that she could be herself here even if it wasn’t perfect. She felt we were on our way.
Man, were we on our way until some of you decided to vote for yourselves instead of the interest of others. Now, those same protections got rolled back by your President and that fear that Kewanna, Jillian, Luis, and Tiffany and countless others thought had gone away now justifiably returns. It is a fear that they will not be allowed into the right bathroom, or not be hired for a position they really like, or worst case scenario be lynched. I keep waiting for some of the people I know to say something, anything, that lets me know they aren’t as misguided as some of their comments make them seem. Not a single comment from people who heard these fears and laughed them off like they weren’t genuine. We’ve crossed veterans, women, immigrants, blacks, minorities, and victims of domestic violence off the list and no one utters a peep. Meanwhile, the inclusionary vision we’ve begun to craft for ourselves is pushed to the side by people who only seem to care about their way of living. Being LGBTQ is hard enough, at least from what those I care about tell me, so why insist on making things harder for them? Remove party lines and realize that you are normalizing hate over differences instead of coming together to protect each other for each other. Or, are you saving your words for when this puppet administration comes for you? By then, who will be left to save you? Leave Great Bigot Today Quietly. Stand together. Band together. Or watch as we are all banned together.
