My First GLBT Acquaintance, by Phillip Hoyle

My first gay acquaintance had a rather elegant name, Edward F. Printz, III, something I never expected of a person from a western Kansas farm. I knew him as Ted. Of course he drove a tractor, but he also sang at school, was the drum major for the high school band, and by the time I met him he’d been hired as the music director for our little college. My last semester there Ted led the choir I sang in and taught me vocal technique. I learned so much from him.

While I was unschooled in language like “gay” and had heard “queer” as an old fashioned word one of my grandmother’s used with some regularity, I knew in a flash that Ted would be interested to do some of the sexual things that I also would be interested to do had I not got married a year and a half before meeting him. I really liked his buoyant and outgoing personality and hoped he would never ask me to do those interesting things with him. I knew I would not ask him to do them with me. Still I realized that we were much the same and came to understand that sameness to be gayness. I picked up the gay word from reading a book in the school library, a sociological study that along with its main topic defined some common gay male words. I learned more about this world of gay and found myself interested, oh so interested.

 I felt no compelling need to enter that world but still was curious. Ted and I became life-long friends. He became a regular visitor in our home after I graduated. Since we had moved to the city where his voice teacher lived, Ted visited us some weekends. One summer while he was in graduate school and lived with us, Ted served as tenor soloist in the Chancel Choir I directed. Our friendship became more complex. The relationship between the ever-teacher Ted and the ever-student Phil endured until Ted’s death on his 47th birthday, April 29, 1994. Eventually I did enter Ted’s gay world. I lived as an openly gay man and dedicated my fifteen years of massage work with HIV positive persons to his memory. And I recall his wisdom and humor almost daily.

© 17 July 2017 

About the Author 

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general, he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

Birthdays, by Betsy

The following is an imaginary voice from the Universe heard inside a woman’s uterus by a viable life preparing for its day of birth.

“Now is the time for you to make your choice.  You may choose from these two options: gay or straight.  In other terms—homosexual or heterosexual.  Before you decide, let me explain the consequences of your choice.

“If you select the gay option you will have many obstacles in your life that you otherwise would not have. You will be considered abnormal by many people from the start, you could very easily find yourself being discriminated against by employers, landlords, merchants, and service providers. The law may possibly not offer any recourse for you if and when you are discovered depending on how the movement goes and the state of civil rights.  You could actually be put in jail if you are found out.

“You may feel constrained to stay in the closet for a long, long time, maybe forever. That means denying your truth to yourself and to others. This could have a serious impact on your emotional and mental health—possibly on your physical health as well.

“If you try to express your sexuality and live as the person you are; i.e. live as an openly gay person, you risk your safety, security, and wellbeing. You will keep your self-esteem and self-respect however. But there may be a price to pay for that.

“If you select the straight option life should be easier for you.  You will derive benefits from marrying a person of the opposite sex. As a woman, you will be safe if you serve him well.  You will be secure if you do his bidding.  You will have no difficult choices to make because they will all be made for you and to your advantage if you stay in line.  The only risk for you is that you might screw up because you don’t realize that you have all the advantages. 

“As I said, it’s your choice.”

The above scenario is, of course, absurd. None of this would happen because this choice is not available to us. This choice is never given to any of us before birth. We are born LGBTQ or heterosexual or gender fluid or whatever else yet to be defined—whatever else exists on the sexuality spectrum. 

The choice is made when we become aware, conscious, of ourselves—our feelings, what drives us, with whom we fall in love. We make the choices later in life when we understand that there IS a choice— and that choice, as we all know, is not who we ARE by birth, but whether or not we choose to LIVE as an expression of who we are.

Personally, I understand very well the consequences of denying who I am and living as someone I am not. Once I became aware of my sexual orientation I was able to make that choice, respect myself, and be happy and fulfilled. 

Those who wish to change us LGBTQ’s, punish us, put us away, or whatever, seem to imagine that we all experience the above in-utero scenario and we should be punished or, at least, forced to change because we made the wrong choice.  We made the choice in-utero and were born gay yes on our first birthday, because we chose to. REALLY!  Or, if they do not accept that absurdity, they want to punish us for expressing our real selves—for living as gay people.

I choose to live in a world which accepts every newborn baby for exactly what it is—everything that it is.  I choose to welcome every life into this world as perfect as I did one week ago my first great grandchild.

You know, I’m convinced he’s gay because of the way he waved when he was born. Then when he started primping his bald head his mother and grandmother and Auntie Gill were convinced too.  He’s lucky. He knows he is loved by us all—gay or straight.

© 14 Nov 2016 

About the Author 

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

Queer -- A Defining Word, by Pat Gourley

It is quite amazing to me really how little of my childhood years I remember beyond vague, though some significant, generalities. I suppose I could view this as suppression of lots of terrible stuff but I really think it is more a matter of not much out of the ordinary or worthy of sublimation ever happening. Lord knows my rather intense at times Catholic upbringing and schooling might have been a source of great consternation and resulting psychopathology, but for whatever reason I think I sailed through those years queer as a three dollar bill and largely unscathed.

As I have written before (my apologies for the repetition) one episode though that has stuck with me was when I asked my mother what the word “queer” meant.  I think I was about 12 years old when I first heard it used. She said it was a bad word and I should never use it. I then went straight to the dictionary but the only definition provided that stuck with me was that it meant “odd”. I went back to her with this piece of information but she persisted that it was not a word to incorporate into my vocabulary. I suspect that I or someone near me had been called a “queer” and being totally oblivious to any homosexual connection with the word thought this to be a weird choice especially delivered in less than loving fashion.

Queer to this day remains a loaded and offensive word by some LBGT folks, despised as much as the “F” word. The “F” word being “faggot” of course and not “fuck”. I could have written about “Faggot” as a defining word but thought I had enough to tackle on my plate with “Queer”. And I actually thought for a fleeting minute of writing on the word “fuck” one of my favorites but decided to keep it closer to home. And besides other than this little phrase I ran into on Facebook the other day I don’t have much more to say about “fuck”: “I have been told I am going to hell for my excessive use of the word FUCK. I have rented a bus if any of you fuckers need a ride.” From Fsensitivity Web Site

Back to Queer. Certain words used to describe us are ones that we have simply and innocently appropriated like “gay”.  Others are words that have been used to denigrate and belittle us, some of which we have reclaimed and others not so much. The use of language to offensively describe some folks as ‘other’ has often been used as a means of control. Though for a minority struggling for self-definition and empowerment the re-appropriation of often-derogatory words is I think a legitimate exercise that can enhance identity and liberation. And such is the case I believe with the word “Queer”.

In looking for the origins of the word I kind of fell down an Internet rabbit hole. The use of it as a derogatory term aimed at homosexual folks may well date back to 16^th century Scotland. The actual roots of the word seem perhaps lost to time. However, my go to person, for meaning of the Queen’s English if you will, remains Judy Grahn and her seminal work from 1984 Another Mother Tongue. Grahn states that the original word was “cwer” (c-w-e-r) without directly attributing any tribal or national origin to that word. After an hour or so of floundering around the ether a possible source for “cwer” I stumbled on is that it was old Welsh in origin. However, don’t take that to the bank.

Let me quote Grahn’s take on the possible meaning of this descriptive moniker:

“ ‘Sinful,’ ‘of the devil’ and ‘evil’ are all expressions that have been used very effectively against gay culture, as has ‘queer’, which derives from cwer, crooked not straight, kinked. Perhaps the difference between queer and straight originated very simply with the difference between the straight-line dance of male/female couples and the Fairy round dance”. From Another Mother Tongue. Page 276.

So perhaps it was a word used originally to acknowledge that we were different from straight folks in a rather kinked or crooked sense and that the evil or sinful associations were added later. Maybe we were the ones who preferred to dance in circles rather than in straight lines and this bit of nonconformity was one thing I hope, among many, that set us apart. And of course anyone set apart from the norm was often then fair game for ostracism that could become nasty.

I suspect there is a rich history to this word “Queer” that is lost to the mists of time. I am choosing to reclaim it as a defining word, one that helps set us apart from the hetero-hordes. A word that hints at our uniqueness and the valuable contributions we bring to the human tapestry by way of our otherness.

© 19 Feb 2016 

About the Author 

I was born in La Porte Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

Camping (It Up) by Pat Gourley

I am opening here today with a short read from Larry Mitchell’s iconic The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions, a few personal photos documenting just a few of my own campy experiences and a quote from someone else’s work.

“… Camp itself should almost be defined as a kind of madness, a rip in the fabric of reality that we need to reclaim in order to defeat the truly inauthentic, cynical, and deeply reactionary camp – or anti-camp – tendencies of the new world order.”
Bruce LaBruce from GLR, March-April 2014

A short definition of camp I found on Wikipedia: “Camp opposes satisfaction and seeks to challenge” seems a very appropriate definition of the gay male act of being “campy”. Camp can be a form of almost spiritual acting out sometimes in private but often as public street theatre that on the surface seems to be just silly. Not that there is anything wrong with being silly. Society could use much more silliness it seems to me.

Though being ‘campy’ is certainly not exclusively the purview of gay men we really have a corner on that market and have and continue to this day to take it to new and challenging heights. I would refer you to watch just a single episode of RuPaul’s Drag Show if you have any doubts that camp is still alive and well. I would also be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge certain Diva’s male and female, past and present who have also mastered the art of camp: Cher, Lady Gaga, Mae West, Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Paul Lynde and Liberace to name just a few.

For many of us gay men the art of camp starts early and often involves dress up. Much to the consternation of my parents I am sure I would on occasion grab a couple bath towels one for my shoulders, cape-like, another around my waist skirt-like and one over my head. I would then pretend to be a nun, Sister Mary-the-something-or-other, and my several siblings and cousins would be my pupils.

Really, where the hell did that behavior come from in a little farm boy in rural Indiana in the 1950’s except from somewhere deep in my budding queer soul? Trust me I was not mimicking any role models or recruiters I was aware of. My juvenile gender-fuck drag appears to have been pretty spontaneous, I had no ‘gay uncles’ to mimic in any fashion that I was aware of. Early TV with the possible exception of Uncle Milty provided only the straightest of heterosexual role models and they were often quite sanitized and asexual. Remember Ricky and Lucy had separate beds!

One of the most powerful components of ‘camp’ involves its often-loving play with gender roles. I really think we are getting in touch with our being ‘other’ and since we usually only have the male and female as culturally defined to draw from and neither really fits we tend to mix them up in an attempt to create something that speaks more directly to us, often with startling success. The often-cruel taunts of ‘tomboy’ or ‘sissy’ really don’t begin to address the reality or do the behaviors justice.

Gender-fuck drag is a classic form of camp, something that has been around a long time and continues to survive today despite the tremendous push towards ‘respectability’ in the LGBT community. This I think sometimes get confused and mixed up even within our community with the powerfully emerging Trans community and their emerging forms of identity. They are very profoundly separate issues. It behooves everyone to appreciate and to be sensitive to the difference in the worlds of transsexual and transvestite and drag queen and gender fuckers and what each very differently involves and implies. There is also a significant amount of cross-pollination between these entities and those realities a bit much to try and get into here. It can be quite the sticky wicket and I would simply refer you to Ellen’s comments at the Academy Awards show she made to Liza Minnelli as an example of the thin ice here one can find yourself venturing onto.

Again I think I can say that much of ‘campy” behavior involves a messing with gender roles as often defined as the appropriate ones by our society. It is one of the most powerful change creating weapons we have in our arsenal in implementing the ‘gay agenda’.

© March 2014

About the Author

I was born in La Porte, Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

The Essence of GLBTQ by Lewis

Wiktionary defines "essence" -- in usage relevant to this topic -- as 
     1) "the inherent nature of a thing or an idea" and 
     2) "a significant feature of something."

Therefore, the "essence of GLBTQ" might be otherwise stated as, "What is it about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer people that makes them unique from everyone else?" The inclusion of the terms "transgender" and "queer" complicates the answer to a degree that makes generalizations meaningless. In fact, the word "queer," when appropriated to describe oneself, seems intended to obviate any attempt to characterize it in any meaningful, shorthand way. "Transgender," because it has nothing to do with sexual attraction but is rather gender identity related, seems to me to also lie outside any attempt to describe the "essence" of the first three letters -- GLB -- which are primary referent to an individual's sexual attractions.

Those who condemn homosexuality invariably do so on the basis of same-sex erotic behaviors. Those behaviors are not the "essence" of homosexuality but the manifestation -- or "womanifestation," if you prefer -- of it. The essence is the innate part of our nature that is drawn to members of our gender, rather than the opposite gender. This seems to fly in the face of everything we know about Adam and Eve and Charles Darwin's theory on the survival of the species. Consequently, it is subject to accusations that we are operating against the Will of God and Nature and, therefore, must be deviant, if not evil. It is as if we are the ugly duckling whose ugliness is on the inside and, therefore, never changing.

What distinguishes gay and lesbian individuals from heterosexuals is our being forced into the position of having either to conform to erotic behaviors that are unnatural -- even repugnant -- to us by repressing those desires that are such a vital part of who we are in order to appear "normal" or to act on our own natural inclinations at the risk of being ostracized by a significant portion of society. Our "essence," in my opinion, is the strength of our characters that has developed during what is an existential struggle to be both true to ourselves and successful members of an intolerant society.

There are many gay men and women who have never allowed the prejudices of our society to interfere with what they see as their own natural and true behavior. A tip of my hat to them. They have displayed a courage and self-knowledge that I can only admire from a distance. Their "essence" has been knowing their own heart and following it wherever it might lead. This is a rare quality, even among those who have never experienced self doubt and the fear of social opprobrium.

For some who count themselves among the "GLB," however, finding some sense of authenticity has come only with the undertaking of behaviors that are in themselves self-defacing -- drug or alcohol abuse or unprotected sex, for example. For these, "essence" might well be overcoming addiction or dealing with the life-long consequences of HIV/AIDS.

Others of us have "gone along to get along." We married in the traditional way, perhaps even had children. For these -- and I count myself among them -- our "essence" might be qualitatively analyzed in how we have related to our opposite-gender spouses and children, how we "came out" to them, whether or not we were faithful during the marriage, and what kind of relationship we have with them after moving on toward a state of greater authenticity.

I'm certain that there are gay men and lesbians who do not fall into any of the aforementioned categories. That is why I do not think that the notion of a "GLBTQ essence" is all that pragmatic. If anything, there may be an added layer or two of "essence" on our psychological auras. But, at the same time, we are all 99-94/100% pure human being, with, perhaps, a few more rough edges and/or a more highly-polished-surface here and there. I think the rest of the world is coming around to this view ... and fairly rapidly. May it continue to be so.

We, the GLBTQ members of the most remarkable species of animal in the known universe have been granted a very special charter. We have been commissioned by the Great Mystery of All Existence not only to share our very special talents with the world but, in order to do so, to first learn to look in the mirror and see, not the "ugly duckling" that some of those we have loved may have so ignorantly and, perhaps, unknowingly branded us, but ourselves as whole and wholesome human beings whose lives will encompass a level of adventure that will make for many wonderful stories that beg to be shared.

[Everything that I have said above about "GLB" people would also apply to those on the "third rail" of sexual attraction discourse -- men and women who are attracted to juveniles of either sex. Unfortunately, this subject is so fraught with phobia and loathing that merely to state that the sexual attraction toward children is akin to same-sex attractions to adults tends to elicit reactions one might expect from confessing to mass murder. I merely would state that none of us picked the type of persons to whom we are sexually attracted from a list like choosing the color of our next car. There are still perhaps 40% of Americans who believe that having same sex attractions is immoral. Those of us with a "glb" orientation should be the last to condemn anyone for attractions over which they have absolutely no control, unlike actions taken on those feelings, which are properly proscribed, just as statutory rape is properly proscribed.]

© 15 July 2013

About the Author

I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn't getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband's home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.