LGBT Hopes, by Nicholas

According to my records, with this piece, I am starting my seventh year of coming to tell and listen to stories on Monday afternoon.

It seems odd to think about hope in this grim start to what may be a long and grim year of frustration, setbacks and bad news. This is not a very hopeful time we live in. But maybe this is when we most need to remind ourselves that hope is possible, hope is what keeps us going, hope is what gets us out of bed each morning. And hope, no matter how irrational, is good to have.

So, my hope for the lesbian, gay and trans community is that we learn to turn to each other more for joy and less out of necessity. I know that fearsome problems still haunt our world and community. Violence and bullying is a daily fact for many of our youth. Discrimination still runs rampant in many areas. Determined gay-haters, like the soon to be vice-president of the United States, persist in their work to undo the dignity and security of LGBT lives and generate hostility toward us. There is still plenty of inequality and prejudice out there.

But in many ways, our world is getting less frightening and our grasp on basic rights is growing more secure. It is no longer acceptable to openly degrade gay people—which is why our enemies have to resort to ever greater subterfuges to try to harass us. They’ve lost the sanctity of marriage so now they are reduced to fighting for the sanctity of toilets and who shall be allowed to do their business in which ones.

We still have battles to fight, but my hope is that we will seek out each other’s company less out of a sense of a need for protection, less out of desperation, and more because we just want to be around other L, G, B and T people. We come together not so much because we need to seek shelter in a hostile world but more because we can best express ourselves with each other.

I have many non-gay friends and love them dearly. It’s not that I sense any barriers between us. Yet, there is still more I sense in sharing with queer folk. We share experiences that we’ve all known and don’t have to explain. We share a humor derived from being outsiders. We share spiritualities, arts and a sharp sense of just what community is—or is not. We have been forced to make up our own culture and so we have. We are different and we should relish opportunities to engage those differences.

Most of us come out of a time when lesbians and gays could never take anything for granted. And we shouldn’t. Above all, we shouldn’t take each other for granted. You can find very fulfilling relationships with non-gay people but I do believe that there is one thing we can find only with our own kind—happiness. I do hope that organizations such as the community center we are in continue to thrive—not out of fear and self-defense but from joy. We still need to find each other. I hope that we continue to come here because we want to, not because we have to.

Even in a world more tolerant and open, there is still that special depth of connection that we get to see only in each other. Call it love or desire or a magical ability to coordinate colors and a flare for decorating, you won’t find it outside. You may be welcome to watch football games with legions of Broncos fans, but you won’t get much of a response by commenting that Eli Manning is so much better looking than his brother Peyton. They just don’t get it.

© 8 Jan 2017 

About the Author 

Nicholas grew up in Cleveland, then grew up in San Francisco, and is now growing up in Denver. He retired from work with non-profits in 2009 and now bicycles, gardens, cooks, does yoga, writes stories, and loves to go out for coffee.

Sports, by Gillian

In my youth, I understood sports to be for fun, fitness, and friendly competition. Now, in my curmudgeonly old age, I know sports to be about money, winning at all costs, and very unfriendly competition.

Even amateur sports have gone completely out of whack. Have you been to a school ball game lately? Even pee-wee baseball is all about winning. At that age, should it not be about having fun, getting some healthy fresh air exercise, and learning the basics of the game? Oh no! Fathers scream abuse not only at other children but at their own. God forbid that poor little Joey should strike out or fail to catch a ball. He'll pay for that when he gets home. The pressure on so many children these days is immense. Everything has become so serious.

Professional sports, of course, have paved the way. Back in the 1970s I had friends with Broncos season tickets. The husband frequently had better things to do, and my husband was rarely interested, so off to the game the girls went! It was fun. Having had the same seats for several seasons, my friend knew all the people around us. We all bought each other beers and chatted and cheered. After my divorce I lost touch with those friends, and I did not go to a live game for a long time. Then one day another friend had a spare ticket and I went to Mile High Stadium again, for the first time in probably twenty years. My, how it had changed. Everyone seemed to be angry rather than enjoying themselves. There was a constant stream of verbal abuse hurled at the players on both teams, and of course the officiating crew. I was so sick of the constant "F" word. By the time I left I felt as if it had been burned into my ears and my brain and my psyche. (Or, as Betsy commented when I read this to her, I felt completely fucked! And not in a good way!) I have not been offered a ticket to a football game since then; if I were, I seriously doubt that I would accept it.

I have to admit I still follow the NFL pretty devotedly on TV. I can't explain why I like it. Many lesbians are ardent football fans, which seems strange as the game consists of what most of us abhor; sanctioned violence, perpetrated by huge sweaty men. I have to close my mind to two things, though. The violence to women committed by an unfortunately large number of players, and the huge salaries now offered to these people, would put me off the entire sport if I thought about them too much, so mostly I don't.  After all, I don't refuse to see a movie because of the shenanigans of those acting in it.

I do abhor the lack of humanity which seems to have taken over. If a player has an injury, the opposing team members will do their best to attack that part of his body. Has it really gotten to the stage where the intent is to do permanent bodily injury?

"Be great for the Broncos if they could take him out for the rest of the season," laughs the commentator happily.

"Well if anybody can eliminate him, Foster can. Man! He plays so angry," rejoins his co-commentator in admiration.

"He's just looking to rip someone's head off every play!"

This isn't war. It's supposed to be a game. Was it always so merciless? Maybe so and I didn't get it. After all I have never played football.

OK. Fair enough. Football is a violent game. If you don't like it don't watch it.

But it's not just football.

I have played tennis, though far from the Pro level. But, at that Pro level, how it has changed. Once considered a sport of Gentlemen and Ladies, it is now as cut-throat as any other professional sport.

"Now Farmer's injured that right ankle, Varenova will keep her going to that side, see if she can't break her down," a happy commentator reports.

"Exactly," replies another, "It's time to take advantage of that injury and finish her off. Go in for the kill right now."

So this verbiage of violence seems to have penetrated even the sport of Ladies and Gentlemen.  It is so pervasive, and I cannot believe it has a positive effect on our society.

All this, and the seriousness with which we take sports, players and spectators alike, of course has come with the advent of huge financial rewards. These in turn came with the universal obsession with sports by so many people. In the days before huge lights dominated the playing fields, games were played in the daylight hours, thus eliminating most of the potential fans who were, of necessity, at work. Even if it were broadcast live on the radio, or later the old black-and-white TV, few were available to enjoy it. Most were played at weekends, to attract more followers, but time off work was limited and people had many things to cram into a weekend.

Then came the huge brightly-lit stadium where people could gather after work and watch, or watch at home on the TV in the evening, relaxing from that hard day at the factory.  The fan base kept growing. Sports were becoming big business. Compensation for players and coaches, support staff and owners, kept rising.

Then came mass media, complete with ever-improved recording devises and exponentially increasing choices of what to watch when. No need to miss anything. Ever. Grandma turns up unexpectedly right at the kickoff or the first serve; no matter. Press the little red button and welcome Granny with open arms. In addition, the fan base for all sports is expanding horizontally, across the globe. Want to watch the Australian Open Tennis here in the U.S.? Can't even figure out what day it is in Australia, never mind what time? No worries. Look it up on the TV Guide, on the TV of course, not that little book we once bought at the grocery store, hit that little red button and go to bed. Watch it tomorrow. Sometime. Whenever.

So, given professional sport's universal, world wide appeal, I suppose the money involved is only to be expected. I'm not sure what Neil Armstrong earned by being the first human ever to walk on the moon, but I doubt it was anything like what many many sports heroes earn. But why not? The moon walk was reportedly watched by 530 million people. The 2011 Cricket World Cup between India and Pakistan was supposedly watched by about one billion.

I miss the days with less hype, less money, less drama, involved in sports. But what I really really miss is the gentler language, before it all became so infused with violence. But it seems to be what most people want. After all, you get what you pay for.

© 3 Nov 2014 

About the Author 

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

Lonely Places by Betsy

There are so many lonely places one could write about, I find it difficult to settle on one of them.  Probably the loneliest for me would be loneliness of the heart, such as having a secret about oneself--something one is terrified to disclose--that’s a very lonely place indeed.

Fear makes a person feel very lonely--fear of violence, abuse, hunger, thirst, etc. I imagine this to be a very lonely state of being.  Some are fearful of being physically alone. They want to be surrounded by people--any people-- all the time.  This also must be an agonizingly lonely person.

I imagine hatred would contribute to a person’s feeling of loneliness as well. I believe for humans the natural state of being is to love not to hate. Hatred is a creation of the human mind and is not “natural.”

These are all states of being.  Right now I am thinking about an actual place.

Because I have recently returned from a visit to the state of Alaska I am thinking of a place most of us have never visited, a place that appears to be very lonely. Most of the area of the state of Alaska is a vast wilderness uninhabited by humans. The population of the state is around 732,000.  That’s in the entire state of 663,268 square miles an area almost one quarter the size of the continental United States.  More than half these 700,000 people live in the cities of Anchorage, Fairbanks, and Juneau.  The other half are scattered in towns, villages, or solitary homes, many of them reachable only by airplane or boat.  Alaska is the largest state in area in the U.S. and ranks 47th in population making it the least densely populated state with only 1.26 people per square mile.  I imagine that living in the bush in Alaska would be a very lonely existence for most folks used to living in a world of people. But there are many people who live in the bush and live off the land by choice. Perhaps they were born there and their parents lived there, or maybe they just landed there and loved it and decided to stay. In some remote villages a piece of fruit such as one orange can cost $5.00.  You would HAVE to live off the land in these circumstances.

Alaska’s road system covers only a small area of the state linking the central population centers of Anchorage and Fairbanks and the Alaska Highway, the route out of the state through Canada. The state capital of Juneau is not accessible by road only by car ferry.  The northern and western part of Alaska have no road system connecting the communities with the rest of the state. 

I try to imagine living in the bush hundreds of miles from the nearest town. Most of the people living in the bush live in tiny villages or a group of some sort.  But I know there are some who live by themselves, alone, in such a place--and by choice.  This would seem like a very lonely place to many of us, but clearly not to those who live such an existence.

I imagine them to be so well integrated into their environment that they never have a sense of aloneness.  They actually are not alone--being so completely ONE with your environment I imagine would not feel lonely.

Loneliness is most definitely a state of mind and relative to one’s situation.  In a way it could be very lonely to think of ourselves, us Earthlings, as alone in the universe, not knowing who may or may not be out there, where they are, who they are, how close they are, are they there at all.  On the other hand when I think of myself as PART of the universe, it doesn’t seem lonely at all.  I guess that’s how it is for the lone Alaskan, family, or even a community of Alaskan’s living in the bush.  They know they are a PART of the natural conditions in which they live since their very lives depend so totally on those conditions.

I do not believe that the lonely states of being mentioned above--fear, hatred, secretive living, I do not consider living in such a state to be living in tune with one’s natural environment, immediate surroundings or the Universe for that matter. So perhaps we humans create our own lonely places.  Perhaps there really are no lonely places except as creations of our minds.

I’ll have to give this more thought.  But for starters I like thinking about being in tune with my surroundings, my environment, whatever it may be--being in tune or being at ONE--I like to think of this as the way we are meant to live. I like to think of being in tune as a source of contentment and peace--the antithesis of feeling as if we live in a lonely place.

© 11 August 2014 

About the Author 

 Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change).  She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years.  Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning.  Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren.  Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.