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Pride

 

     June 1st starts Pride Month. For the next 30 days we will hear stories, see businesses flying pride colors, have backlash, and all the other things that come along with support for the LGBTQ+ community.  As a member of this community myself it always makes me reflect on my own experience.  I would like to share this with you:

     

     I came out young. I was 16 and was the only out person in my high school of roughly 1,500 students. Statistically there should have been a lot more of us.  And I knew there were, but they weren’t ready yet and that’s ok.  People remember me as brave- it should never have to be an act of bravery to be who you are- for coming out.  In reality, I didn’t want to. I told three people that were close to me and it leaked.  So, when people started asking me if I was gay I took control over my own life and came out in the school newspaper.  It was better that way.  It was kind of like jumping in the cold pool instead of walking down the stairs.  It was scary, and I did it. Being from a small town I was lucky enough to have one parent at least that was accepting (“The only person you ever had to come out to was yourself” said my mother) and some good friends.  The police weren’t as nice… I had a couple run ins.  Once I was stopped speeding and was told “I ticket people like you on their first time so you learn your lesson early” to which I replied, “and it’s people like you that make people like me think you’re all assholes.”  I was a sassy little shit, and I still am.  Once in Anderson SC my date and I were sitting on a hill watching the sunset in a park and it was quite nice until an officer pulled his SUV through the grass, sliding to a stop just feet away from us.  He jumped out and asked what the hell we were doing, told us we were going to die of AIDS, called our parents to tell them we were on a gay date, and even went to my mom’s job the next day to talk to her about my lifestyle.  I never thought I’d forget his name, but now 20 years later it was like Seagram, or Seaboard maybe?  At any rate, it was terrifying.  He even told us that he would forge affidavits stating that we were caught having sex in the park (which we certainly weren’t, I was still a virgin at that point).  At 16 I would have been labeled a sex offender for the rest of my life all because of bigotry. I was picked on the entirety of my school years, harassed in the community, and even by my own father. So I moved.

 

     Then I thought I had to be gay.  Like gay gay.  Like gay on the way to my gay, riding my gay to my gay, while I gay, gay gay gay.  I moved away, and my U-Haul might as well have been pulled by a parade of unicorns.  I had no role models.  No one to show me how to be gay. Only how we were portrayed on TV (which wasn’t a lot in 2002) and then what I learned from the community that I moved to. I was young and got into doing drag as an outlet for performance since I had previously been an actor and dancer.  It was fun!  Feeling pretty, being someone else… it all appealed to the little gay boy from Greenwood SC.  I quickly got involved with drugs, as is the case with much of the community, and spent the next few years trying really hard to ruin my life.  I was a catty, rude, drugged up, philandering teenager who gave up going to college and blew through my whole savings.  I looked around and thought “well this is stupid.  I don’t want to live like this” and I moved. 

 

     Through meeting different people in a different place, I came into myself and the realization that gay is not a personality.  It’s part of my story, but it isn’t my whole story. I could write any story that I wanted to.  I didn’t have to try to be gay, I was gay, and that means something different to every person and doesn’t define (or shouldn’t at least) their character.  Be whoever you are. Being LGBTQ+ only means exactly that- that you are part of a community that is still fighting for equal rights and to be accepted. It doesn’t mean you have to be any sort of way except for who you are and that is the true meaning of PRIDE. 

 

I got my shit back together, eventually went back to college and here I am now.  But still...

   

     We have to hide parts of who we are- or at least feel the need to in public for our safety.  Just yesterday I changed out of what I was wearing at home, a cropped t shirt and athletic shorts, to walk to the corner market because I didn’t want to have to deal with what I was sure to come if I didn’t.  I’m a 6’4’’ tatted up weightlifter and people still yell FAG at me out of car windows.  It scares me sometimes; I can’t imagine the fear in others.  I’ll never forget crying when marriage equality came into law.  Where I live it is still being challenged. Our community is challenged daily by those who don’t want us to have our partner’s benefits, be able to adopt children, be married, etc. So, as we consider pride for the next 30 days, remember it’s not just a rainbow flag, a parade, a party- it’s a life that we live every day.