Coming Out Day Connection

  
We first met at a Coming Out Day celebration at the University of Minnesota, but he doesn't remember it. He was part of the event team and was busy meeting all of the attendees. I was there alone trying to figure things out.


We met again at a state-wide conference to help craft the lgbtq agenda. I was a tragic mess. I was extremely poor and got there because my ex-boyfriend helped organize the event. I was supposed to be volunteering.

Instead, I drank and made a fool of myself. I grabbed the microphone and performed horrible songs and dance routines. At one point, I serenaded him. That is how we started our now 13+ years of friendship.

Unexpected Friends

  
They were my friends in college, and thanks to them I see the world differently.

I was the only out queer on campus, though not the only queer. They were not queer but understood. I had more in common with them than the closeted ones. We were action-oriented and , at times, antagonistic.

There was a meeting of the Student Council to determine the policy on LGBTQ issues and clubs. Homosexuality is sinful in the Catholic doctrine. The council was split: half liberal, half conservative. The decision for or against could go any way and would determine if I could keep the LGBTQ club, continue facilitating anti-homophobia trainings, and remain an out student.

They were not a part of the LGBTQ club. Rather, I was a part of their Commitment To Diversity group. They were mostly folks of color dedicated to changing the University of St. Thomas. I was proud they accepted me, and in return I had to confront my privilege and racism.

They were with me at that meeting when I screamed in front of the entire council and their college advisers of professors and priests, "It doesn't matter who I fuck! I deserve the same god damn rights as you!" They applauded. I cried.

That was the beginning of the end of my stay at St. Thomas. I can't remember the outcome of the decision. I was emotionally spent trying to justify my existence and experience to powers that didn't care and active worked against me.

I lost touch with them afterwards, but thought of them often. Then, I joined Facebook. They were and are there. We reconnected.

I admire that they stuck it out. They all graduated and continued on to higher education. It is amazing to see, 14 years later, that we are doing what we set out to do: we are changing the world; we have committed to diversity as a way of life.

Summerfest Shenanigans

  
I was mean in middle school. It was part being near the bottom rung of the social ladder and hormones. Partly, I was just an ass.

Every summer, I went to a non-denominational Christian summer camp called Summerfest. The summer after the eighth grade was the most cathartic. Three thing happened that changed everything. One, I found out that a friend was being abused by her father and repeated the story to an adult so they'd call Child Protective Services. Two, people who were friends in fifth grade but decided to harass me sixth through eighth grade apologized. The third is this story.

We had gone to elementary school together. Then she went to public school. We were friends when we were younger. We both didn't quite fit in, and we were both socially awkward. Both of us were outsiders by the eighth grade. The friends we had when we were younger were no longer friends even though that's what we called them.

This Summerfest, she was there, and because of public school she was now lower on the social ladder than me. She wrote me a love letter -- a passionate, gushing one. Other teens saw it and teased me. They started calling em "Mauve" --  some vague reference to being gay as only teenagers can make. They told me that if I liked her, I had to be a fag. I was desperate to prove otherwise. 

I found the video camera that was chronicling Sumemrfest and stole it. I took the note, one friend, and found a secluded place. We turned on the camera and pressed record.

I jumped in front of the camera and started mocking the love letter. I read it in that annoying voice of a teenager that knows everything. I made fun of her and called her names. I think I even made up a song about how much I hated her.

I put the camera back. No one had missed it. I was proud, momentarily, that my little tirade was recorded for posterity and that it would be seen by other teens. A day later, I regretted everything. I even tried to get the tape back and failed.

I never told anyone else about my actions in hopes the story wouldn't reach her. I'm sure it did. There was a witness after all.

If she is reading this: I am sorry, and thank-you for your current gift of friendship. It is good to know I wasn't and am not the only queer.

Chuck and Charles in They Meet, Number One

 

Chuck and Charles is a monthly comic strip created by Queerly Complex Editor Jason Wyman that follows the exploits of two queers as they discover anonymous sex, missed connections, and synchronicity. To view the strip, click here.

The Wedding at Ocean's Edge

They were married at the ocean's edge by Sister Mary Ralph. It was beautiful, and they were handsome. We all laughed and cried and sang and loved.

That is the purpose of weddings and marriage. That is a right that will never be taken away.

Our Dance

 
We danced. It was simple and uncomplicated. I put my head on his shoulder as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me closer. Antony was playing. We were in love.

We still are.

The Apology

 
He pulled me in to his office.

"Jason," he started, "you can't volunteer here or be a part of this church any more because you're gay. It isn't the message we want to send the youth."

"But I've been raised in this church. I went to school here. I teach Sunday School."

"I'm sorry. You can't do that any more. That's all I have to say."

Years later, he emailed an apology.

I still don't visit that church.

The Coming Out Note

 

She was my best friend my senior year of high school and my prom date. She was new having moved from her mom's in South Dakota to her dad and step mom's in Minnetonka. We did almost everything together: church youth group, hanging out after school, babysitting her sister. We had lots of fun.
 
The night my parents found out I was gay I was supposed to get together with her. We hadn't seen each other since all of the bull shit in the seminary, nd I was eager to regale her with tales, especially the one about the Rocky Horror Picture Show. I needed to hear that everything was okay.

My mother called me upstairs. I was getting ready trying on a variety of sweaters and pants trying to find the most stylish combination. 

"What now," I thought but said, "Be right up!" I rushed upstairs.

It came out of the blue. "We know," they said, and left it at that waiting for me to admit it.

"Know what?" I replied fidgeting, thinking "I'm not getting out of the house tonight."

"I found the note," my mom said.

"What note?" My hands twisted behind my back.

"The note."

"Oh shit," I thought as tears formed in the corners of their eyes. "Something's about to happen."

"We know you're gay." I can't remember which one said it.

I was quiet. "I am not going to be able to go out," was the only thought in my head.

There were a few more exchanges. Something like: "We still love you." "We will need to talk to the priest." "We don't totally understand this."

It ended with "We know you have plans tonight. Go out and have fun."

I went over to her house. We didn't talk about the seminary.

Faggot on the Bus

 

My parents were going out of town or something, and we were all shipped off to different friends of the family for the night. I got to go to his house. He was a huge geek, and I was excited to spend the night. He had a Commodore 64. He and I had gone to school together and were friends since Kindergarten. We were now in the sixth grade.

My mini vacation started agter school. I had to take the bus home with him. It was a different bus than the one I normally took home. I knew how to handle that bus. This one I did not.  

I jumped on the bus and energetically took a seat next to him. "I can't wait til we get to your house. This is going to be fun!"

He looked at me and said, "Find another seat. I don't want you sitting next to me. And I don't want you spending the night."

I moved to an empty seat ready to cry but holding it in fearing I would be teased if a tear dripped down my cheek. The other kids overheard our exchange, and that tear wasn't needed for the teasing to commence.

Suddenly, the bus broke out into "Jason and xxx sitting in a tree k-i-s-s-i-n-g. First come love. Then, comes marriage. Then comes..."

"There is no way I'd kiss Jason," he erupted. "He's a faggot!"

Everyone started yelling "Jason is a faggot. Jason is a faggot," in that sing songy tone of childish taunting.

I moved to the front of the bus trying to escape their jeers. They just got louder. The bus driver drove.

"Jason is a faggot," continued until I got off the bus with him some 30 minutes later. We walked silently up the driveway.

"Look. I don't mind you staying over. I just didn't want you sitting next to me on the bus. I don't need any more teasing than you do," he said as we entered the house.

I was on the verge of tears. Anger bottled up. All I wanted was the night to be over and to be home in the chaos I knew. I wanted to scream and punch and fight.

Instead, I said, 'It's okay. We can still have fun. You wanna play a game?" I followed him inside.

In moments of anger or teasing or harassment, I am sometimes still that little boy that ignores his feelings and justifies, "It's okay." Especially with friends, colleagues, and peers.

Thanks Anna Conda for the Inspiration!

 

This post is a comment to Anna Conda's post Yerba Buena Soap Box. Here is a portion of the original post:

The biggest problem for me in Queer culture today is two fold; first is the lack of knowledge of our history and second the fact that we feel that we need to include any gender variance into our numbers to make us have a broader platform. The truth of the matter is that not all gender variance is queer and mainstream society shunning something as abnormal does not make it part of Queer culture either. Most people; both gay and straight; believe that sex and whom we choose to have it with is the only thing that makes us queer identified and they have no idea what a rich and glorious past we have. In the 20th century things move so fast that we often find it hard to keep up with our past and the history that we are sharing today. This leads us to ghettoization and self loathing creating the need for everyone to accept us. This need to fit is and have as many people join our ranks is detrimental to the Queer or Gay agenda and serves only to make us look pathetic and needy. Everybody will not like us no matter what we do or how ever many people join our ranks. Bigotry does not work on a numbers game. It is a fear based reaction of people who are filled with fear and cling to that fear as if it was the very oxoygen that keeps them alive. My parents are born again christians who will never accept me and even after 42 years of knowing me and seeing what a hard working caring individual I am would turn me over to the Nazis if they asked them to. They believe that I am an abomination and nothing I do will ever cure them of that. However that shame is not MINE to take on. It is my duty to believe in my path and move on and work on educating people on my queer history and the fact that we have been around forever, with glorious results in arts, leadership, scholars, and spiritual abundance.

 Click here to continue reading.

***
Dearest Anna Conda:

Thank you for writing this and asking hard questions about our queer community. As someone who came out as gay at 18, fell in love with a woman at 22/23, and ended up marrying a man at 31, I, too, have grappled with the queer identity and what makes it such.

When I first came out, I believed that gay was the only way. However, this conflicted significantly with my actual orientation. I had numerous girlfriends in middle high school and not just the standard "I need to hide something so I'll date a girl" variety. They were women I loved (and still do). From 18 to 22/23, I had sex with and found myself sexually attracted to women, and I still identified as gay because the majority of my relationships and sexual partners were men.

Then, I fell in love with a woman. It wasn't something I was expecting. It was something that happened. We had an open relationship and I continued to have sex (a lot of it) with men (most of the time) and other genders (sometimes). I didn't and don't believe in a binary gender construct, and so I was at a loss for how to capture the totality of my sexual orientation, as identity politics is, and always will be, a huge part of who I am.

I came to embrace queer precisely because it opened the door beyond gay. To me, it wasn't about a watering down of identity. Rather, it was a broadening. It was a term that I could take on and be.

Now, as a man who is married and monogamous to another man, I still call myself queer. Yes, for all intents and purposes, I am gay, too. But gay is not the totality of who I am. It is too narrow and restricting especially when used in the LGBTQQIP moniker. In that instance, gay really only refers to men who have sex with men (almost exclusively).

Queer has become, and is, a HUGE part of me, one that I believe, as you mention in your post, is beyond just who you have sex with. It is about a broadening of identity. And that broadening comes into conflict with more narrow (and necessary) identity politics.

For my day job, I work organizing and training the professionals who work with or for youth (sometimes including youth in and of themselves). In this arena, I use both gay and queer. Initially, I use gay because it is just easier for people to understand. It matches their perception of me. As I get to know them or as the situation calls for it, I start talking about my queer identity. It confuses the hell out of people. They totally don't understand.

Similarly, when I say I am queer among gay men, they look at me funny thinking the two words are interchangeable. And to them, they may be. But to me, they are worlds apart. One speaks to a side (albeit a more predominant side especially since my marriage to John) of me that is narrow, focused, and steeped in oppression (not the same as shame, as I, too, see absolutely NO use in it). The other one speaks to a side of me that is uniting and liberating. And in this world, I need both to survive and thrive.

Thanks again for writing this. It has made me think deeply and intentionally about why I use the word queer. I appreciate the inspiration and challenge.

Much love,
Jason Wyman

May Day Is for Kisses

 
I was in the park celebrating with friends on a beautiful May Day as the puppets danced and the protesters cheered. I saw him down the hill, his skinny black jeans, knee-high combat boots, and tousled  hair recognizable from a distance. I hadn't seen him in years. We both grew distant after our ninth grade year filled with horror movies and questions. I wanted to kiss him then, but thought better of it. He left for art school in the eleventh grade.

He saw me too and approached smiling. I walked towards him distancing myself from my friends hoping for privacy in the crowded park. His smile faded, and he raised his hands in greeting, threw them around me, and squeezed -- an action he never would have done in high school. I melted and sighed.

"It's good seeing you. It has been too long. What've you been up to?" I asked trying to start a conversation.

He didn't respond verbally. Instead, he looked at me, leaned in close, and kissed me. The blood rushed to my face, and I felt warm, almost sun-burnt. I kissed back.

We walked hand in hand around the park that afternoon for about half an hour in mundane conversation between waited for kisses.

Then, it was over. He kissed my cheek and said good-bye. I didn't want it to end. It wasn't supposed to be more than a kiss and a confirmation.

I still occasionally  search for him.