Category Archives: Pride Post

Pride Post – Suicidal Tendencies

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By Joshie Jaxon
 

Suicidal tendencies is a misnomer, but it is a better title for a post. That will be my one and only joke on this. This one is vey personal for me. I’m not sure where I want to begin. There’s so much on my mind, that I want to make sure that I share it all, but that I’m also sensitive to those who may be struggling as well. To date, I am thirty-three years old, and while I’ve never actually attempted suicide, I can honestly say that it is something that has gone through my mind more than once during my time on this planet. These thoughts are not something that people are prepared for. Not to discount the ladies, but I think it is harder for men. All our lives we’re raised to be tough, manly, and unexpressive about our feelings; as such, we don’t know how to process them when they happen.

  
 

It’s especially harder on gay men, and youth. Depending on your upbringing, you may have been told nothing one way or another about homosexuals. You may have been raised to respect all people, no matter who they are, since we all have our own struggles, we don’t need to make it worse on others. The flip side of that coin, is that you may have been raised to think that being gay is a sin, evil, an abomination, and that you’re going to hell simply because of who you are, and who you love. As gay men, not only are we raised with one of these mentalities, our parents have no idea what we had to struggle through growing up. Always having to change pronouns, or not looking at someone for too long for fear they might realize that we were checking them out.

  
 

At least in my experience, there was no way to prepare to be the gay man I am today. The struggle was real, and it ate me alive more than I ever would admit out loud or even to myself in private. I just didn’t have the strength to stand up for myself against the world at the time. I still feel like that on occasion. Our hearts get broken, and it is so intense, and so painful that we just can’t process it. Some people stress eat, others cut or self harm, but we’re all just trying to bury, bleed, or avoid the pain because it is just too intense for us to comprehend that it will ever pass. Let me assure you that it does.

  
 

Late last year, a relationship formed that was so fast, and so intense, that it surprised me that such a thing could still happen to me at my age. However, the relationship ended, and I was left as heartbroken as I’d been in years. Even having gone through heartache before, I was still unprepared for such things. I’m not one to cry, and could count on one hand the number of times I have since this century began, and still have a finger left over. Crying is another thing that as boys/men, we’re taught not to do. I think it’s drilled into us that it’s a sign of weakness, and shouldn’t be done. I know in my head that isn’t true, but it’s still not something I allow myself to do. I literally don’t know how. Certain things may bring a tear to my eye, but that’s about it. We need to work on that as individuals, as well as a community.

  

When that relationship ended, it left a void in my heart, and made me question my worth. I didn’t see my place in the world, and for a brief time, I didn’t want to be a part of it anymore. Since I’m here and typing this, obviously those feelings passed. Heartbreak is all encompassing when it’s fresh. Our parents/guardians know from their own experiences, but since so few of us are raised in same-sex households, there’s only so much they are able to draw from to try and get us through it. As homosexuals, we’re the target of hatred and inequality. We can get beaten up by those who think we’re inferior. That’s not something those before us had to really deal with.

  
 

As homos, when we lose someone that was once close to us, we aren’t raised with a “there’s plenty of fish in the sea” mentality. The heteros outnumber us quite a bit. As far as we’re concerned, we may never find another person to love us again. The thought of that sort of existence is depressing to say the least. Couple that with a family that may have thrown you out for being gay, and one could see where it may be easier to just end it all, rather than fighting through the world as it currently is. I’ve lost two different friends to suicide since 2001. In their obituaries, each of their families downplayed their sexuality, if it was even mentioned at all. That sort of action made me sick to my stomach. I know that no matter how I leave this world, my friends/family would make sure I wasn’t homogenized into some watered down, straight-friendly version of myself. Despite having that sort of love and support, which was forged over the years, hell, even having lost friends to suicide, it still didn’t stop the suicidal thoughts from creeping in. I don’t know for certain if there’s ever anything that truly would. Granted, they only surface after I’ve been dealt a particularly rough emotional blow. Currently all I can do is acknowledge the feeling, and focus on the positive things that I have in my life.

  
 

There are some that say that suicide is selfish, or cowardly. As someone who has had those thoughts before, and may again, I’ll agree to a point. In a sense, it is selfish, because you’re out of pain, but you’ve left a world of it behind for everyone else. People love you, and would miss you if you were gone. That, more than anything, is something that we need to remember, and repeat. PEOPLE LOVE YOU, AND WOULD MISS YOU IF YOU WERE GONE. It’s easy to look back, as a stronger person, and see how things used to be. Something that devastated you weeks/months/years ago, may not even cross your mind in the here and now. You aren’t selfish or a coward to not want to be in pain.

  
 

We as a community have suffered in silence for too long, and we need to learn how to be open and expressive about our feelings. If you don’t think that your friends or family would be able to understand, there are still resources are available. The Trevor Project is specifically set up to help with struggling LGBT youth; their number is 866-488-7386. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 800-273-8255. Don’t let things get so bad that you want to extinguish your light. You are beautiful, and the world is, and will be, a better place because you’re in it. Pain is temporary, but death is forever, so don’t make a permanent decision based on a temporary feeling. All my love to you and yours. Stay strong! 

  

Pride Post – Tears of Joy

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By Bri Bones

I woke up this morning to a half dozen texts telling me that the SCOTUS affirmed that marriage discrimination was unconstitutional. I’ve spent most of the morning trying to formulate my thoughts into a coherent whole. 

  
I can honestly say growing up, I never thought I’d see this day. Marriage was something for other people. I knew I was gay from a young age. I remember at around 8 or 9 taking the breast plate off of my He-Man action figure because I thought he looked better that way. I was the kid who was always friends with the girls, rather than the boys. 

  

When my parents would take me grocery shopping, I always would go over and hang out at the magazine rack. I’d look at the comics, the kids magazines, all the things like that. But another thing I would sometimes look at were the men’s exercise/bodybuilder magazines. They gave me tingles I didn’t understand.

It was 9th grade when I finally realized a way to put a word to my feelings. I was at the library in my home town looking at books. I found a book called “A Boys Own Story” by Edmund White. It was a biographical tale of a young mans discovery of his homosexuality. I was sitting in the corner of the library reading it and all the feelings I’d felt crystallized in my mind. This was me! This was how I felt! Certainly the final chapter where he recounted his first full sexual experience in fairly explicit detail gave me the first erection I remember distinctly.

I never really felt angst about it. I recognized this was how I felt and I was mostly ok with it. I was never suicidal about it, never anyplace dark. However, this was for me only to know. No one, and I mean NO ONE! could know. 
A year later, in high school, I got involved in theater. That’s where I met him. I’ll go ahead and call him Fred. Fred was another student. He had beautiful blue eyes and a mischievous smile. He super popular, yet he actually was friendly to me, the unpopular nerdy kid. We were cast in the same shows all through high school. Senior year, we were cast together in A Midsummers Nights Dream. I was Oberon, he was Puck. We were now working closer than we ever had. His costume in that show was just a pair of tights. He was shirtless with body glitter. Working that close to his shirtless torso, I discovered he also smelled good. 

Our teacher had had the head of the theater department at her old school come see our performance for recruitment purposes. I wanted to go there so badly. When the performance was over, she came backstage to tell us that he loved our show, and that he was going to see about offering Fred a scholarship. I wasn’t even mentioned, and was devastated inside. However I bucked up and told him congrats. A bit later we were under the stage changing. It was just the two of us. He asked what was the matter. Apparently I wasn’t doing as good a job as I thought at hiding my disappointment. I finally said I was upset because I wasn’t good enough to get a scholarship. We talked for a bit, and eventually came to the point of hugging. And we held the hug. And I felt something poking me in the leg. Then, and I will always remember this moment, Fred kissed me. And I kissed him back. 

Fred and I continued to fool around under the stage until we graduated a few months later. We went off to our separate colleges and eventually grew apart. He occasionally pops up as a “you may know” on Facebook. He’s married with kids, which is why I changed his name in this story.

  

College happened for me and I discovered other gay people who were out and happy. I began those first tentative steps out of the closet. I first told my sister, then some friends. It was Matthew Shepard’s murder that pushed me completely out. It seemed wrong for me to continue hiding when he died so horribly because of who he was. So out I went. I told my parents, coworkers, everyone, and I agree with what everyone says, it’s so much better being open and honest. 

  

Today’s ruling got me thinking a lot about that little boy in Farmington, UT. He never thought he’d be able to get married. I’m crying tears of happiness that future generations of little gay kids will grow up knowing that they are the same, and be proud of who they are. 

  

Pride Post – Marriage Equality

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By Joshie Jaxon

Marriage isn’t something that I ever thought would happen for me in my life. Growing up in Utah, I was certain that various versions of hell would have to freeze over for gays/lesbians to be able to legally wed one another. Well, it must be 31 degrees there, because today the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled marriage equality legal in all 50 states. Those of you in triad relationships, I’m not 100% what, if anything, this will do for you, but I support you as much as I would any couple consisting of two people. Love is love. Today I’ve been thinking about what marriage equality means to me.

  

I’ll spare you the particulars of my childhood, but needless to say, I never had a positive example of marriage growing up. Divorce, broken homes, and on again off again relationships where the sight I was most familiar with. As such, I don’t think I have the most positive outlook on marriage and relationships. I go into them, not expecting them to fail, but not being surprised when they do. I know that makes me a jaded cynic, and I accept that about myself. However, I am also working to overcome that mentality. I believe that with enough hard work, and fights both big and small, that a relationship can be forged to last.

  

I’m still on the fence about marriage though. As long as two people love each other, and are together because they want to be, I see no reason that the law needs to come in and validate it with a piece of paper. On the flip side, I see all the legal rights and benefits that marriage offers to a spouse, and that is something that so many of us need. Many in our community have illness, and I’m not just referring to HIV/AIDS; cancer, diabetes, heart conditions, you name it. We all deserve to have our lover present for our suffering, and to try and sooth it, and make us feel better. After all, if they love us enough to put up with all of our shit, they deserve some federally recognized benefits for that. Can I get an amen up in here?

  

Is it possible to be both a cynic, and a romantic? I believe so. While life experience has mostly shown me that relationships are doomed to fail, my heart believes that they are worth the effort. Despite being heartbroken, scalded, and downright burned by love, I still choose to work towards it. Someday, I may have a full-on wedding of my own. I hope to go into it with a lighter heart, and continuing to work towards its success, rather than waiting for its failure. All I know for sure, is that thanks to SCOTUS, I have that chance in any state that I choose, and that makes me proud to be a part of this county. In the words of RuPaul, “Everybody say Love!”

  

Pride Post-Victory!

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-By Bevianna Bones

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It’s a historic day here in the United States. The internet has almost exploded, yet again, with the most awesome of news and spontaneously combusting Christians everywhere. Unless you’ve been hiding this morning, or maybe still asleep, the supreme court has decided, once and for all, that all citizens have the right to marry the one they love. Gay, straight, lesbian couples, whatever. It’s a day to be proud. Not that the collective “we” “won”, but that the progression of civil equality in this country has taken another giant leap forward.  Today we, the people, of the United States of America are on the right side of history.  And that is something to be most proud of.

Check out Hillary Clinton’s new video, Equal, which gives a great snapshot of the journey we have taken.

Equal: https://youtu.be/g2Y9abmNuRw

-BB

Pride Post-Bringing up Baby…Dyke

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–by Bevianna Bones

Well Pride Month, otherwise known as June, is upon us. A time for the LGBT community to stand up and say, “Here I am world, deal with it.” And as we approach the anniversary of the Stonewall riots, I can’t help but think, now as a 35 year old lesbian, how much the world has changed since then. With the supreme court  trying to reach a verdict on marriage equality, and the repellent of the military policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell; it seems to me as though in mind of all of these things, it is very different world in which we live in now. I have often been chided by some of my more predominantly militant friends for not being “out and proud.” By this I merely mean that they often tell me I’m not political enough. I am “out” by societies standards, I support the HRC and Trevor Projects through monetary support.  I like to lounge around in basketball shorts and hoodies. I am who I am, I am a 35 year old woman who happens to be a lesbian. I am not owned or defined by this. I am who I am and nothing more. I’m a geek, a dork, a loyal friend, and a hard worker (and a bit of a fag hag) before I am anything. Being a lesbian does not define who I am.  It’s just part of who I am. And I guess that’s part of my Pride story. It’s not who I, it’s part of me. No more than what your sexuality or gender identity is to you. I don’t feel like I need to wave a giant rainbow flag, cut my hair short, and adopt a gaggle of homeless animals to make me any more, or less a lesbian. The fact that I love boobs and female nether regions is reason enough. But I didn’t always feel as secure in myself as I do now.

I had my moment of revelation back when I was 18 years old. At that time, I was searching this newly discovered identity for exactly “who” I should be. Who I should identify with. Back in those days, there weren’t a lot of gay and lesbian role models in pop culture. Ellen and Melissa had just come out, and it was very taboo to speak of homosexuality. I’ll never forget the lesbo episode of Roseanne the first time I saw it when Hemingway planted a big ole smooch on Rosie’s face.

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Oh the passion…

Shocking. I latched on to any movie or television reference I could find to help me figure out how I was “supposed” to look and act in my new found baby-dykedom.

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Be it that there wasn’t a whole lot out there at the time, I settled on wearing camo bdu’s, wife beaters, pulling my hair up (because I never quite got the balls to spike it and bleach the tips), swearing a lot, and acting what I thought was butch enough to advertise that I was a lesbo. I even learned the art of hackey sack, so I could mingle in the all the prestigious dyke circles. After that phase, and meeting an older, wiser group of lesbians, I started into the hiking boots, jeans, Oxford, ballcap phase. And softball. Lots and lots of softball. Salt Lake was lucky enough to have an actual Pride softball league, so I got to meet many more different people within the community. I lasted in that phase well into my twenties, until I moved from SL,UT to San Antonio.

Maybe it was being on my own, away from all of the “friends” and influences of a very “out and proud” community; or maybe it was just my own maturity. I didn’t really realize that I finally felt comfortable in my own skin until I stopped caring about who I needed to be, because I was a lesbian. I finally realized that I needed to just be me, who just so happens to be a lesbian.

I’ll forever be a tomboy, I’ll forever love my basketball shorts and hoodies. I’ll forever love to wear girlie lingerie and forever love women’s bodies. That’s what’s really important, and it took me a long time to realize it. The LGBT climate here in San Antonio is very different, compared to that of good ole SL,UT. Gay men are a plenty, and openly well loved; while the lesbians seem to have to fit a mold. A very “butch” mold. I’m guessing that has to do with the Hispanic community and their influence. All the homegrown sa lezzies seem to be stuck in that I’m not sure who I am phase I was in 17 years ago. And these are people that tell me I’m not gay enough because either I don’t fit their identity stereotypes, or am not political enough. To them, and all the baby dykes out there, I have the following words of advice: being part of this community doesn’t mean trying to be something you think you need to be, for one reason or another; being part of this community, and being proud, and having pride, is just simply being who you are. While sexuality is an important part of our identities, it’s not all of who we are; we are all so much more. Stay true to yourself, and of that be proud.

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–BB

Pride Post – R/Evolution is Required

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By Joshie Jaxon

After watching the final four episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race last week, it got me thinking. In the episode, on the final runway, Ru shows each of them a picture of their younger selves, and asked them what they would say. It inspired me to think about what I’d say to a younger Joshie. 

  

I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s. For the longest time I knew I was different, but I never knew how. While I didn’t exactly know what gay was, I did know I was drawn to guys. I’d experimented with a childhood friend as a kid. I’d steal glances during gym class. Some of that is natural curiosity, but with the later introduction of hormones, I knew what sex I was drawn to. I got my first job at 15, and within a year, one of the supervisors there asked if I was gay. The default reaction of “no” was given. She told me if I wasn’t, I may want to work on my mannerisms. To this day I have no idea what she was talking about. I just behaved the way I did everyday. There weren’t a lot of gay characters in the tv/movies I was exposed to. It wasn’t as though I was absorbing gay culture and already claiming the pieces of it I wanted for myself. Although maybe I was. Who knows? 

  

At a later job, when I was in high school, one of my coworkers used to refer to me as mariposa, while another told me that the Tongan translation of my name was fakaleiti. Dunno if I spelled that last word right or not, but my point is, both are derogatory terms for a homosexual. They may as well have been calling me faggot. I didn’t come out until after high school, and didn’t have the strength I do now. If I did, I’d have done something about it, rather than silently taking it. I’m glad that today’s generation is able to be out, take their dates to dances, and not have to hide in a closet. I was fortunate, in that I was never physically assaulted. I know those that came before me would probably have loved to have had my experience over their own. 

  

That being said, our progress is far from done. I mentioned earlier not having any role models in tv/movies. When they finally did come along, we got Will & Grace. I loved this show when it was new, but time has altered that view slightly. Where I was once entertained, and glad there were gay characters on tv, I’m now a tad offended by some of it. Don’t get me wrong, any exposure is good exposure, but homogenized/sexless characters aren’t going to help make people see our community as it is. Showing the world a watered down version of gay people does nothing. Admittedly, overly flamboyant people still make me a little uncomfortable. However, I acknowledge that only goes back to my point about not being exposed to a variety of characters, only stereotypes, coupled with societal definitions of acceptable. 

  

Speaking of stereotypes, Queer as Folk came along right around the time I came out. I recall people being very upset about it’s blatant usage of drugs/alcohol/sex. Some praised it for it’s realistic portrayals, while others slammed it saying it made the community as a whole look bad. I wasn’t in either camp. I wasn’t connected to my community back then, and I also didn’t see myself in their characters. The closest I related to was poor Michael. Loving mother, never knew his dad, a geek. My comic love never got to the point his did, but considering I co-founded a geek blog, maybe it did. While I didn’t see them as stripped down characters, they also seemed rather extreme sometimes. I believe they were needed culturally. We still need more exposure for all facets of our community; Comic relief, sexless professionals, drug fueled horn dogs, loving parents, depressed singles, people with HIV, religious, atheists, all of it. The more we’re seen, good light or bad, it helps normalize us, and brings us one step closer to equality. 

  

We aren’t going to progress until we evolve past the need for mainstream America’s acceptance. Every time we shy away from a PDA, or feel the need to censor ourselves when speaking to others about our lives, we’re giving those in charge permission to treat us like the second class citizens they think we are. If they are uncomfortable, that’s their issue, not ours, and we need to stop taking ownership of it. We deserve to live our lives the way everyone else does. Not by streamlining it to what’s accepted, but by living without apology for being the fabulous people we are. 

  

That brings me back to my point. What I would tell my childhood self is this; things are going to happen to you. They aren’t your fault. You can’t control the world, but you can control your reactions to it. Friends can be enemies in disguise, and vice a versa. Everyone is going through their own struggle, and may use you as a target. Sometimes the best thing you can do for someone is help bear the brunt of their burden for them. Be confident as yourself, whoever that may be. Life will get better. You will find your place in it, and make your mark on it. Do your best to help show those what they can’t see. That will change the world.