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April 2017

Rome, Italy

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30 Days of Pride: June 19, 2017

Yesterday was Father’s Day, & I was lucky enough to have over two hours to talk on the phone with my dad, who lives across the country. Our conversations are always rewarding, but his shared interest in my search for understanding the history of the LGBT community has been incredibly meaningful to me — we all want our parents to accept us, which many of us don’t have the luxury of; here my dad is reading the articles that I write on here & actively seeking out conversations about what I am learning! 

In our conversation yesterday, we talked a lot about intersectionality, which is probably the word that best sums up the impact I want to have on this community: I want to help find intersectionality. We talked about Philando Castile & Black Lives Matter. We talked about marginalized groups whose voices are overshadowed or silenced. We talked about the problems with well-meaning allies sometimes saying things like, “I don’t see color,” or “Love is love,” & how sometimes Social Justice Warriors are too eager to be offended by something, even if it is meant with genuine goodness, & it is so hard to find the line about how & where to best educate people.

How do you tell someone what they said is problematic without making them want to remove themselves from the conversation? How do you best allow someone to connect with you? How can you tell stories to people that don’t want to listen, or to people that think they already know it all? How do you help the [maybe well-meaning] ally without an explosion of anger, which for me personally, is always right below the surface? 

I am so angry, all the time. There is so much that’s wrong, & there are so many things that I want to do, there are so many dreams I have for this community, & for the silenced & marginalized people within this community, with the awareness that I have immense privilege as a cisgender white male, gay or otherwise. But how do I best combine my anger & passion in a productive, informative way? 

I think there is a lot of power in conversations. I think, as Dustin Lance Black said, there is a lot of power in stories. Having the ability to share my stories with my dad is one of the coolest things to come out of my adult life. But how do we continue to share, how do we show authentic representation, how to we find intersectionality in a community that is already marginalized, that then further marginalizes its own members?

How do I make my anger productive? The question is more rhetorical than anything else; the natural answers are 1. donating to charities that I believe are fighting our fight, 2. volunteering, & 3. continuing to be vocal about what I believe in. But sometimes it feels like those things aren’t helping, or at least not quickly enough.

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30 Days of Pride: June 18, 2017

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy, a trans woman of color, is another of the leading players of the Stonewall uprising, another one of the leading players who, as a person of color, has been forgotten as being on the forefront of the fight for queer rights. Miss Major, at 76, is a former sex worker, a leader & human rights activist, & is known as “Mama” by many in the community. In the 50s, she worked as a receptionist for the Mattachine Society. In the 60s, she was involved in the protests at Stonewall. In the 70s, she was a prisoner at Attica Correctional Facility. In the 80s, she was an AIDS activist. She is even the subject of a documentary. Her history is long, colorful, & desperately overlooked [& whitewashed] in the mainstream queer community.

Miss Major recently moved from the Bay Area to Little Rock, Arkansas, feeling that she can be of more help to the trans community there, especially under the continued erasure of the queer community by the Trump Administration. She said, “I want my trans girls & my trans fellas & every gender-nonconforming person out there to know that okay, this is done, we can survive this. All we have to do is stand together, work with people who want to help to abolish this, or test it, or fight it. We don’t give up, we don’t lay down, & we don’t say ‘die’.”

She reminded Vice, “There were girls who had to fight & die or be chased & harmed to get to this point we're at today. But this is not where it needs to be, or feel comfortable at, or stay.”

One last encapsulating quote, speaking on the spectrum of the trans community, is, “just being a transgendered person, we have had to go through some personal, deep, heart-hurting, traumatizing bullshit to admit it to ourselves because we are challenging everything we have been taught since the moment we took that first breath. Boy or girl? Pink or blue? But what happened to turquoise, lavender? Where’s emerald? Kelly green?”

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April 2017

Paris, France

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30 Days of Pride: June 17, 2017

Raymond Castro, arrested during the Stonewall uprising in June of 1969, told Jonathan Ned Katz that he “didn’t know [he] was going to be a part of history.” He called his life quiet, but on the night of the uprising, he was held hostage by the police, then arrested, & is documented by David Carter as being the only person arrested that evening who was known to be gay. He fought against the police, kicking at them as they pushed him into the paddy wagon, & was later released without charge. 

He recalled the night of the uprising that he was at the Stonewall Inn, where everyone was dancing until the lights were turned on, alerting them of the police raid that they had not been warned about, & that everyone “had to act decent & normal, whatever decent & normal was.” He remembers that as arrests were made, more & more of a crowd grew, & that as the crowd grew, it got angrier, & that this totally spontaneous uprising became a catalyst of the gay liberation movement. In the same interview, David Carter says that Stonewall was transformed into a mass militant grassroots movement, following the black Civil Rights Movement, which is why it changed the history of the world. 

I always think back to the saying emblazoned on posters & t-shirts, the first Pride was a riot, & Raymond, having attended the 40th annual Pride parade in New York seven years ago, said, “A lot of people, especially the young ones, have no inkling what Stonewall is. They think Gay Pride is just a big party. None of this would have been possible if it wasn't for 1969.”

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30 Days of Pride: June 16, 2017

Matt Bomer will be starring as a trans woman, Freda Von Rhenburg, in the Mark Ruffalo film Anything. Yes, Matt Bomer is an out gay man, but still, people aren’t thrilled. Because he is still a man, in a role that should be played by a trans woman.

Sometimes I have to sit back & ask myself, truly, if I am getting angry for productive reasons, or if I am getting angry because I have a short fuse & active emotions. Last night, this article found its way across my newsfeed on Facebook, & I had to sit back & ask myself why, exactly, as someone who is not a part of the trans community, am I so angry about this? But I watched the clip from the film & reflected a bit more on the article that I wrote just a week ago, & decided that my frustration remains valid. Last week, the article was on straight voices in queer cinema, but now it is extending into cis voices in trans cinema. 

Now, again, with the knowledge that I identify with the sex & gender that I was assigned at birth, I know that I am not speaking for anyone other than myself. But knowing that I personally believe in the immense importance of representation, it does not matter to me that Matt Bomer is a part of the queer community, he is still a cis male playing a trans character. Not only is he just a cisgender male, he is a masculine-presenting cis male. No one can argue that Matt Bomer looks like anything other than a conventionally attractive male, furthering the harmful idea that, in films representing the trans community, the message being given is that trans women are just men in dresses. 

I shared some of my frustration [which reads a lot like anger] on Facebook, & was met with a handful of comments along the lines of, “Well, at least he’s openly gay, that’s a step in the right direction!” Yeah...I still disagree. Someone wrote [this is a direct quote], “Isn't this the reason we got into acting? To play other people, to experience things that we've never experienced before?” Jen Richards puts it much more succinctly than I can: “It will result in violence against trans women. & that is not hyperbole, I mean it literally. Cis men playing trans women leads to death.” I wrote in my original “straight voices in queer cinema” article that anyone can learn to play a character like a firefighter or a teacher, but you can’t “learn” to play a trans woman. Being a part of the gay community still doesn’t give you the authority to tell that story, or at least to tell it with any sort of honesty or authenticity. The fact that it will literally lead to violence towards trans women gives this sort of casting no excuse. 

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30 Days of Pride: June 15, 2017

In several of these articles, & when talking about the LGBTQIA+ community in conversation, I often use the umbrella term “queer,” because I have always been under the impression that we have reclaimed it as an umbrella term. I also like it because it doesn’t betray or imply gender. I have always personally considered it to be less problematic, more inclusive, & more succinct than using “gay” to describe the entire community, when the entire community doesn’t identify as gay. 

However, one of my goals is always to educate myself & to fill myself with as much history & understanding as possible, so after an interesting discussion this evening with Sebastian, I am looking a bit more into my use of “queer” to describe a community that may not want to be described that way. 

These are conversations that I think are worth having, & I have read really interesting thoughts & perspectives on each side of the spectrum, many of which land on queer not being a word that anyone outside of this community has any authority or right to use. 

Because my experience with the word “queer” maybe isn’t as involved, traumatic, or painful as other’s, here’s some good “required reading”: 

Noah Michelson of Huffington Post’s “Queer Voices”

James Peron of Huffington Post’s “Queer Voices”

Etymology of the word “Queer & its use in the community

A great thread by Sigrid Ellis on whether or not queer is a slur

“Everybody who came out before you has taken the rocks & bottles & made them into shields & wind chimes.”

I will always make an effort to be respectful of whomever I am talking to or talking about, & to anyone that prefers to not be described as falling under the umbrella of “queer,” I will change how I refer to them within the community accordingly. But I like the way the word queer feels, I like what it means to me, & I will continue to proudly describe myself as a part of the queer community. 

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April 2017

Paris, France 

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30 Days of Pride: June 14, 2017

Sylvia Rivera’s legacy stands right alongside Marsha P. Johnson’s, & she is one of the forgotten voices of the Stonewall uprising. She is quoted as having said, “I'm not missing a minute of this — it's the revolution!”

With Marsha, Sylvia founded STAR [Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries], & a tenet of her beliefs was the protection of young queer & trans kids who she sought to give protection from the danger of street life, in which she had been raised. She was born Ray Rivera in 1951, & by 10 years old, she was on the streets as a sex worker. 

When the Gay Activists Alliance removed the rights of transvestites [this was the term used in the 60s & 70s] from its agenda, she warned them, “Hell hath no fury like a drag queen scorned.” Her relationship with the gay liberation movement, in its attempt to be mainstream, was contentious, & some people cite her as the “Rosa Parks” of the transgender movement. 

Sadly, she fell back into a life on the street, homeless, addicted to drugs, & involved in prostitution, until she found a home at private shelter for transgender people where she met her partner, Julia Murray. In 2002, at the age of 50, she passed away from liver cancer. 

Riki Wilchins reminds us that “the [gay] movement may not want to recall that it was started by gender non-conforming street people of color. But we should not forget our roots, or turn away from them.”

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30 Days of Pride: June 13, 2017

Last night, prior to the candlelight vigil in DuPont Circle hosted by the Pride Fund to End Gun Violence, I went to a performance at TRADE Bar in DC, hosted by DiCción Queer, a queer Latinx writing & arts organization. The evening was a reflection on the massacre at Pulse through poetry, music, & audience participation. 

After the beautiful, honest, moving program, the audience was invited to share thoughts, experiences, or questions for the performers. A middle-aged white man took to the microphone & began proclaiming that the massacre at Pulse was not a racially motivated crime, & instead was simply an attack on the entire gay community, not just the queer Latinx community. The audience, which was decently diverse, was very vocal in our disagreement, & one of the performers had to take the microphone away from the man as he continued on in his speech. I think there is importance in him having the ability to say his piece without having a microphone taken from him [I think there is importance in anyone having the right to say anything they want], but I would hope that it contributes to a greater conversation, & that the speaking is followed by a willingness to hear a response. He wasn’t there to listen or to have a conversation, he was there to convince a space dedicated to the memory of queer people of color that they were mourning the wrong thing or mourning the wrong way. 

A few audience members later, a young white woman spoke, saying that as white people, we need to be very aware of the space that we are taking up in events & vigils like last night, & that our presence is certainly allowed, but that it is also not our space or our conversation, that the focus needs to be & should be on the people in the queer Latinx community. The man, who was sitting a few feet from me, was muttering & shaking his head before he got up to leave.

Although I myself did not speak, recognizing that what needed to be said had been said, I wanted to talk about how much the gentleman claiming that this was not racially motivated & was an attack on the entire gay community was like white people showing up at a Black Lives Matter protest to shout that “all lives matter!” Yes, we are very aware that this was an attack on the entire gay community, but it was also very specifically an attack on the queer Latinx community during Latinx night at Pulse, & attending a vigil or a performance in remembrance of the massacre without having an understanding [& without being willing to understand] that it was a racially motivated massacre is deeply problematic & continues to demonstrate the racism that permeates the queer community. It continues to demonstrate the refusal that white people [primarily white men] within our community have to see the struggle of our brothers & sisters of color. 

It is one thing to use the privilege of whiteness to try to bring respectful visibility to people of color, especially voices that are unrepresented/underrepresented. But to bring your voice into a space remembering queer people of color to tout your beliefs that all gay people suffered from this attack is deeply, desperately counterproductive, offensive, & erases the identity of the lives lost. It is attempting to refocus or reframe a conversation centered on people of color to center on including your whiteness. There are enough conversations about that. 

We as white people who are members of the queer community have so much we could be doing to promote intersectionality, but for some reason, so many of us continue to believe that we are the ones who are most oppressed. White gay men need to do better. 

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30 Days of Pride: June 12, 2017

A year ago today, I went to bed ready to wake up & celebrate life-changing theatre on the Tony Award broadcast, & instead woke up to the news of the biggest mass shooting in modern US history at Pulse in Orlando, almost more than the combined casualties of Virginia Tech in 2007 [32 killed] & Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 [26 killed]. 49 innocent LGBTQIA+ people were killed, & another 53 were wounded. They were primarily people of color. We were very specifically, explicitly targeted. 

This loss, & this attack on our community during the month we use to create safe spaces to celebrate our pride, had an impact both on me & on this community that feels unparalleled. During every queer-themed event I go to now, I am scared. When the lights went down in Landmark’s E-Street Cinema before the screening of Milk last week, I briefly thought, “what if there’s a shooter in here?” On Saturday during the Pride parade, I often thought, “what if there’s a bomb somewhere? How can I get out of here?” My first thought when I go somewhere, knowing that I am openly displaying my gayness, is, “Will we be the next Pulse?” 

Tonight, Sebastian & I are going to a candlelight vigil hosted by the Pride Fund to End Gun Violence. I know that I need to go, but I am scared even to go to this, not knowing if there will be violence or protestors. But we need to go. We need to be visible, & stand in solidarity for the 49 people who were killed. 

These are their names & their stories. 

Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34. Stanley Almodovar III, 23. Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22. Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36. Luis S. Vielma, 22. Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22. Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20. Kimberly Morris, 37. Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30. Darryl Roman Burt II, 29. Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32. Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25. Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35. Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50. Amanda Alvear, 25. Martin Benitez Torres, 33. Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37. Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26. Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35. Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25. Oscar A. Aracena-Montero, 26. Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31. Enrique L. Rios Jr., 25. Miguel Angel Honorato, 30 Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40. Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19.  Cory James Connell, 21. Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37. Luis Daniel Conde, 39. Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega, 24. Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32. Frank Hernandez, 27. Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33. Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, 49. Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28. Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez, 25. Akyra Monet Murray, 18.  Paul Terrell Henry, 41. Antonio Davon Brown, 29. Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24. Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21. Rodolfo Ayala, 33. Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25. Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, 24. Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32. Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25.  Jerald Arthur Wright, 31.  Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25. Jean C. Nieves Rodriguez, 27.

Typing those names, typing their ages, made me cry. It is important to say their names, to know their stories, & to fight for visibility, intersectionality, understanding, passion, & the right to live exactly as we are without ever fearing that we could be next.

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30 Days of Pride: June 11, 2017

Between the screening of Milk at Landmark’s E-Street Cinema, the #QueerMeOut panel at the W Hotel, & the Pride parade yesterday, I am really happy with this year’s Capital Pride events. Although I was unable to go to the Equality March for Unity & Pride [which I am upset about; showing solidarity for intersectionality of the members of this community that cannot march for themselves is important to me, & even though I could not attend the march, I strive to live a life that reflects speaking for unheard voices], I am still grateful to have been a part of the celebrations & also the informative experiences that I got to attend. 

I think Pride is a really special space. This year, I had a niggling feeling at the back of my mind, just reflecting on what happened at Pulse in Orlando last year, & there were moments that I was scared, but we can never let fear keep us quiet. There are aspects of Pride that are potentially problematic, or maybe not overtly progressive, & Pride is a space for more than just the muscled guys in jockstraps dancing through the streets, but the muscled guys in their jockstraps dancing through the streets serve a purpose: the Stonewall uprising, & everyone that has fought for our rights, allow us to dance in the streets, in whatever we want to wear, holding hands with whomever we’d like, kissing whomever we’d like, without fear of being hurt or embarrassed. It’s a space for anyone to be without any fear of shame, & even if you’ve got the occasional snide or bitchy comment from some skinny white gay guy in a tank top, the overall feeling of love, unity, & acceptance during all of the Pride events we attended was fulfilling, rewarding, & reminded me of how much I love being queer.

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30 Days of Pride: June 10, 2017

Last night, Sebastian & I went to see the #QueerMeOut speaker series presented by W Hotels, featuring Trae Harris/@gypsybruja, Tom Jackson & Abi Benitez from @gayletter, & Levi Jackman Foster, moderated by the desperately magnificent Mickey Boardman. The panel was about how social media has helped to connect the global queer community & lead conversations on gender & intersectionality. 

Although the entire panel was informative & meaningful, & Mickey’s banter was hysterical, my favorite thing was when Trae talked about the importance of not claiming to be “colorblind,” because it is insulting to the existence of people of color. She also said that we don’t need any chairs at any tables, because we are building our own. 

Something that I feel very strongly about, as a white gay male, is knowing that “none of us are free until all of us are free,” & that we have to use our voices to fight for intersectionality & to not only build our own chairs at our own tables, but to also build them for the people who can’t build their own. Something that I believe Levi talked about was using our voices for the people whose voices can’t be heard, & sometimes it’s easy for gay white men to victimize themselves, thinking that somehow we are the most oppressed group within the queer community, erasing the identities of the rest of our community, however they identify. Racism & sexism among white gay men is extremely prevalent & problematic, & what we need to be doing is pulling each other closer, instead of pushing each other further apart. 

White gay men seem to enjoy the narrative of oppression, but it’s not a competition anyone should be trying to win & truly, until every person of color & trans individual & homeless queer youth has the same voice that we, as white gay men, have, none of us are free. 

I believe a podcast was recorded of the panel, which I will be keeping an eye out for to update this post if/when it becomes available. 

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30 Days of Pride: June 9, 2017

Marsha P. Johnson was born on August 24, 1945. When asked what the “P.” in her name stood for, she’d respond with “Pay it no mind,” intended to help answer the question everyone was ready to ask: was she a male or female? She is known to some as the mother of drag, & was a revolutionary trans & AIDS activist, & a veteran of the Stonewall uprising. Although some people cite Stormé DeLarverie as having helped start the Stonewall uprising, other accounts call Marsha the person who “really started it.” 

In the 60s & 70s, Marsha P. Johnson helped found STAR [Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries] with Sylvia Rivera, which helped provide food, clothing, & a community for young drag queens & trans women living around Christopher Street or the Lower East Side, with the primary goal of keeping transgender individuals off the street. Marsha was referred to by the “children” of STAR as the Queen Mother. Marsha often toyed with the fluidity of gender, sometimes “changing personalities” & acting as her birth name, Malcolm. She posed for Andy Warhol for his series “Ladies & Gentlemen” on famous drag queens, & was a part of both the Gay Liberation Front & ACT UP.

Her body was found in July of 1992, floating in the Hudson River. Police ruled her death a suicide, but her friends & family challenged the ruling, saying she was not suicidal. In 2012, the Village Voice reported that her case had been reopened as a possible homicide. 

Marsha “Pay it no mind” Johnson is something of an unsung hero, but her legacy for the transgender & queer community lives on, reminding us that when people stand in our way, we just have to pay it no mind. 

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April 2017

Rome, Italy

A tourist sits at a little restaurant in Piazza della Rotonda, eating a crostini, with a view of the Pantheon, a violinist playing “Moon River,” & the water from the Fontana del Pantheon splashing in the background. He is a little drunk, & the setting sun makes him feel like he is in a water color painting.

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30 Days of Pride: June 8, 2017

Last night, Sebastian & I went to a screening of Milk at Landmark’s E-Street Cinema, featuring a live Q&A with Dustin Lance Black, who wrote the screenplay for the film & who had flown over from the UK for the event. Jealousy & ignorance work shockingly well together: all I knew about Dustin is that he’s married to Tom Daley, so that made me not like him. [Also, to be almost 43 & to look the way he does? I don’t know how much plastic surgery or how many hours at the gym go into that, but he looks younger than I do.] But I misjudged: he delivered a fantastic, inspiring Q&A, & is a very important, outspoken voice for our community. 

I have generally tried to be well-researched & decently succinct, informative, & eloquent throughout the first week of this series of 30 Days of Pride writings, but today I sort of just want to rant, about straight voices in queer cinema. 

Sean Penn & James Franco, both of whom star as gay characters in Milk, are straight. Sean Penn won an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role in 2009 for it, & his work in the film is incredible. His characterization of Harvey is cute, fiery, endearing, quirky, & loud, all of the things that I would want to see Harvey Milk characterized as. Did the film lose any authenticity by casting straight men to play gay characters? Maybe not. But should it have cast gay men to play themselves? Maybe. 

I have gotten into brief arguments with people about this before, people who are always very quick to say, “Well, that’s why it’s called acting, it doesn’t matter if they’re gay or straight!” I also have people not-so-gently remind me of instances like Neil Patrick Harris playing roles like Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother. But much more often, you’ve got the opposite: roles that are just ridiculous [like Sam Waterston & Martin Sheen in Grace & Frankie] being played by straight actors. You cannot truly tell me, even for a second, that they were the best people for those roles. I do not even sort of believe that Sol & Robert, respectively, left their wives for each other. There’s no reason those roles couldn’t have gone to gay actors.

See, the roles that are being written for us aren’t being played by us, & the roles that are being written don’t often serve as more than a fetishization, subplot, or punchline. It’s a matter of representation. Yes, it’s acting, people will love to fire back the argument that anyone should be able to play any part: should only drug addicts play drug addicts? Should only pirates play pirates? Should only firefighters play firefighters? Of course that’s unrealistic. It’s also not the same. Anyone can learn to be a firefighter, but being a part of this community isn’t something you can adequately “learn” or “study.” For the few roles representing LGBTQIA+ folks that actually exist, it would be nice for this community to see those roles played by people like us; by people who won’t say it’s “uncomfortable & not that fun” or that they need to drink “a half case of beer” before filming; by people who know the story they’re trying to tell [people like Laverne Cox in Orange is the New Black]. Yes, it’s fantastic that our stories are being told at all, but at the same time, it feels a little bit cheapened when they’re not told by us. To then have these straight actors being praised, being told how brave they are for acting these parts? It feels cheap. They’re praised & told they’re brave for acting a role that they can take off when they go home. We, the people who actually live those roles, are still fighting for the world to acknowledge that we exist.

Last night, Dustin Lance Black made an explicit point to reiterate the importance of bridging gaps through storytelling. We should be allowed to tell our own stories. 

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30 Days of Pride: June 7, 2017

Tonight, Sebastian & I are going to see a screening of Milk, featuring a Q&A with Dustin Lance Black. Other than knowing that Harvey Milk is often [incorrectly] cited as being the first openly gay candidate elected to public office, & that he was assassinated after less than a year in office, I haven’t known much about him. 

One of the things that Milk most passionately called for was visibility of the LGBT community, imploring people to come out of the closet. Here are six impactful quotes, from The Harvey Milk Interviews, calling for equality, courage, & acceptance. 

“If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.”

“It’s not my victory. It’s yours, & yours, & yours. If a gay can win, it means there is hope that the system can work for all minorities if we fight. We’ve given them hope.”

“Rights are won only by those who make their voices heard.”

“Gay people, we will not win our rights by staying quietly in our closets...We are coming out to tell the truths about gays, for I am tired of the conspiracy of silence, so I’m going to talk about it. & I want you to talk about it. You must come out.”

“All men are created equal. Now matter how hard they try, they can never erase those words. That is what America is about.”

& finally, 

“Hope will never be silent.” 

He knew the danger he was in. He knew he could very likely be a target of assassination. But he continued to be a strong, outspoken activist for gay rights.