Category Archives: Gender and Sexuality

Gender and Sexuality, Society

LGBT Community Forum

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Last night, I attended the LGBT Community Forum that was held at the Downtown United Presbyterian Church. This event was organized by the Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley, AIDS Rochester, and several other organizations to give the community a chance to learn the full details about the June 1 gay bashing and subsequent police misconduct that occurred in Rochester, as well as to give members of the community a chance to speak up and share their own reactions to the incident and others like it.

After city council member Bill Pritchard spoke, Alexandra Cobus gave a brief history of the June 1 incident based on the investigation so far. Without giving a level of detail that might compromise the investigation, Ms. Cobus walked the community throught he events of the bashing. Rather than attempt to repeat that account exactly, I will merely offer some of the details that stood out to me. There were eight people in total attacked that night, with two separate incidents. The eight victims, all friends, were leaving the Avenue Pub between two and three that morning, heading in the direction of Park Avenue. They were travelling in two groups, with the second group lagging behind the first by approximately five minutes. The perpetrators attacked both groups with a metal pipe in turn while expressing anti-gay slurs.

An unidentified witness called the police at the time of the first attack, and a number of officers (witness accounts place the number between twelve and fifteen) arrived shortly after the second assault. When some of the victims approached the officers on the scene, they were told to go home. They requested to file a police report, only to be denied. In the process, three of the people who were attacked were arrested.

According to Ms. Cobus, there are currently two separate police investigations going on. The first is a criminal investigation against those who attacked both groups. The second investigation is to address the matter of police misconduct in regards to the matter. Ms. Cobus also indicated that according to the chief of police, the misconduct investigation is considered a higher priority.

One of the other issues that Ms. Cobus addressed were the rumors surrounding FBI involvement in the investigation. She wished to make it clear that the FBI was only investigating the allegations of police misconduct. At this time, the FBI simply does not have the jurisdiction to investigate a hate crime based on sexual orientation. As an aside, this is why the current legislation that would add sexual orientation to the federal hate crimes law is so important. If this legislation passes, the FBI would have jurisdiction in future incidents of this nature.

Afterwards, members of the community were given their chance to speak and express their feelings. Most notably, those with similar experiences were encouraged to share them. I didn’t count them (or record their stories), but I’d estimate that seven or eight people spoke up to share similar experiences of being harassed, stalked, or assaulted, only to have poor police response. Needless to say, there was a great deal of anger and tension in the room. It’s no surprised that the organizers asked a member of the LGBT who is a psychologist to mediate this portion of the night’s agenda.

The night concluded with a half hour brainstorming session where everyone in attendance was invited to bring up their suggestions on how to prevent such future incidents — or at least improve how they’re handled. Ideas were wildly varied and included everything from improved training for police officers in handling these kinds of crimes to protests and demonstrations. There were a number of excellent suggestions, and I hope that we as a community find a way to implement many of them in the coming months.

Gender and Sexuality, Politics, Society

Of no consequence? Really?

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According to Danny Hakim over at City Room, New York State Senate majority leader Joseph L. Bruno announced that the Senate will not be voting on gay marriages. His reasoning is that they have too many other matters to vote on to “spend hours debating an issues that, you know, is not going to be of consequence.”

I find myself wondering what color the sky is in Mr. Bruno’s world. Because if he honestly thinks that gay marriage is not going to be of consequence, it’s quite clear that he doesn’t live in the same world I do. One merely needs to look at the states who have rushed to create constitutional amendments to ban same sex marriages over the past few years to realize that Mr. Bruno is quite possibly the only person in the entire country that considers the matter so inconsequential.

Also, bear in mind that in New York, there are currently over 170 same sex couples who are seen as legally married. A court ruled that those New York couples who got married in Massachusetts prior to the July 2006 court ruling that determined that there was no constititional right to same sex marriage in New York had valid marriages. This fact alone makes same sex marriage something of a legal problem in this state. Suddenly, legal decisions on how to handle just those 170 marriages — and how to verify that said marriage took place before the July 2006 deadline — now have to be considered. In effect, same-sex marriage is going to have to be addressed by the legislature anyway, so Bruno is merely putting off the inevitible.

Of course, according to 365gay.com, Bruno is strongly opposed to gay marriages, which is the real reason he’s intent on keeping this matter from a vote. Of course, this merely demonstrates that in the end, Bruno and those like him are concerned that the legislation could pass. So their only way of preventing it is to stop the vote from happening at all. This is a strange and hypocritcal move on the part of those belonging to a party who has be decrying that this matter should be decided by the legislature rather than “activist judges.” Apparently, the legislature should only decide if the legislature happens to decide in Mr. Bruno’s favor.

Hopefully, Mr. Bruno will discover just how “inconsequential” this issue is when he comes up for re-election.

Deep Thoughts, Friends, Gender and Sexuality, Going Out, Introspection, Love, Personal Development

Thoughts from Game Night

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Last night was another COAP game night. It was a fun time, despite the relatively low turn-out. There are actually a number of things I could write about based on last night’s events. However, for now, I’m choosing to focus on something that came up during a discussion between Woody and Mark during the “meeting” portion of the night.

Woody and Mark have been involved in COAP for long periods of time, so they got reminiscing. At one point, Woody started talking about his history with COAP and his pattern of disappearing and coming back. One of the things that he pointed out was that often, his disappearances occurred at the same time he started seeing someone, while he came back after the relationship ended. Mark commented that this is common, and even joked that it’s the “gay lifestyle.”

At this turn of the conversation, a couple of thoughts entered my mind. The first one was a sense of relief that I’m not the only one prone to this kind of behavior. Indeed, one of the things that I realized when I started coming to COAP events was that I’d have to fight the urge to drop out when I eventually get into a relationship. So it was nice to know that other people have those same tendencies.

But then, I had to ask the question. Why is that? Why is part of the “gay lifestyle” to drop off the social circle when you meet that special someone. Is it because we see the social circle as nothing more than a marketplace for picking up our next lover? That’s certainly a frightening thought in itself!

Of course, I should note that I don’t think this is strictly a gay thing. I’ve noticed that a good number of heterosexual couples tend to lose track of their friends over time, too. After all, my parents don’t get out nearly as much as they used to (though my father does socialize more through their church than my mother does). Often, they’re content to do their work, meet a few communal obligations, then head home.

But it seems to me from my observations that it happens much more quickly and suddenly amongst gay people (especially men). While heterosexual couples may become more insular and reclusive over time, it seems like we do it at the earliest opportunity. Which I don’t think is healthy, for reasons I covered before. So why do we do it?

Personally, I think it’s in part because we’re often afraid of finding true love that we’ve become obssessed with it to the exclusion of everything else. So when we’re with someone, all of our attention turns towards building and maintaining that relationship. After all, we’re not sure when the next one is coming along (and with only a small percentage of the population to work with, finding eligible, desirable lovers can seem like a daunting task), so we want to do everything we can to make it work. So we allow other friendships and our other activities to come along. Add to this the fact that the early stages of any relationship can be quite intoxicating and addicting, and it becomes an understandable pattern.

But realizing this doesn’t make continuing the pattern a good idea. In some ways, I think it demonstrates why we — both individually and collectively — need to break this pattern.

Gender and Sexuality, Politics

Homophobia: I’m not the enemy

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Today, Pam reminded her readers that today is International Day Against Homophobia. Thanks to this reminder, I felt it important that I not let such a day pass by without some sort of comment.

Homophobia is one of those unfortunate things that all of us wish would go away. It’s a shame that in 2007, people still have to worry about whether they could lose their job if their boss finds out they’re gay. It’s terrible that same sex couples still have to worry about their legal status and the protections offered to their relationship, things that heterosexual couples take for granted every day. It’s wearying to think that we have to listen to paranoid people attempt to raise animosity towards us by making alarming references to the dreaded “homosexual agenda” and “special priveleges.” It’s annoying to listen to these same people make accusations about “recruiting attempts” (which I’m convinced is little more than projection on their part).

I think the one thing that makes all of this more bearable for me is the realization that homophobia is not about me or other gay people at all. Homophobia is actually merely a manifestation of a greater problem: Some people’s need to have something to fear and attack as “the enemy.” If people didn’t have gay people to blame for the ills of society, they’d merely have to look for something else. They’d have to find some new danger to rally against, because it’s that perceived danger and fear of it that such people need to galvanize their will and draw their strength from. Without it, I suspect most of them would be lost.

I am not the homophobes’ enemy. I’m merely the screen they have chosen to project their own inner demons upon. Their real enemy lives within themselves. And as I keep that in mind, it enables me to deal with the issue of homophobia from a completely different mindset. It enables me to fight the consequences of homophobia — such as legislative discrimination — while understanding that the underlying issue isn’t about me — or even homosexuality — at all. And for me, that realization is liberating.

Daily Life, Gender and Sexuality, Personal Development, Society

Living in a Straight World

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One of the great paradoxes involved in getting out more is that becoming more active gives me a great deal more things to blog about while at the same time severely decreasing the amount of time I find to actually do the blogging part. For example, I still have something from Friday night’s comedy show that I want to blog about. And yet, here it is almost a week later, and I still haven’t found or made the time to write it down. And I haven’t mentioned the stroll my father and I took through Genesee Valley Park Monday evening, which is also worth noting. But for this post, I think I will stick to the subject of Friday night.

At one point during her show, Vickie Shaw asked any straight people in the audience to indicate their presence by applauding. Becky, who had agreed to accompany me that night, was one of three or four people who applauded. Of course, Vickie took this time to have a bit of fun assuring them that gay people actually like straight people, “We just don’t want you teaching our children.” She also made some comment about understanding that straight people just couldn’t help that they were straight. The whole thing was funny simply because of the reversal of the more common situation involved. Needless to say, Becky was thoroughly embarassed by the whole thing.

As we were driving out of the hotel’s parking garage, Becky commented on the incident, and asked if it bothered me to be in the reverse situation (often being the only gay person in a sea of heterosexuals) and made me as uncomfortable as that point in the show made her. I laughed and told her that no, I’ve been there enough that I’ve made my peace with such a situation.

At first, Becky didn’t understand this. She pointed out that she had been in similar situations before, and yet she found herself slightly uncomfortable every time. I nodded, but pointed out that there was still a difference. Even if she had such an experience once a month — or even once a week — it still wouldn’t quite compare to living that experience almost every minute of almost every day.

To the best of my knowledge, the most reproducible statistics say that gay and bisexual people make up between two and three percent of the population. Those are pretty low statistics, and it means that the probability of me being the only gay person in any given situation is pretty high. And even in cases where I’m not, it’s likely that there’s just one or two other kindred souls in the situation. That’s life, and you learn to get used to it or you drive yourself batty.

Of course, it helps when you join groups specifically for gay and bisexual people. One of the things I like about attending game nights and ImageOut events is that it does put my in places full of kindred souls. There’s a great deal of comfort in that.

But ultimately, the time comes — at least for those of us who don’t want to move to places like San Francisco — when life requires us to return to the wider world. And learning to deal with that is a matter of survival and mental health. Indeed, it’s best to learn to not only survive, but thrive in that situation. It’s a matter of rising to the occasion and building up a strength that can carry you through — and onward and upward.

Gender and Sexuality, Movies

“I pierced the toast!”

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This weekend, I rented and watched The Birdcage. This is one of those movies that I love to watch every now and then, as it never fails to make me laugh. Of course, this time, I also noticed another reason I loved this movie.

When Val first asks Armand to “tone down” the house and “act straight” during his future in-laws’ visit, Armand responds quite negatively and vehemently. The groom-to-be’s father indicates quite clearly that he is a “middle aged fag” and happy with himself. He further goes on to point out that he didn’t spend years getting to the point he was at to hide now. In fact, it’s my memory of that speech that inspired me to rent the movie for this weekend.

That statement reflects the driving principle of myself right now, self-acceptance and self-expression. After all, these are the central themes of not only gay pride, but pride in general. It’s the growing realization of who I am, what I want to be, what I like, and what I want. Beyond realization, it’s the constant choice of embracing these things and seeking them out. It is the never-ending choice of being true to myself and the deep desires of my being and allowing nothing to deter me from it.

Of course, I think I can really identify with this movie because it hits close to home in another way. Towards the end, Barbara’s father asks her how many other lives she must “ruin” in order to be happy. While such a question is over the top and unfair, it does point out that while it’s easy to take an outlook of “the world be damned” in general, our choices do affect those close to us in various ways. And that’s never an easy thing to grapple with.

I’m struggling with this in my own life right now. For various reasons, I’m becoming increasingly convinced that I need to put a pride sticker on my car. And in many ways, it’s something I want to do, because it’s important to me. And yet, for the last few years, I have refrained from doing so because of the problems it could cause in my family. After all, I drive this car to family reunions and similar events.

To be honest, if my only concern was that certain members in my extended family would give me grief over it, I’d go ahead anyway. I’ve accepted that some of my relatives are self-righteous jerks, and I’m perfectly fine with that. After all, I don’t really have to spend any time with them. After all, I don’t even have to go to family functions, and have certainly skipped a significant number of them in the past.

However, I also know that those same family members would not restrict themselves to making comments to me. I know they will most likely make comments to my parents. I’ve seen them do it in the past. I listened as they made hurtful comments to another aunt and uncle when their own daughter made choices that the rest of the family decided were “inappropriate” and “immoral.” And the thought of my own parents going through such an experience because of my choices is a bitter pill to swallow.

And yet, I’m coming to realize that it’s still my life. It’s still my choice. And making my choices for my parents’ sake rather than following my own path is ultimately just another way of failing to be true to myself. So as painful as it may be, I know I need to follow my own heart and hope my parents find the strength to endure.

Emotions, Gender and Sexuality, Introspection, Personal Development, Sexuality, Writing

Queer Year in Review

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Once again, I find myself looking at the calendar to find the words “April 1st” written in simple letters. And once again, I find myself thinking about the special significance those words have for me. For those who may be new to this blog or my life, those words mark the anniversary of the day I came out to myself and a very good friend. And while I stated last year that I’m not big on commemorating yearly anniversaries of “life-changing events,” I’ve decided that I will make note of this particular anniversary again this year. Perhaps my opinion on such commemorations is changing, and this will become a normal practice for me. Or perhaps this is just one more of a tiny number of exceptions to that attitude. In the end, it doesn’t matter. I simply feel called to write this post, and I will do so. I’ll worry about the implications some other day.

Part of the reason I feel particularly called to do this again this year is that this has been a year of changes for me, sexuality-wise. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m still a raging homo with an attitude. I sincerely doubt that will ever change. But over the past year, I think I’ve gone through some growth periods that will ultimately allow me to express my sexuality more freely and comfortably. So this anniversary post is about reviewing a few of those changes.

I think the most notable change came around my thirty-second birthday this past June. I spent the weekend hanging out at the psychic fair that the POC did. I spent both days ogling the cute guys that walked through and talking about them with a friend the entire time. Now, this isn’t entirely a new practice for me. However, it was the first time I’ve done so without trying to be a little discreet and worrying about whether the guys I’m checking out noticed. As this particular weekend went by, however, I became less and less concerned about anyone noticing. I got bolder, and probably more than a little out of control by the time the event was over. I remember one friend sat by me and commented that if I kept making some of the sounds (mostly a very interested “hmmm” sounds), people were going to realize what I was doing. In that moment, I realized that I really didn’t care if they did. I figured if some guy realized I was checking him out, he should feel flattered. And if he was really flattered, he should come over and say hi!

That same weekend, my attitudes about myself and my body started to change. I began to realize that I really was a good looking guy. I also realized that I needed to come to believe in myself as a sexually attractive man, despite my own hang-ups about my body-image. Since June, that’s been a highly common theme in my life, and I’ve found an increasing ability to look in the mirror and smile, knowing that there really is a good looking guy smiling back at me from that reflective surface.

Of course, my recent relationship, though terribly short-lived, also helped me in that realm. The young man I ended up getting involved with went through a great deal of effort to pursue me (though not as much effort as the next one may find necessary, as I’ve now found the bliss of being pursued) gave me the first inkling that yes, there really were guys out there who could also see my allure. And despite my sadness over how things went, that realization is something I continue to carry with me, and hopefully always will.

The other major change in my life has been Journey, of course. The past year has involved a germination process which ended in the site’s release just this past month. However, the idea for the book can probably be traced back to this past summer as well.

One of my greatest goals since coming out has been to encourage and help other gay and bisexual people in their own self-discovery and coming out process. It’s a goal that I first reached towards just a year or two after my own coming out when I wrote a moving essay encouraging others to accept themselves for who they are. To me, Journey is an extension of that same effort.

I originally started formally collecting notes for Journey and even writing a very rough draft back in October. I still have the journal I used, and have even referred to it to see if I missed anything when writing the pages for the site. Back then, I had planned on turning Journey into a book, which had no title. It wasn’t until events in March convinced me that a website was the preferred medium for the project.

Writing Journey has been a journey in itself. Indeed, it’s become part of the very journey I’m writing about, just a later part of the story. It’s given me many chances to look back at many of the struggles I’ve faced and wounds I’ve needed to heal and gauge my progress. In many cases, it has been exhilarating and shown me in concrete ways just how much I’ve healed in grown. In some cases, it’s served as a somewhat painful reminder of those areas where I still need to work. In the end, I find myself wondering who will benefit most from the project when all is said and done. Those I had in mind when starting it or myself?

As I sit here today, thinking about all of these things, I find myself filling with a peaceful contentment and glowing pride. While I never saw it during most of the past twelve months, I can consider these things and realize that I’ve done a lot of growing in the past year. But more importantly, I can see the next layer of foundation that I laid to continue that growth process over the coming year. So my contentment and pride are ultimately married with a sense of anticipation and excitement for the next stage of the journey. Is there a better position to be in than that?

Gender and Sexuality, Love

Not at my wedding!

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Earlier today, Lauren and I got joking around. In the process of our joking, she asked me when I’d be donning a white gown. I gave her an answer that more or less amounted to “never.” Silliness ensued, and she ended up posting an obviously edited, but hilarious photo. Of course, this whole thing was particularly funny, because one of the running jokes whenever the idea of two guys getting married that invariably comes up is the question, “Who’s going to wear the white dress?” At least I think it’s a joke.

But setting the jokes aside, I am inclined to answer that question for myself. At my wedding (unless my fianc? manages to offer me one hell of a compelling reason), no one will be wearing a white dress. Because, to me the idea makes no sense at best and is downright offensive at worst.

I am a gay man. I am not a crossdresser. I am not a transvestite. I am not a transsexual. While I might put on a blouse and skirt on rare occasion just for the fun of a given situation, dressing in women’s clothing simply isn’t a part of my normal life. So why would I want to introduce it to the solemn occasion of sealing my commitment to the man I hope to spend the rest of my life with?

I certainly wouldn’t do it for the “laughs,” as was my reasoning for donning women’s clothing in the past. Those kinds of “laughs” simply have no place on my wedding day either. Nor does the kind of political statement (in the form of parody) that I’ve heard some people posit as a reason for doing such a thing have any place there. My wedding day will be about myself, my love, the love we share, and the commitment to one another we’re making. Playing around with traditions just for the heck of it would only detract from those themes.

I don’t know what my love and I will wear during our wedding. Maybe we’ll booth wear tuxes. Maybe we’ll just go with suits. I wouldn’t even rule out my daily casual attire. But I know there will be no white dress, because it just doesn’t fit in with what I want my wedding to be about.

Besides, what would be the point in me wearing white? All my friends know better anyway. 😉

Gender and Sexuality, Movies, Sexuality

A Great Movie and Gay Stereotypes

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Today, while recuperating from whatever illness beset me late yesterday afternoon, I decided to watch But I’m a Cheerleader, which is possibly one of the cheesiest movies I have ever seen. This is a movie that tries to play off of every stereotype of gay men and lesbians they can think of. And amazingly, it works in this instance.

I think the reason it works for this movie is because it’s a movie about a group of young people who have been shipped off to some insane camp to turn them all straight. The camp attempts to do this by teaching each teen to break away from the queer stereotypes and try to act more like tha “proper” boy or girl, based on gender stereotypes we’ve all heard.

I think part of what makes the whole thing funny, if a little scary, is that based on some of my own investigations of groups that try to turn gay people straight — including one book I read while back in college, such programs really do put a significant amount of stock in such stereotypes. Suddenly, being a straight guy is as much about being able to talk cars and sports as it is about who you want to cuddle with. (And we won’t even mention all the other things we want to do together!)

I think I find this mentality particularly strange because there are certain stereotypes I fit that have nothing to do with the fact that I’m gay. For example, I absolutely stink at sports. Whether it’s volleyball, baseball, soccer, football, or any other sport you can name, I’m lousy at it. However, that’s because of how my brain chose to adapt to the fact that I lived the first twenty eight or so years of my life with a lazy eye. Having your entire perception of the world shift to the left or right by a couple inches at a critical moment tends to make catching, hitting, or kicking a quickly moving object quite the challenge. Being gay has nothing to do with it. It’s just one of those odd coincidences.

And that’s the problem with such stereotypes around gender and sexuality. They completely miss the bigger picture.

Gender and Sexuality, Writing

Facing the Plunge

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Tonight, I wrote the next chapter in Journey, the one that talks about my first attempt at love, or something that I thought resembled love at the time. Surprisingly, it was a pretty easy piece to write. Of course, it helps that I’ve written about that relationship elsewhere before. (In fact, I may dig up those old diary entries and look into supplementing what I wrote tonigh with some of their content.)

Of course, this marks a point in my story that has me somewhat afraid. This is the point where I start talking about my experiences prior to 1996. It’s time to delve back into some of those emotionally trying times, and the things my psyche did to survive my youth. And it’s appropriate that I start writing about these things at this juncture. After all, it was towards the end of my relationship with “Chris” that some of those things started coming back to my conscious attention. Indeed, they contributed to the rapid decline of our relationship, as I was forced to deal with emotional wounds I had hidden for years.

I find myself in an interesting position. I want to go there, yet part of me dreads it. I’m not entirely sure why. I suppose it’s in part because I’m afraid of what pain I might still find there. Will I be fortunate and only find the kind of “ghost emotions” I experienced when I wrote about the weekend I came out? Or will I find something more difficult to deal with?

Of course, there’s also the fact that I’ll be sharing some deeply personal things. And a much as I feel I need and want to do so, I have to admit the idea still scares me in some way. I won’t let that stop me, as I feel it’s right to press on. But perhaps a bit of tenderness towards myself as I work through this part of the story is in store, all the same.