we gotta give them hope

In the last twoa weeks, we've learned of five more teenagers who were being bullied and took their own lives: Cody Barker, age 17, of Shiocton, Wisconsin; Asher Brown, age 13, of Houston, Texas; Seth Walsh, age 13, of Tehachapi, California; Tyler Clementi, age 18, the Rutgers University student who jumped off the George Washington Bridge; and Raymond Chase, age 19, a student in Providence, Rhode Island. Their deaths come after the suicides of Justin Aaberg, age 15, of Anoka, Minnesota, and Billy Lucas, age 15, of Greensburg, Indiana. -Dan Savage

i loved high school. i loved my friends. i loved my family. my growing up was good.

i grew up in a moderately conservative home and a traditional, but liberal, church. i did most of my growing up in arkansas, the buckle of the bible belt.

i grew up believing that my straight peers would grow up, get married, have kids, and eventually go to heaven. i grew up believing that none of those things would happen for me. when i started coming out to friends the summer i turned 17, i was pretty consistently met with, 'i still love you, but your choice is wrong... not natural... an abomination... and don't you want to go to heaven?'

it was always the 'don't you want to go to heaven' question that tortured me. for a long time, i actually believed the bible condemned queer life in the same way it condemned murder. it doesn't.

i grew up in an amazing church community- trinity episcopal church in searcy, arkansas. it's amazing for many reasons. it's a small church, in a small town. the population of the church ranged from very conservative to very liberal. the priest i grew up with, is the man who gave me hope. in a world where i felt i wrong and guilty and deserving of every bad thing that could happen to me, it was father gary who gave me hope that none of that was true. that i deserved love, and peace, and faith, and hope. as much as the person sitting next to me, who happened to be my twin brother. mike is my favorite person ever, but it could be hard growing up next to him sometimes. he is smart, and funny, and gregarious, and charming, and the boy next door, but better. i'm awkward, and quiet, and so, so queer. and have always been those things.

as far as school went, i was called names, i had shitty notes left in my locker and on my car. it felt awful. it reinforced all of my fears for my life.

and i had allies. i wasn't ready to come out until i went to college. so, while i came out to a few people that summer i turned 17, it was just a few people, and no one i went to school with. so, while i hadn't told anyone at school, i have always been easily identified as queer. and every single time someone called me a name, there was someone there to tell them to stop, put their arm around me, and walk me to my classroom. every time a shitty note fell out of my locker or off my car, there was a friend to tear it apart. and talk to the person who left it. without any words from me. i know i was lucky. i know other kids in my school got beat, and tormented every day. and they didn't have anyone taking care of it for them, including me.

i thought i got out of high school pretty unscathed. until i recently realized that i still don't always know that i deserve the same rights as my brother. last year, my mom convinced me that i deserved the right to get married, and have kids, be safe and happy, and go to heaven, just like my brother.

i don't have any physical scars from high school, but i struggled with depression, and wondering if i deserved to live, much less deserved to live my life the way i was. i wasn't a 'late bloomer' because i didn't know who i was and how i wanted to live my life, but because i felt ashamed. that's not unscathed.

to my family, and the other people in my life as i was growing up, who knew i was queer, and gave me hope and safety, thank you. to my family now, who are mostly still pretty conservative, but who give me hope about the possibility of marriage equality because they support it, if only for my sake, and stopped throwing around the words 'gay' and 'fag' as an insult, because it bullying behavior, even if they didn't mean it that way, thank you.

to all of us, we have to give lgbt kids hope. part of that is giving the lgbt community equality. i'm sick of DADT, and marriage equality debates, and bullying conversations. stop it. give us equality and safety.

whether it is visible to you or not, you know someone who is lgbt.

give them hope.

we are near mid-term elections. please keep these kids in mind when you make your voting decisions.

let's get married- more thoughts on why you need my equality

back in the middle of october, i wrote a note. about why you need my equality, and asking the voters of washington state to approve ref 71- the 'everything but marriage' referendum. my friends shared that note. their friends shared it. social networking took it's course and that note literally got sent around the world. i still get messages froam people asking me what happened on 11/3, election day.

i wrote that note for my mom, and posted it here on facebook, never thinking anything would happen with it. within 24 hours of posting, i was getting messages from people i'd never met, all across the world, lending their support. i was inspired. uplifted. motivated.

three days after posting the note, out of the blue, my mom suffered a brain aneurysm. i forgot about the note. weeks later, on 11/3, election day, i remember sitting in my parent's living room in las vegas, watching the news, and hearing that ref 71 had passed. i was surrounded by family, because it was also the day my mom died.

i haven't answered any of the messages i got from people about ref 71. while i'm thrilled for the success, and inspired by the power of social networking, that day meant something else for me.

when i came out to my mom, she cried because she would never be part of a traditional wedding of mine. it wasn't a loss for me. since i'd always known i was queer, i'd always known i couldn't get married. years later, it was my mom who opened the door for me to consider marriage. while she couldn't wrap her head around it the day i accidentally came out to her, it was my mom who came around and gave me the challenge to believe i deserved to get married, just like my twin brother. who would have ever known my mom would become a more progressive queer rights activist than me, the kid she sent through grad school for gender studies?

recently, i've been coming out of the haze of losing my mom. i haven't really known what to do with myself. my first thoughts- what was i doing before mom died? i should pick up there.

before she died, i was thinking about love. and marriage. and equality. i had decided, after a lot of thought, that i wanted to become a marriage officiant.

so, yesterday, i did. it doesn't take much. literally, filling out a form. online.

since then, i've had questions from friends- why would i officiate straight marriage, when i can't get married? and when i believe that marriage as an institution is problematic.

a few reasons.

yep, marriage as in institution is problematic. that's a whole other discussion.

for starters, i rarely see two people, who have the legal right to get married, effect change by not getting married. neither the federal government, nor their community, care that they are not benefiting from the rights of marriage. and, i rarely see those couples taking opportunities within their communities to effect change by saying, 'we're not getting married until the queer folk can get married, so what are you doing to make that happen?'

i've seen more change effected by couples who have gotten married, and said, ' you know, if you we hadn't gotten married, we wouldn't have gotten gifts, so please make donations to your local marriage equality initiative in lieu of a gift' or some other acknowledgement.

i've seen more conversation about marriage equality happen around marriages than around couples who have the right to marry protesting by not getting married. i've seen more community work around marriages, than couples who have the right to marry protesting by not getting married.

and, mostly, this is what i want for myself-

(from "why you need my equality") when i recently realized i wanted to get married, i started taking dance lessons. i don't even have someone in mind to marry. but i want to be ready. i want to dance at my wedding. give me the opportunity to dance at my wedding. locally, with all of my family and friends and community to bear witness.

so, i want this for others as well. i don't want to take away. i want to add. i still believe in the words of the prime minister of spain. when Spain legalized gay marriage Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said, "...We are enlarging the opportunity for happiness to our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends and, our families: at the same time we are making a more decent society, because a decent society is one that does not humiliate its members."

and, most of all, i believe in love. i believe in commitment. and i believe in community. particularly, in community bearing witness.

so, let's get married. legally, and non-legally. any proceeds from legal marriages i officiate will go directly to marriage equality initiatives.

let's keep working on that more decent society. there's still a lot to be done.

do not wait for an election day to get motivated.
start today.
right now.
this moment.
what will you do?

shellac

i didn't pick up the call that day. the evening class was just about to start, and it was a bad time to start a conversation. he went to voicemail. i usually let it go, but i felt that nag to pick it up. i asked jake to finish prepping the room, and i hit the buttons. i didn't call him back, but called the number he instructed. she answered. and told me not to worry. not to come. she was being taken to the procedure room as we spoke. that started the first telephone effect.

i was on a plane the next morning. everything fell into place. and i glided through.

i'm still gliding. it's as quiet as the flights i took as a kid in my grandfather's WWII glider. the breath patterns the same- nothing at release, then slowly again.

i'm just beginning to feel the gasp for air. i'm just beginning to hear the sound of the ground.

i'm back to real life, seeing it around me. this weekend i was supposed to be paying attention to my date. we were instructed to go set up space in the corner, where we would see the most action. instead, i stared at the back of your sweatshirt, only realizing after you turned around, i was waiting to see you. we looked each other over, and i haven't looked someone in the eye that much since my flight took off six months ago. maybe next time we'll actually meet.

emanon

i've thought about that feeling when her arm is around my waist, and that moment where you know you're right, and whether i would resist it next time, or give in, and the tap tap tap of the beat beat beat of something in my head that matches up with something in my chest that moves outside without thought.

i've thought about my thumb running across the line of your jaw.

i've thought about my tongue running across your teeth. to the top of your mouth.

and those words that keep falling out my mouth mostly to my surprise, sometimes pleasant, mostly foreign. dropping loneliness is like dropping morphine, with the shakes and trembles and spinning thoughts, but this time i know there's another side. so, i talk about what's easy, and i hope you know the rest by heart. because every time i've taken your hand i've been trying to tell you.

i've thought about walls, and hands and pressure and body against body, and the feel of your voice in my ear, and the taste of your smell on my lips, and i hope this drink lasts a very long time.

i believe in standing back up

after years of cynicism, here's what i found out- i believe in love. and hope. and compassion. and faith. and falling down. and standing back up. and laughing. and tears. and devotion. and listening. and changing my mind. i believe in community. i believe in respecting and guarding some boundaries. and i believe in crossing others. i believe in holding hands. a lot. i believe in that a lot.

i wrote that a few years ago. i've been thinking about it a lot lately. about the standing back up part. it took me so long to realize that was the difference for me. and that standing back up didn't have to mean standing apart.

lately, i've also been thinking about the holding hands part. in my mission to find love in all the nooks and crannies of life, i forgot that love can be bigger than the nooks and crannies, sometimes it's the whole world breaking open. right in front of me. and sometimes it's in between those two extremes. i also set a goal to be more independent. i've met that goal, a little too well, i've forgotten to hold hands.

so, standing back up and holding hands, these are my prayers. they're not so far off from courage and grace.

looking forward

one month later, and i haven't cried on the commute since that post. i still cry when i talk to mike, or suzanne, or dad. it's one of those things where we all know our lives have changed, but we also know that we don't really know how yet.

maybe it's the change in weather, and days getting longer. or maybe it's that four months have passed, and it's just time to look forward. maybe i really believe the dream about mom, that i'm comfortable with love. that i've been ready, i just didn't realize it. something changed when mom died. my heart didn't just break, it broke open. i knew that even as i was visiting her in the hospital.

since that night, of the dream, i've let people back in, farther than before. i'm realizing how jaded i've been. and how much it no longer serves me.

i'm looking forward, and making plans, and it doesn't feel like going through the motions, or inappropriate while grieving.

it feels like living.

it feels like intention.

i'm going to run to her

i woke up at 1:28 am. i think i had been sleeping soundly, but i woke in tears. i woke with that pressure in my chest, like i had been sobbing.

work is long right now. it is both my favorite part of the job, and the hardest. this is my first real go live with epic and this agency, and i still have a learning curve.

i still cry often on my hour and half commute. usually more in the mornings. i have it down to which exit i need to start cleaning myself up at, so i'm not red and puffy walking into the office.

i've been dreaming about mom. the first time- she was across the street from me. i saw her, stopped what i was doing, and told her i wasn't ready yet. but i loved her. and thanks for stopping by. she said she knew. that was why she was on the other side of the street. she would be around when i was ready. and not to worry when i saw her. i had my space.

about a week later, i had a dream i was sick in a hospital. mike and dad were there. mike was sad as he told me my time was limited. he asked if i was scared. i said i really wasn't, but i would miss them. he told me i would see mom, and if it would be bittersweet to see her. and i said, happily, but matter of factly, 'no, i'm going to run to her.'

while i adore them, i have a tendency to hold my family at arm's length. i guess i do this with everyone i love. every time my mom hugged me, i tried to make it brief. it wasn't that i didn't want her love, or care, but i didn't know how to hold onto it for long.

ever since i had that dream, where i told my brother i would run to mom, and i knew i would be comfortable with her, i've felt some sort of peace, that maybe i'm leaning toward a different kind of comfort with those i love.

of course, i also felt guilt, that i can't just relax with love.

out of the blue, without mentioning any of this, i was working with someone i know, but not well, and she looked at me today and said, 'there's a reason they call it sweet sorrow.'

i guess she's right.