Our Dance

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

We still are.

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Moving to San Francisco on New Year's Eve

 
Thanks to sitting in the wrong seat and the flirting of two straight me to my right, I got free drink on my flight from Denver. It was the eve of 1998, and I was moving to San Francisco. I was very tipsy in the air and drunk by the time we landed. Somehow, I managed to grab my bags, hop on a Super Shuttle, and find my way to my ex-boyfriend's apartment.

No one was home as they were all out partying. I entered the apartment thanks to a key left discretely behind and set down my bags. A few minutes later gun shots were fired outside the window. The alcohol mixed with the anxiety of being in a new place, and I knew I wasn't leaving the apartment that night. A quick telephone call from my ex confirmed I wasn't joining them. They were in the Haight. I was in the Outer Mission, and I had no clue how to get there. So I settled in and laid down on his bed.

I awoke early that morning when he came home. He was high and drunk. He popped two ecstasy before entering the apartment. I got up to chat and flirt. We talked briefly. He welcomed me to San Francisco. I went back to bed. He jerked off in the kitchen thinking he was quiet, but the noise of the porn was loud and distracting.

When I awoke the later that morning, I was violently sick -- the kind of sick you catch on planes. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. My ex was pissed. I was ruining his day and his high.

He moved me from his bed to a futon mattress in the hallway. All I got was that mattress. I had to use my backed bag as my pillow and my winter coat as my blanket. I was shaking from my fever unable to get warm.

"Uh...where can I grab something to eat?" I asked.

Dismissively, "There's a grocery store across the street," he replied.

I stumbled there dizzy, sickness swirling in my head. I picked up some oranges and saltines that eventually found their way to the toilet. I almost passed out in the middle of the store.

I returned to the apartment, and he had taken off. I laid back down on the futon and passed out. A few hours later, I awoke crying and terrified. I was so ill I was hallucinating all the horrible possibilities of gun shots and missing people.

His roommate followed me around the apartment sanitizing everything I touched -- the phone I used to call home, the toilet, the glass from which I drank water.

"Sorry," she said. "You look like shit. I'm sorry he isn't helping you. Is there anything I can do?"

"No," I replied. "I just need to sleep and get out of here."

I was there only a day or two more. A call I placed to my parents resulted in my grandparents driving up from their home in Sun City West, Arizona. They picked me up, and we drove to the place I was moving to in a couple of days, a group home for severely emotionally disturbed youth ages five to thirteen that I was going to intern at.

We were greet by a woman wrapped in a bath towel, another intern who wasn't expecting us. She was sweet and told us where to find a hotel and the hospital. We left.

The doctor said I had bronchitis and the stomach flu.

I slept for two days in the hotel room my grandparents got for us.

That was my first week in San Francisco, and, thanks to family, I survived.

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The Apology

 
He pulled me in to his office.

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

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

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

Years later, he emailed an apology.

I still don't visit that church.

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Smear the Queer

 
Smear the Queer was a popular game in middle school. It was simply played with a mob and a ball. Someone threw the ball in the air. If it landed in front of you, you had to pick it up and throw it. When you had the ball in your hands, you were the queer and the mob's job was to smear you.

I hated the game.

One wintry recess, everyone was playing. I had and have horrible hand-eye coordination. The ball landed in front of me. I picked it up and threw it hard. It landed directly in front of me again. As I bent down to pick it up, a sharp, hard kick connected with my tailbone. I fell to the ground reeling in pain, crying.

I ended up in the nurse's office waiting for my parents, hunched over and unable to sit. They picked me up and took me to the doctor. The doctor's diagnosis was a fractured tailbone.

I never played Smear the Queer again. I didn't need to. That damn brown doughnut cushion I had to carry with me everywhere I went was a very visible reminder that I was the queer.

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The Coming Out Note

 

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

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

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

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

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

"I found the note," my mom said.

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

"The note."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Faggot on the Bus

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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I Hate Principals' Offices

 
I was suspended for fighting, but I didn't raise a fist. It happened at recess during my seventh or eighth grade year. Everyone was outside playing in their cliques. As usual, I was alone or with the girls from the other school.

(Side note: My Catholic school merged with another Catholic school the summer before my sixth grade year. This created two sets of cliques. As I had few friends from the school I was in, I made friends with the outcasts from the other school.)

I had a scathing tongue and loved gossip. It was my defense against all of the teasing and torment the other students did to me. I must have said something that pissed him off, but I can't remember what. I do remember him coming at me, chest puffed high, hands in fists.

"What the fuck did you say about me," he demanded.

"Uh...what?"

"What did you say about me?"

"Whatever," I said.

He swung. For all the fights I had at home, I was not a fighter at school, but I was strong. I grabbed his fist and held on tight. He swung his other fist. I grabbed that too. I used my weight and twisted him around so his back was against my chest, his arms crossed in front, my hands holding his fists tight. He screamed and squirmed trying to get free.

The nuns spotted us, and we were both sent to the Principal. Each on talked to the Principal in turn. We were both suspended.

"But...I didn't even hit him. He was swinging at me, and I was defending myself. Why am I suspended?"

"To be fair," or some other fucked up excuse like that was given. It wasn't a real answer.

I still hate principals' offices to this day.

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The Fight with the Knife

 
We fought a lot. Sometimes it was the friendly fight of brothers. Others it was the competitive and volatile fight of siblings. We didn't understand each other, each on thought the other got more attention, had more friends, or some other shit like that. We didn't realize how similar we really were. Often, our fights were epic.

One afternoon, we had a particularly vitriolic fight. It started with simple teasing back and forth that morphed into me chasing him around the house with a knife screaming, "I hate you! I fucking hate you! Everyone hates you!!!"

He avoided my slashes laughing and crying nervously. I pursued certain I would make contact; unsure what would happen next. Our two other younger siblings watching everything unfold. I was supposed to be in charge. Obviously, I wasn't.

When I ran out of steam chasing him with the kitchen knife, I ran to our room and started throwing his clothes out of this dresser.

"You're not wanted anymore. No one loves you. Mom and dad don't want you here," and I ran to the laundry room, grabbed a suitcase, and started packing his clothes inside. Once packed, I shoved it at him, pushed him out our back door, locked the door, and from the screen window screeched, "Go! Leave! Don't come back. It'll be better without you around."

I will never forget the tears of anger and sadness that streaked his red face. "Fine," he yelled from the driveway, "You want me gone? I'm gone! Tell mom and dad goodbye."

He walked down the driveway and into the street. Our two other siblings cried and pleaded with me to get him to come back. Something snapped inside me, and I realized I was making him feel the way I felt. I was ashamed. I was supposed to protect him. I was the older one, and I should have know better.

"Wait!" I yeled as I unlocked and opened the back door. "Come back. I didn't mean it. You can't leave!"

He kept walking. I followed. Tears streamed down his face; his shoulders convulsed. I caught up to him.

"I'm sorry," and I threw my arms around him. "Come home."

Eventually, he came back and we put everything away before mom and dad got home. All four of us made a pact to never tell our parents about the incident.

The events of that day changed all of us. I know we had more fights and arguments after that, but nothing that escalated to knives or packed bags. I think we all realized that we all were alone in our own way.

While I don't talk to my siblings often, I know they love and accept me. And I know that that feeling of being alone or an outside connects all four of us.

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Thanks Anna Conda for the Inspiration!

 

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

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

 Click here to continue reading.

***
Dearest Anna Conda:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much love,
Jason Wyman

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Trannyshack Wetback Night

 
The first Trannyshack Wetback Night was a scream complete with both hired and actual protesters. The stage was line with razor wire and Lady Sergio ruled. The performances were art. I wish I could remember more detail, but time and drunkenness have faded the event. All I am left with are impressions, colors, and feelings: the realm of memories.

It was raucous. The protesters, the real ones, were outside chanting and holding signs, screaming at people, telling us not to enter The Stud claiming the night was anti-immigrant and racist. The other protesters, the hired ones, were shouting the same things with large signs that read "Lady Sergio is a racist!" We walked past them all, paid our cover, and went straight to the bar and then the dancefloor. We were there for fun and entertainment and a little controversy.
It was midnight, and the protesters entered the bar still chanting. The audience screamed. The music started, and there was Lady Sergio and Heklina on stage. Performances commenced among the cheers and jeers.

A mishap of razor wire, some splattered conr syrup blood, and a fight or two later and the show was over. It was frenzied, chaotic, cathartic. I was lost among the screams, beats, signs, and applause, transported to a land of art and dialogue and family saturated in crimsons, charcoals, and greens.

The next day and in the weeks to come, articles appeared in papers, pictures popped up on websites, and, if you listened closely, conversations overheard in bars and on street corners found a way back to that night. Everyone had an opinion; even those that weren't there. Our tribe was talking about immigration, race, language, freedom, activism. We were thinking critically and creatively, and people on all sides of these issues listened to one another for everyone's opinion was different and divided even among friends.

That night lives with me every time I pick up my pen. It serves as a reminder of the transendence of art, especially the low brow variety, and the memory reminds me that it is not a single work of art, performance, or song that holds that power. Rather it is us and our reaction to and memory of it.
And we must continually engage, connect, and reflect. We must listen and converse. We must challenge and confront. We must produce the art and change we wish to see in this world.
We must remain queer.

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Stolen Playgirls

 
B. Dalton carried Playgirl. I visited frequently and shoplifted copies. I would walk over to the magazine rack and casually peruse Home and Garden, Marie Claire, Vogue, and Women's Day, and when the clerk wasn't looking I'd grab a Playgirl and shove it between the pages of one of the myriad women's magazines. When the clerk turned away again, I would shove it up my shirt or down my pants and move to the sci fi or mystery section. Another ten to fifteen minutes later I left looking dejected that I didn't find what I was looking for, heart pounding hoping I wouldn't get caught.

The magazine was masturbatory gold and got tucked away between the mattress and box spring next to the naked men birthday cards I stole from the drug store. My stash was my fantasy and needed to be hidden between things. They invaded my dreams, and I woke up wet.

This continued until my mother decided to clean my bedroom or make my bed or snoop and found the naked men between mt sheets. She threw them away, confronted me, and I denied the whole thing scared that they would send back to a shrink to become straight like they did in the eighth grade.

"They aren't mine. It won't happen again," I said.

We all lived in denial for a few more years.

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May Day Is for Kisses

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

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

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

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

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

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

I still occasionally  search for him.

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A Meeting

 
We met at the seminary, but he wasn't a seminarian. I can't remember the exact circumstances; they are unimportant. I don't remember staring at him; he does.

He was short and stocky, North Minneapolis born, straight and straight-laced. I was a suburban boy, freshly out and scared shitless. We were worlds apart in many ways but one: we both knew what is was like to be an other. We became fast friends.

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Writing Freedom

 
We built forts out of chairs, blankets, sheets, whatever we could get our hands on. They were magnificent. You could climb into the tiny spaces and be a king or an astronaut or a pioneer. You were who you wanted to be.

I still love that freedom. It is why I write.

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Paved Memories

  
There was a Witches' Tree -- old and dieing with long, dry spindly branches surrounded by sumac and tall grasses -- to which I escaped. I ran up the trunk and grabbed the nearest branch hoping it wouldn't snap beneath my weight. I climbed the tree with a satchel over my shoulder and ground a comfortable spot to sit. Then I wrote. Mostly it was nonsense or fantasies about being Jacob Wetterling.

The Witches' Tree was felled for a parking lot expansion, and the small woods that surrounded it was also torn down. The smell of composting earth is gone; the rough bark that scraped my knuckles is gone; the sticky resin of sumac is gone.

I visit this space frequently because it reminds me that nature is as temporary as childhood memories, and childhood memories are as easily paved over.

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The Introduction

 



In between  myth and reality lies truth. Somewhere between homo and hetero lies queer. And in the space between open and closed lies coming out. This is my story. This is my myth. This is my coming out in honor of all queers.

***
It all started with the blanket of snow dusting the ground and the silence that follows it. I sat in my room staring out the window mesmerized by the frost clinging to the trees anticipating a loud crack or boom to interrupt the silence, hoping the noise would pull me out of the loop of isolation and despair that were setting in. The noise never came, and at times I find myself still caught in that loop.

I never realized how tiny I felt while I sat in that room until I opened the door and left for good. I look back occasionally and see a small fragment of that person still looking at the fresh snow. It doesn't matter that I haven't lived in snow for over 11 years. The cold lingers. It cuts to the bone, and when the ocean wind blows, laced with dense fog, I still feel it. It doesn't matter how loved I am, how connected I am, how prosperous or fortunate I am. I am still that adolescent waiting for that boom, that crack.

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