I've never had much appreciation for that flag up there. I'm not sure why that is. I suppose when I first knew I was gay, the rainbow was synonymous with older "queens," flaunting it around in a way I never found appealing. Back then, you were a rebel if you had a rainbow sticker on your car or a patch on your backpack, and especially if you belonged to the LGBT club at school. Which I did not. And it wasn't because I didn't want to belong to it, I was embarrassed. Being gay at that point meant standing out in a way that opened you up to ridicule and I was not about that at all. I wanted to feel like I belonged, not shove something in peoples faces and know they were uncomfortable with it.
I realized I was gay in February of 2002. Or bi. I should say I realized I was bi. I was sitting in math class, freshman year of high school, and my friend Mandy was beside me. Class hadn't started yet and she was telling me about a few nights before when she took a shower with a girl and that she was actually bisexual. It struck me in that moment because it was something I'd never put words to.
I knew I liked me. Despite having girlfriends, "man thoughts" were merely something on the side that I'd never paid much attention to. After all, I had never met a gay person that I knew of. Hearing the words, as odd as it may be, is what set my mind in motion. If someone I knew could be attracted to the same sex then that meant it was a real thing that happened in real life, not just movies and shows. That may have been naive on my part for being 14 years old, but it is the truth.
And then I realized I must be bisexual as well and that it was just fine to have those thoughts. And she became my confidant because of it and thus, the first person I ever came out to.
Scratch that. The first person I came out to was @klreynol almost a year earlier in a weird, awkward moment where I insisted I was done with "those" thoughts. I just didn't know what they meant.
Full-blown GAY didn't happen for a few years. Samantha on Sex and the City once so eloquently put it as "Oh please, being bi is just a stop on the road to gay town," and I couldn't have said it better myself. Eventually the bi part fell away and I just succumbed to things being what they were. No point in denying it!
When I came out to my parents, they were amongst the last important people to know. It wasn't because they didn't deserve to know first and before anyone else, it was because I was terrified of the reaction. It was an unknown, even if they had their suspicions leading up to it. I'd slowly built my network of support over the years, from first telling a couple of friends and then a handful of more friends, only putting my trust in those that were like me and relishing in the inclusiveness of the friendships. The gays are great people to have on your side, and if you don't have at least one good gay friend, plain and simple you are missing out.
I told my sister-in-law, then my brother shortly after. My sister was soon to follow. But you have to remember one thing: even though it was 2004, this wasn't "okay" with people. At best, being gay was a groan-inducing statement that put you at risk for ridicule, hate and anger. Queer As Folk was a monster success on Showtime but if you didn't have the channel, you didn't know. Will & Grace was still a huge deal but that's a show where being gay is used for comedic effect and you hardly if ever saw two men kiss let alone hold hands.
Massachusetts legalized gay marriage a few months before I came out, and while it was exhilarating and exciting to have that happen it meant very little in rural Wisconsin. I felt removed from the situation, and I think back on the rainbow flag and how I felt removed from that too. It was almost as if the "real" gays were in a club all of their own, and I was still attempting to fit in along the sidelines.
Coming out was a horrible experience for me and it's one I am so happy I will never have to live through again. Me, the person who likes to control how people see me and hear me; I had no control over this truth. It was embarrassing. It was allowing the image people had of me to shatter before their very eyes, the pieces scattering in an array of colors some of them simply did not want to acknowledge. And though it was like ripping off a band-aid, where the pain is immediate but it doesn't last long, it took several years before the big pink elephant in the room (or rainbow elephant, whichever) could be addressed without a blush and a sideways glance to the door in case a quick escape was needed.
But like the ad-campaign for bullying a few years ago, in time it got better.
When I entered my first "real" relationship with a man, Ken, my family's opinion of my lifestyle started to change. I don't think they'd ever admit it, but I felt it. Because Ken was so likable and I was so happy, being gay was suddenly not such a weird thing. It wasn't such a horrible thing. I don't fault my parents or family in general for being confused when all of this initially came to light, not at all. I didn't know a single gay person while growing up in Southern California, and they certainly weren't friends with any. Not by choice, I assume. My parents never spent nights out on the town and they didn't travel in huge social circles, so it just was a taboo thing that they weren't subjected to and I don't think there is anything wrong with that. It is what it is. Or was.
But suddenly they had a gay son. A lifestyle becoming familiar only from shows like Will & Grace and the occasional horror story like what happened to Matthew Shepard, being tortured and left to die in a field. There were certainly other things that were similarly awful and they were things that would make any parent fear for their own child's safety.
Still, I was disconnected from that world. And I remained that way. I donated annually to the Human Rights Campaign, proudly displayed the equality sticker on my car, and I participated in the things the gay society tends to embody. Pride parades in Chicago, the gay bars, dancing, a certain penchant for musicals and Divas.
But I never considered myself an activist by any means.
And then I saw this video.
Living where I currently do, staying aloof to certain topics as I have, I've been ignorant to a lot of things. Mostly the gay rights movement. And seeing that video put everything in perspective. Not necessarily to let me know that it's "okay to be gay," because shoot, I am well aware. After the initial coming out when I was 18, I've never had a problem with it. But it showed me how easy I've had it in my life. I was bullied but it was mostly because all of my friends were girls and the white-trash boys didn't understand why and how and it made them jealous. I was a "pretty" kid, with nice clothes and nice hair and a nice smile, so of course that meant I wasn't like the rest of them. I was never bullied to the point I thought about suicide.
I didn't worry about being an activist or fighting for change because in my own little world, it wasn't an issue.
I've never been in a relationship where I remotely even thought about getting married. There were a few instances with Ken that are ridiculous to think back on now because of how they came about, but I never seriously entertained the thought. It was pointless. The movement throughout the country of legalizing gay marriage was slow and arduous, and then Wisconsin actually voted quite specifically on making it illegal.
So you give up. I gave up. If it isn't going to be real, why hope for it? For every victory in another state, there was a Proposition 8 or piece of shit Governor that wanted to steal more rights away. "We'll give you domestic partnerships, that's as good as marriage." Only it wasn't.
But the video showed me that I did want it. If not for myself, then for everyone else. For the two men that had been together for 54 years and didn't have the legal documents to acknowledge it. For the men and women kept away from hospital beds of their spouses simply because the law said they weren't really family. So I continued to donate to the HRC, realizing that by donating it made me exactly what I never thought of myself as: an activist. I started signing the petitions that were forwarded to me, particularly the one to get Scott Walker out of office because he's such a dickface.
He's a huge dickface. I can't stand him. Let's all say it together: "Scott Walker is a dickface." The day he becomes president is the day I shave my head and join the army.
When I got the flurry of texts yesterday morning from friends and family letting me know what the Supreme Court had decided, I had been in a meeting at work. Reading those words, everything just sort of washed over me at once. It's an interesting feeling to realize you are suddenly, as dictated by the law, as good as everyone else. That there is nothing any other loving couple can do that you can't. I can instantly turn my focus to my own love, the love I feel for the special guy moving across the country with me in just two months, and it somehow feels more valid than it already did. That's amazing.
I never put much faith into marriage because until yesterday, it was something that just didn't feel real. "Gay marriage" wasn't the same as "marriage." But it is now and there is something so wonderful about that. It's so wonderful to see so many people so genuinely and divinely happy over something that never should have been denied in the first place. As the slogan became, love is love. You can't control who you love any more than you can control the way the sun rises. Some things just are what they are.
And if you don't like it? There's the door.
It's an amazing thing to see so many profile pictures turn into the haze of a rainbow on Facebook, showing who is proud and openly in support of this. What is even more amazing is how many of these people, my friends and family, are heterosexuals that support the fight for equality. Only it's not a fight anymore... because now we're all equal. I am so overjoyed to know that when the time comes, I can put a ring on it and plan the wedding I've never had brewing in the back of my mind. It's one more excuse for me to be creative and I'm sure when the day is here I will knock it out of the park. Friday, June 26th was a great day today to look at Facebook and so many news sites and not see images of death and sadness, but of rainbows and loving couples.
Now us gays can bring our dastardly plans to life.
I never appreciated the rainbow symbol the gays utilize because I didn't understand it. I thought it was a silly, frivolous thing. But now I feel like I do, even if it's just a little bit more than before. The word "gay" means happiness and I think rainbows go hand-in-hand with it. So if something looks happy and it means happy... then just embrace it and be happy too.
And I am truly and divinely happy. Gay and proud.
Congratulations, America; you've caught up with progress. Yesterday was not a bad way at all to spend my half-birthday, getting the freedom to marry when I'm ready.
Oh shit... that means I'm 6 months away from turning 30.
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