Tag Archives: pride

re-entering the chaos of radical love and belonging

[Photo description: a red and white sticker, young woman's face in profile surrounded by a red circle and the words "Don't give up the fight - Queer up your life"]Good morning, good morning. It’s not even seven here yet and already it looks like high noon outside, the sun making an enormously bright arc of the horizon. I close all the shades, trying to hold on to dark for a little bit longer. What do you do when you want to hold on to the dark?

I went too hard and too fast this weekend; the pendulum is swinging back from “constant engagement with others” to “go hide in a cave,” and I’m in Facebook withdrawal right now. Between following the organizing of a couple of outsider events during Gay Pride weekend (a Thursday Throwback “march” that ended up being a sweet gathering in Dolores Park of folks who all knew and loved one another in queer 90s San Francisco, and a Take Back the Dyke March march [note: that link’s NSFW] that was hastily and yet professionally thrown together when it was made known that the Dyke March was taking a new route and the community couldn’t get any answers as to why) and the Supreme Court ruling about marriage equality on Friday, I was on Facebook constantly. I get a little obsessive with it, refreshing my screen over and over, but not necessarily participating in any conversations as much as I’m just consuming, consuming, consuming. What’s happening? What did she say back to him? What do they think about this?

Yes, on Friday, it was powerful to watch everyone and their sister rainbow their Facebook profile pics in support of the newly-announced right of gay/queer folks to marry anywhere in the country, if they chose. All those rainbows felt like a virtual gay pride parade — and yet I kept reminding myself about the other side of the equation: “This isn’t in support of gay/queer folks generally — this is about marriage, about a particular and comfortable and romantic vision of togetherness. There’s lots about queer folks that mainstream America– and the mainstream gay community — still isn’t dealing with.”

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turning the inside out: re-viewing our coming out stories

Do you remember what it was like when you first came out? What about what it was like when you had to come out all over again?

(How many different times do we come out in our lives? I’ve come out as queer, as bi, as an incest survivor, as genderqueer, as femme, as gay, as a porn writer… what are the areas identity that we can keep in the closet, or that our communities want us to keep hidden? Aren’t those the parts of ourselves that require outing?)

My dearest Kathleen tells me to remind you that, though you might not know this, I’m gay. It’s June, which means it’s gay pride month (thanks, Stonewall), and I’m living in the greater (supposed) Big Gay Mecca area. I’ve had no plans to participate in much of the plethora of queer events happening this month (like, say, NQAF, Frameline), except maybe for the Dyke March and hopefully the Queer Women of Color Film Festival (which is tremendous and which you should attend for sure!).

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proud that she got us here

graffiti from Gay Youth Galway -- Big rainbow "OUT" with the words "No to homophobic bullying!"Happy Friday! Here where I am, it’s blue & green outside the windows, sunshine pushing into everything, lettuces quietly growing like gangbusters, puppy curled in a fed-n-satisfied-n-sleepy ball. The carpet is in desperate need of vacuuming, and the puppy toys are gathered up and tossed on top of the fire box. What’s it look like where you are?

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Just spent about 25 or 30 minutes typing more of that first journal entry from 1993, and am paying attention to what happens in my body as I do so. I got very cold, and my fingers would go from being able to type quickly & accurately to slipping and stumbling all over the place. But this entry is from right after I broke contact, or rather, right at the beginning. He called me constantly, trying to get me back ‘in.’ It’s hard to just type the words, just be with that voice, that 21-year-old self, who is still stuck in the perpetrator’s language, trying to argue her way out of his boxes with his words and persuasions, still thinking that if she’s able to do so well enough, he’ll let her off the hook. I want to respond to her, clarify as I’m typing, say it out loud: that was all bullshit, Jen! You didn’t have to think that way!

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