The Tale of The Nightingale Empress

As many of you readers may already know. This year our family was invited to be Grand Marshals at the this years Pride celebration and awarded the José Julio Sarria History Maker award for our families work for marriage equality and LGBT families. We were honored and excited to receive this award but the very next thing we discovered was that we had no idea who José Julio Sarria was. In fact, I would bet that most people don't. That's the unfortunate thing about the often interrupted timeline of gay history, the lives and stories of important LGBT people are still left to be unearthed and brought into the light. Many now know of Harvey Milk because of the movie about his life, but there are many more characters to discover and tales to be told and just waiting to be rediscovered.  And since we were receiving and award for "history making" in Sarria's name, we figured there must be quite a story to be told. In fact there is....

Civil Rights and Gay Rights March Together in the life of Bayard Rustin

"The only weapon we have is our bodies...and we need to put them in places so that wheels don't turn."...Bayard Rustin

There are some people in life who have helped me change how I think about being a gay person. Growing up as I did, in a home in which it was made crystal clear to me how wrong my parents, the church, and society as a whole looked at LGBT life as something sick and to be ashamed of. As a part of my journey to self acceptance, those messages had to be undone and one of the ways that was accomplished has been in the examples of great LGBT people who by their examples have rocked the way I thought about myself...and the world. One such person is Bayard Rustin.

I had known of Bayard...that he was an adviser to Martin Luther King Junior, an outspoken activist and organizer,...and gay. That alone was a revelation to me. Most people think of Martin Luther King Jr. as one of the great leaders of our time for his work in helping drive forward the civil rights movement. It had hit me like a bomb then, to discover that standing by his side was a gay man...one who not only worked along side him, but advised him. The questions I had were endless. How out was Rustin to MLK and the rest of the leaders of the movement? What was his life like? Did he have relationships or was his a life marked with solitude? and finally....why had I never heard this before?

Again, my ideas about who we are as gay men and women had been changed and I needed to know more. Fortunately, because it was recently the anniversary of Rustin's 100th birthday there has been some talk about him and his life which led me to a documentary about his life....Brother Outsider, The Life Of Bayard Rustin. What I have learned about him not only answered all those questions I had and made me feel a personal connection to events that happened before my birth...they showed me and a singular individual, who was amazing all in his own right

Be FAIR....

Why is it that some individuals think that pretending gays are invisible actually makes us not exist? That seems to be the functional logic behind those who are opposing the California's Fair, Accurate, Inclusive, and Respectful (FAIR) Education Act...the bill that would mandate California schools include the teaching of LGBT history in the state curriculum. The bill, which was recently signed into law by the governor,  has conservatives all up in arms and many threatening to remove their kids from schools rather than allow them to be exposed to the notion that gay people exist....may have been pivotal historical figures...and may even have included figures that they have looked up to. *gasp*....say it's not so!

They have gotten so worked up about the notion of including LGBT people in history classes that they have launched a referendum drive in order to scare the voters of California into voting to repeal the law. Even as we speak, volunteers stand outside my local target collecting signatures and registering people to vote.

This bill is contentious precisely because it touches that nerve that NOM worked so well during the Prop 8 campaign. The one that says gays are all out to recruit children in the schools into future homosexuals. That nerve is sensitive to any mention of the words "gay" and "schools" used in the same sentence. Additionally, others have brought up the question, "What does the sexuality of historical figures have to do with their impact on history?" It's a FAIR question and it deserves a FAIR response...so with your indulgence...lets go there....

What Does Pride Month Mean To You?

When you ask someone to think of a gay pride parade...to imagine it in there mind...Chances are this is what will pop up:

It's a testament to the power of these images that even someone who has never been to a parade will have some familiarity with them. They paint a collective picture of one giant Mardi Gras-like party stocked with shirtless go-go bois on floats, Scantily clad  lesbians on loud motorcycles, Drag queens in two story tall heels, and rainbows and glitter flying everywhere.

Now...everyone will have their own opinions about what pride celebrations mean. For some, it is simply a celebration. For others it may be a mind blowing first peak at a gay life. And there are those who have criticised it as being more about selling high priced alcoholic beverages and rainbow covered swag than about promoting gay rights. Some see it as a sideshow complete with rainbow colored clowns... and we all know about the crowd that condemn it as an act of "celebrating sin" and view it as an example of "the homosexual lifestyle"...as if we run around in speedo's and balloon costumes everyday.

 Since it is Pride Month...or Gay History Month more accurately...I have been taking some time to reflect on what it all means to me. "Gay Pride" can be a phrase that has become so loaded with cliches and judgments that it can be hard to find the meaning. What does Pride Month mean  to me?

New LGBT History Museum...Epic Win?

San Francisco has been the site of many important leaps forward in LGBT history. It was home to one of the most famous  gay enclaves in modern history, The Castro district. Many prominent gay rights activists come out of San Francisco including Harvey Milk, Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, as well as many other pioneers of gay rights. Harvey Milk work in the gay community, his murder, and the White Night Riots that followed, helped launch an era in which gays and lesbians no longer accepted the violence and discrimination of society...and fought back. It was in San Francisco that mayor Gavin Newsom instructed the city clerks to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbians, sparking the Prop 8 legal battle still raging today. The city by the bay has long history of being a gay haven and flash point for gay politics...there's alot of history here.

That's why my curiosity was piqued when I heard about a new GLBT history museum to be opened near the Castro. The museum is an undertaking of the GLBT Historical Society in San Francisco and had been in the works for a long time. From what I can gather from their website, this is a labor of love by local community members who have collected decades of materials from those who lived those events. ow...so much awesome! But not having seen it yet I am left with a few questions...

Our Stories Matter

"History is written by the victors" -Winston Churchill

A very effective piece of anti-gay talking points is that "radical homosexual activists" want to teach homosexuality in schools in order to recruit a new generation of of gays.....(as if gay men and women would just die out if this was prevented). We saw this talking point used to good effect here in California during the Prop 8 elections when the National organization used the children's book "King and King" to threaten that homosexuality will be taught in schools. The homo hostile hysteria this induced in the public was significant to the outcome of the election.

Why am I discussing this now?....well...What if the history of real gay men and women was taught in schools as an effort to eliminate bullying? It might happen here in California and the Fundies are crying foul...

Silent Film Swooning

Wings (1927) has the distiction of taking home the first Acadamy Award for "Best Picture" but did you know that it also has the distiction of showing the first on-screen same-sex kiss? Granted, it is presented as a "fraternal' kiss between one buddy sending his friend into the great blue beyond but its still the first time one mans lips touched another man on celuloid. Of course, by Hollywoods reasoning...if one man is going to kiss another man someone had dam well better be dying. Despite the movies outward story and the heterosexual love interests...this scene alone points to a very strong undertone of homosexual relationship between Jack and David, our two WWI heroes.

I couldn't help but be touched at the intimacy between these two men in this scene and it made me wonder how many closeted gay men, watching this in 1927,  wished for a love like that. It always takes me aback when I see two men kiss and share love on screen. Not because its shocking, but because we see such things so rarely that when we do, their impact is huge. I remember watching "Brokeback Mountain" how my heart beat like a drum through the whole movie. It made me want to sweep jay up in my arms like Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'hara and have a big screen kiss of my own. I wish everyone could know such moments in life. It makes me sad that a whole generations of men and women hide to hide those moments or cover them with a heterosexual veneer...ah well, I'm getting maudlin now...*sigh*

Needless to say...even though this little clip was sad in its outward story and so subtle in its implied story...it moved me...and I had my own little silver screen sigh....I hope you will too.

Happy Holidays everyone....till next time...

"Know Your Mo"...The LGBT Flag

The Rainbow flag has been a symbol of gay rights for as long as I can remember being aware of there being such a thing as "gay". It has been a source of comfort and pride as well as a source for derision. Whatever your feelings about the flag there is no denying that it is forever linked with the gay rights movement. You can't go two steps at a pride march without running into a booth hawking a zillion different rainbow colored items from keychains and tiny flags to rainbow colored vodka bottles. But what do we really know about this ubiquitous symbol of the GLBTQ community?...I was surprised to find out...

A Brief Gay History...Into Darkness.

Well...it's a slow news day in my opinion. Therefore, since I have no desire to write about Levi Johnston's Playgirl shoot, I have decided that I would do an article on gay history. As I write, hopefully I'm educating myself as well as you, the reader. Hopefully I am not merely regurgitating what everyone already knows...but its nice to see it all together and get a sense of the larger journey.

We are a people who's history is largly untold. Our stories lost to the homophobia and violence of the past. We not only share in the history of the world at large but was also have our own tale to tell...and its sad that we still live under so much persecution that we don't get to learn it. Its a tale of love and tragedy, power and corruption, perseverance and triumph, and ultimately the end has not yet been written. It is, in fact, a tale too large to tell in one piece so I have broken it into installments. Today I will cover samplings of events from our ancient past. From our nacent beginnings lost to the mists of time, to our decent into the dark ages and beyond. I'm sure I will miss mentioning many famous gays along the way but I simply can not fit everything here.

Take a walk with me into days long past....

The People Whos Shoulders We Stand On

On August 10th, at the age of 94, Albert Gordon died...



Who is Albert Gordon you may ask? I didnt know either until I read his obituary from the San Francisco Chronicle. It was given to me by my husband Jay, torn out of the Chronicle from the September 8th edition....