I feel fortunate to have grown up in a community that did not stigmatize homosexuality to the degree one might have expected in the Long Island suburbs. My gay friends back then, while not outrageously open, were not terribly closeted, either. Part of that was the spreading effects of the Stonewall movement, and part of it was the strong presence in the community of Holocaust survivors--people who knew what oppression really meant, and who quietly and firmly fought against it wherever they found it.
My Long Island 1970s school experience was unremittingly homophobic. I had just about decided that they were screaming 'faggot' at me as a generalised insult─or, as I can now joke, because I was more interested in girls than in sports─when the sex requests and rape threats started.
I try not to be a bigot, but there wasn't a Jew or Italian among the tormentors, and one of them was the literally spitting image of a young Hannity.
It's brought me a bit of sympathy for Kissinger─I, too, might have been warped if I had been able to come back to my old secondary school riding a tank.
Oh, we had some people in my high school who tried to be openly homophobic, but they were a small minority and spent way more time silent than yelling. Interestingly, of the gay people I knew in school, one was Jewish, one was French, and one was Italian. There were also a couple of Irish kids I strongly suspected of being gay--and they were among the little group of homophobes. I sometimes wonder what those idiots grew up to become. Of my gay friends, one was an early casualty of the AIDS epidemic, one died of a heart attack at 30, and the sole survivor is a major fashion consultant in Hollywood.
I also remember the NYC Pride parades during the Reagan era of the plague, and I’ve only very sporadically attended Pride parades since then. I’m 57 and I think we’re about the same age, Roy, and this beautiful reflection exactly tracks with my own observations about how Pride has evolved while remaining true to itself. It’s the infectious joy plus the resilience that’s so attractive to people: the classic Happy Warrior model.
Last fall I lost a much-loved friend, a good, kind, joyful man about to turn 60 who just didn't wake up one morning. He had been with his husband for thirty years; when they fell in love on their first date, they thought maybe they'd have a year together. Mark, you were light and love in the lives of so many, and you are deeply missed.
(When my youngest soon came out to me at age 15, I asked Mark to tell me how to support and be a good mother to him. And I felt very grateful to be raising Martin in a community that would be pretty safe for him. And so proud of Martin when he raised his shirt to flash a high school homophobe with "Dead sexy and gay" scrawled on his belly. Years later Martin ran into the guy in a bar and they had a friendly beer together. My boy has had it good. Thank god for Mark and his cohort, living and dead, and for Pride.)
I attended my first Pride yesterday after coming out this year. I rocked a sexy af black kilt and my Philly Pride shirt. I hate the corporatization of the event, but have to admit it does make us safer, so long as the angry gays have their floats as well. I managed not to cry at the realization of our freedom (my new freedom), but it was just because everyone else was so damn perky. It's really too late to stuff all that fierceness back under the rock, unless things change a whole more than they have. So we can just go back to teabagging Brer Drer with all this beauty, dahling. And call it coillons aux Provence...
Nice pictures! I've never been to a Pride parade before (no vested interest), but living in Santa Fe will probably change that for me someday. That Kilgore piece, though--the thought of a glib zealot-panderer like Hawley having any power over me gives me the screaming creeps. Thanks again, Roy!
Thanks for this... in so many ways, DC is so much better 40 years on. (And I mean DC proper, not the suburban wasteland Fairfax and Montgomery Counties have turned into.)
Well hello from the wasteland that is downtown Silver Spring, MD. Come for a visit sometime if only as a sacrifice. We enjoy the many amenities of this utter wasteland.
I'm going to try and post on this thing again. I've loved this newsletter Roy and I'm glad to see your Grinchness (which exists mostly in your mind, by the way, you're a mench) melt away. My first gay parade was back in the Old Times of the then-dying New England mill city I grew up in. The city's forefathers had scheduled a sacred 'tag day' to raise money for Little League (I was on the VFW team no less) on the same day as the first gay parade in town. I'm sure each clique was unaware of the other. I, of course, had no idea. I asked to go downtown because I had always preferred it to sitting out in front of the Caldor's or the Stop and Shop out on King St. In those ancient days, I had been a thin, sunken-chested kid who was into Dennis Eckersley and mimicked his hair style -- long, flaring out from under my cap.
Downtown, hanging out in front of an old department store that had transformed into an small business/artist enclave of boutiques and food stuffs, I noticed scores of people who I didn't recognize. People in pastels and glitter and there were rainbows and balloons everywhere. There were hate signs, but I honestly didn't know what was happening. Floats passed by and men and women stuffed my coffee can filled. Some gave me money to get a soda and not tell anyone at Little League HQ. More than one person, seeing my build and my hair, spoke with some civic pride that their town let girls play in the Little League here.
I nodded and said nothing. My coffee can runneth over and many baseballs were bought that day. I'm sure, despite the business I generated, it was the last time the two events overlapped. Although now the city fathers are more often as not transgendered or gay or friends to the community. It might be good to twin them up again. American as apple pie, really.
Oh, Northampton. Now it’s an artsy college town, but while Smith has been there forever, there used to be town/gown tension. My family worked in jobs that ranged from lunch ladies at Smithie dorms to second shift down at the Pro Brush factory on the Mill River. I was a townie all the way.
My T-shirt slogan for the month:
Straight, But Not Narrow
I feel fortunate to have grown up in a community that did not stigmatize homosexuality to the degree one might have expected in the Long Island suburbs. My gay friends back then, while not outrageously open, were not terribly closeted, either. Part of that was the spreading effects of the Stonewall movement, and part of it was the strong presence in the community of Holocaust survivors--people who knew what oppression really meant, and who quietly and firmly fought against it wherever they found it.
My Long Island 1970s school experience was unremittingly homophobic. I had just about decided that they were screaming 'faggot' at me as a generalised insult─or, as I can now joke, because I was more interested in girls than in sports─when the sex requests and rape threats started.
I try not to be a bigot, but there wasn't a Jew or Italian among the tormentors, and one of them was the literally spitting image of a young Hannity.
It's brought me a bit of sympathy for Kissinger─I, too, might have been warped if I had been able to come back to my old secondary school riding a tank.
Oh, we had some people in my high school who tried to be openly homophobic, but they were a small minority and spent way more time silent than yelling. Interestingly, of the gay people I knew in school, one was Jewish, one was French, and one was Italian. There were also a couple of Irish kids I strongly suspected of being gay--and they were among the little group of homophobes. I sometimes wonder what those idiots grew up to become. Of my gay friends, one was an early casualty of the AIDS epidemic, one died of a heart attack at 30, and the sole survivor is a major fashion consultant in Hollywood.
I also remember the NYC Pride parades during the Reagan era of the plague, and I’ve only very sporadically attended Pride parades since then. I’m 57 and I think we’re about the same age, Roy, and this beautiful reflection exactly tracks with my own observations about how Pride has evolved while remaining true to itself. It’s the infectious joy plus the resilience that’s so attractive to people: the classic Happy Warrior model.
Last fall I lost a much-loved friend, a good, kind, joyful man about to turn 60 who just didn't wake up one morning. He had been with his husband for thirty years; when they fell in love on their first date, they thought maybe they'd have a year together. Mark, you were light and love in the lives of so many, and you are deeply missed.
(When my youngest soon came out to me at age 15, I asked Mark to tell me how to support and be a good mother to him. And I felt very grateful to be raising Martin in a community that would be pretty safe for him. And so proud of Martin when he raised his shirt to flash a high school homophobe with "Dead sexy and gay" scrawled on his belly. Years later Martin ran into the guy in a bar and they had a friendly beer together. My boy has had it good. Thank god for Mark and his cohort, living and dead, and for Pride.)
I attended my first Pride yesterday after coming out this year. I rocked a sexy af black kilt and my Philly Pride shirt. I hate the corporatization of the event, but have to admit it does make us safer, so long as the angry gays have their floats as well. I managed not to cry at the realization of our freedom (my new freedom), but it was just because everyone else was so damn perky. It's really too late to stuff all that fierceness back under the rock, unless things change a whole more than they have. So we can just go back to teabagging Brer Drer with all this beauty, dahling. And call it coillons aux Provence...
Thanks for the report, Roy
Dreary Dreher can pound sand (but you and I and he knows that's not what he'd rather be pounding). Adding thanks for the Report.
"Roddy, what are you doing in there?" "Go away, it's artisanal!"
Nice pictures! I've never been to a Pride parade before (no vested interest), but living in Santa Fe will probably change that for me someday. That Kilgore piece, though--the thought of a glib zealot-panderer like Hawley having any power over me gives me the screaming creeps. Thanks again, Roy!
Thanks for this... in so many ways, DC is so much better 40 years on. (And I mean DC proper, not the suburban wasteland Fairfax and Montgomery Counties have turned into.)
Well hello from the wasteland that is downtown Silver Spring, MD. Come for a visit sometime if only as a sacrifice. We enjoy the many amenities of this utter wasteland.
I'm going to try and post on this thing again. I've loved this newsletter Roy and I'm glad to see your Grinchness (which exists mostly in your mind, by the way, you're a mench) melt away. My first gay parade was back in the Old Times of the then-dying New England mill city I grew up in. The city's forefathers had scheduled a sacred 'tag day' to raise money for Little League (I was on the VFW team no less) on the same day as the first gay parade in town. I'm sure each clique was unaware of the other. I, of course, had no idea. I asked to go downtown because I had always preferred it to sitting out in front of the Caldor's or the Stop and Shop out on King St. In those ancient days, I had been a thin, sunken-chested kid who was into Dennis Eckersley and mimicked his hair style -- long, flaring out from under my cap.
Downtown, hanging out in front of an old department store that had transformed into an small business/artist enclave of boutiques and food stuffs, I noticed scores of people who I didn't recognize. People in pastels and glitter and there were rainbows and balloons everywhere. There were hate signs, but I honestly didn't know what was happening. Floats passed by and men and women stuffed my coffee can filled. Some gave me money to get a soda and not tell anyone at Little League HQ. More than one person, seeing my build and my hair, spoke with some civic pride that their town let girls play in the Little League here.
I nodded and said nothing. My coffee can runneth over and many baseballs were bought that day. I'm sure, despite the business I generated, it was the last time the two events overlapped. Although now the city fathers are more often as not transgendered or gay or friends to the community. It might be good to twin them up again. American as apple pie, really.
Oooh that's a lovely story.
My parents come from New England (MA) ex-textile (and shoe) towns. Would be interesting to know which town was yours.
Oh, Northampton. Now it’s an artsy college town, but while Smith has been there forever, there used to be town/gown tension. My family worked in jobs that ranged from lunch ladies at Smithie dorms to second shift down at the Pro Brush factory on the Mill River. I was a townie all the way.
If you can't be gay for Pride Month be happy.
Love this Roy! (Though I do miss the old-school Wigstock...but who doesn't?!?)