Gay as hell

Early 2000s, my cousins were visiting from CO and our moms (sisters) decided they would take all us kids to Kings Dominion for the day, who doesn’t love overpriced food, sweaty people, and average roller coasters? Waiting in line for one of the roller coasters a couple, two men holding hands with literally all eyes on them, including my own. Disgust, shock, also happy a little maybe—feelings I hadn’t felt, why was this thing for which I had no words different, and why did it make me feel like this?

Growth is being able to say you once felt a pit in your stomach every time you had sex with a man, every time you let down the guard enough to let someone know you, it terrified you. You had to be someone else in order to be accepted, loved even. You created this person who you yourself don’t even really know. You remember every single time someone noticed you weren’t who you claimed to be, and it only made you want to work harder on the fake personality. Bending and contorting yourself into hundreds of shapes except for the most authentic one.

After I came out senior year of high school, I lost countless “friends,” got called a f***ot in the hallways by people who I thought really loved and cared about me, and I had to still cherish those sweet memories of our former good times, because what else can you do?

I remember all of the messaging so so early—why could my sister play with GI Joes, but I wasn’t supposed to play with barbies (my parents let me play with whatever, but I knew I wasn’t supposed to)? What was so different about men showing femininity than women showing masculinity? I remember how people used to call Katie a Tomboy when she was younger like a compliment. It was just a fact, but if I ever did anything feminine, peers, some adults, some people whom I should name and will not belittled me at every turn. Only sissies like tea parties, you throw baseball like a cocksucker, you look so fucking gay.

And I received a box of photographs from my mom a bit ago, beautiful precious photos of my family all through the years. I look at all of these cute pictures of myself, the joy, the happiness, the genuine smile in each photo, and I think back to all of the things that I’ve heard about myself throughout the years, and what I realized for the first time was all those people were talking to that happy, joyful, gay-in-every-sense-of-the-word kid. They were speaking to one of the most sensitive people they could’ve had the pleasure of speaking to, but I was brave and I was strong—I took it on the chin and prayed to god in bed every night sobbing that if he would just help my life be better, I’d stop having fantasies about men, I’d stop watching gay porn, I’d be alone and celibate if I must, but please god just help me be happy.

And the most fucked up part about that is the fact that White Rural Christians in Churchville, VA were some of the most hateful people I’ve ever met. I was praying to the leader of this cult where everyone I interacted with in this arena fucking hated me on the most basic of levels. 

As I started to mature and accept the fact that I was attracted to men, I realized all the nuance that I had previously missed, overt gay hate is far rarer than covert gay hate, and that thought made me spin. Every thought I’ve ever had about people perhaps not accepting me felt even more vivid because it wasn’t fashionable to name your hate, only to say it in so many words. And after I came out I got this “compliment” all the time:

You’re the kind of gay guy I like, you know not in your face about it

I’ve heard every variation and permutation of the above sentence literally hundreds of times in my life—it’s not a fucking compliment.

I asked my mom to paint a rainbow on my big toe when I was a kid, she obviously did, but it was not well received by others, and the spark got crushed just a little, nothing you can’t recover from, something to simply move past. I was then so proud of myself for being able to fit in, for being able to shift my personality to be accepted and not to be an outsider. But the frequency with which I hear these things makes each sentence a dagger, right into who I am and how I think of myself.

It doesn’t have to be your whole personality

No, it doesn’t, but goddamn if I want it to be it will be. I’ll shout from the rooftops the joys and nuance of gay sex if I so please. You wouldn’t be comfortable with me holding hands with a man in public, it is nothing that I’m doing that’s making you uncomfortable—it is who I am that is making you uncomfortable.

I had never been affectionate with a man in public until about a month or two ago, and honestly I wasn’t even aware that I was being Gay in Public (“GIP”), it felt so freeing, it felt just right, and it felt like exactly what I needed to be doing in the moment. I’ve gotten the privilege and pleasure to be affectionate with a man in public since, and the anxiety that always had me avoiding that type of behavior finally happened—men with arms around each other, car passes by with men hanging out of the window to blow an air horn at us. In the moment, it didn’t seem like a big deal, we hugged, kissed, and moved on, but the next day it was all I could think about. There are people so threatened in the world that I can’t even just be happy without someone having something to say on it? 85% of straight couples I’ve ever met are literally the blandest people who don’t go together at all except for that their parts fit together. I date exceptional men, when you obsess over relationships and the ideas of love your entire life, you would literally be stupid to date someone who isn’t a positive influence in your life. That’s exactly what I was feeling in that moment, arms around him on the street when someone felt the need to try to rip the rug out from under us, and for what?

I’m very privileged in that I do not get harassed just for being myself in public, and to be completely frank, that was the first time since probably high school that I had ever felt unsafe being gay. For those reasons, I never even really felt like my voice speaking about my gay experience was valuable, or that the pain was even valid.

I miss the mountains of the Shenandoah Valley, I miss baling hay in the summers, I miss mucking horse stalls, and being near my family, I do. But the pain of loving a place that doesn’t love you back is too great for me to ever live there, the place I think most of as “home” to me wouldn’t even be a place I was welcome. I had to pioneer, move far away to figure out who I was, who I am, and I’m still on that path.

Pride to me means not ever being ashamed to say “boyfriend” in a conversation. I always think about “When would a good time to bring this up be?” I am going to really work hard on not doing that, and doing and saying exactly what I feel when I feel it. Pride is about stomping on the eggshells upon which you’re accustomed to walking, not only for you but for every other queer person.

I think back to staring at those two men holding hands all those years ago—I think it was the first time I ever realized gay people could be happy on this earth. I know my eyes in particular in a sea of eyes probably didn’t make them too uncomfortable, but now it’s what I think about when I see little faces staring at me being GIP—perhaps that’s a battle they’re on, perhaps they’re only trying to understand, if not for themselves, for the other citizens of the world.

I’m still on my gender and sexuality journey, I got a cute lil heart tattoo, a hoop earring, and who the hell knows what’s next—I need people in my life and only people in my life who will be here now and will be there wherever I end up. Compliments that imply I’m somehow different and therefore more valuable than other queer people is not only hurtful for them, it makes me feel like if I changed an ounce, you’d disappear. Be mindful of your words, and love a queer person this month.

A video below that I obsessively watched as a teen, and it really really does.