Category Archives: Random

Whatever I feel like writing about.

Gay Adolescence (or Why Won’t He Shut Up About It Already)

So your friend/son/husband/brother comes out and then all of the sudden it is “gay” this and “queer” that.  He starts watching HGTV, hosting dinner parties, and oh, geez, the tight t-shirts.  Why is everything always about being gay so suddenly?  Crap, straight guys don’t come out and are all in-your-face with their straightness.

Well, they do when they are thirteen.

Listen to the topics of conversation deacon and teacher’s quorums at Church and you’ll get a pretty good idea of what it is like to come out.  Because, while gay guys went through adolescence, they didn’t quite do it like everyone else.  When his straight counterparts were discovering their sexual identity through Baywatch and the intros to James Bond films, your local neighborhood gay kid was likely showing his respect for the opposite sex by avoiding dating and physical contact.

Once the kid finally does get the big, “holy crap…I’m gay?!” he is often transported back to thirteen, whether he be twenty-five or fifty-five and goes through “gay adolescence”.  This is where a gay discovers his sexuality and the role it plays in his life (basically what every other kid did when they were a teenager).

A straight 15-year-old might explore his sexuality by conforming to the idea of straight man-ness that he perceives around him.  (Why do you think they listen to rap all the time?)  It can determine how he speaks, dresses, and interacts with those around him.  He might go through several phases before he decides where he fits as a man in society.

With “gay adolescence” your newly-out loved one is discovering where he fits as a gay man in society.  He may surround himself with gay friends, assume perceived gay stereotypes, and even start watching Ugly Betty.  He is trying to find where he fits and he’ll probably talk about it…all the freaking time.  Maybe he’ll even start and overly-introspective blog on the subject.  (Isn’t that just the worst?)

Throw Mormonism into the mix and, like straight adolescence, you’ll never know what you are going to get.  Where some guys might be content with a chaste self-discovery involving journal entries and scripture-study, others might throw themselves into a homo-whirlwind that involves a bottle-blonde named Chip and all the tackiest parts of a Gay Pride Parade.  It’s a crap-shoot, that’s for sure.  Reassuringly, like straight adolescence, gay adolescence does tend to tone down in its erraticness over time.

So if you look at your newly-out friend’s wardrobe and see the word “Lycra” all over the place, take a look at the shaggy haired kid passing the sacrament.  In a relative few years, he’ll cut his hair, discover mellow indie rock, and get a job at a marketing firm.  He’ll move on.  So will your friend.  He’ll still be gay, but he probably won’t feel the need to wear his “Gay Dumbledore” t-shirt anymore.

One hopes.

Gay History For Straight Mormons (Abridged)

1874 – Male homosexuality is made illegal in Germany under Paragraph 175 of the criminal code.  Punished by imprisonment and/or “loss of civil rights”.

1895 – Oscar Wilde sentenced to two years in prison for homosexuality.

1935 – Nazis expand Paragraph 175.  They round up and send those suspected of homosexuality to concentration camps where they are forced to identify themselves by wearing a pink triangle.

1920 – The word “gay” is used for the first time in print to refer to homosexuals.

1945 – Concentration camps in Germany are liberated, but the homosexuals remain in prison to carry out their sentence under Paragraph 175.

1951 – Greece decriminalizes homosexuality…interestingly enough.

1962 – Illinois becomes the first state to decriminalize homosexuality.

1969 – Police raid the Stonewall Inn in New York, a popular gay bar.  While raids on gay bars were common, the Stonewall raid gets out of hand and the crowd of gays from the neighborhood gathering outside grows violent.  Angry protests against the New York police for targeting homosexuals go on for several days and represent the first major pushback from the gay community.

1970 – First march is held commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.  Subsequent “Gay Pride Parades” are held during the same time each year.

1973 – “Homosexuality” is removed from the DSM-II essentially declassifying it as a mental illness.  The action is based largely on the research of Evelyn Hooker whose studies suggested homosexuals were no more maladjusted than straight people.

1978 – Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man to be elected to public office as a member of the San Fransisco Board of Supervisors, is shot and killed along with the mayor.  (Sorry if I am ruining the upcoming Gus Van Sant movie.)

1978 – First time the rainbow flag is flown as a symbol of homosexuality (but not time the rainbow symbol itself is used).  It appears in San Francisco’s Gay Freedom Day Parade.

1982 – Wisconsin becomes the first state to ban discrimination based on homosexuality.

1993 – Brandon Teena, a Nebraskan woman passing as male, is murdered when associates discover she is anatomically female.  The story makes national headlines.

1994 – After several revisions, Paragraph 175 is completely removed from German law.

1997 – South Africa becomes the first country to explicitly ban discrimination based on sexual orientation.

1998 – In Wyoming, 21-year-old Matthew Shephard is beaten and murdered by two men who pose as gay in order to lure him into their truck.  Shephard’s mother becomes an outspoken figure in the gay rights movement following her son’s death.

2003 – U.S. Supreme Court strikes down all anti-homosexual-specific laws.

2006 – Missouri decriminalizes homosexuality.  (Yeah, I don’t understand this one, either.)

So why in the word did I throw up this huge long list of important events in the gay rights movement of the last hundred years or so?  Because, while it may be the to the consternation of straight Mormons everywhere, the gay rights movement has made my life easier to live.  Sure, it has complicated things by deepening the gay/Mormon rift I often feel (what doesn’t these days, right?), but it has also allowed me to come out of the closet and even maintain this blog without fear of arrest or physical harm.  I owe a great deal of who and what I am to the gay rights movement, even if I don’t always agree with them.  Because of those people who came before and stood up for what they believed, I don’t live a life of fear and hiding.

And for that, I am deeply grateful.

Seventh Wheel

The light from my phone cast a faint blue glow that reached all the way up to the ceiling twenty-five feet above.  I checked my email and my feed reader before shutting it off, which plunged the living room of the cabin into complete darkness.  The air outside was cold and it felt good to be curled up on the large leather couch.  Most of the leaves outside had already fallen, but there were enough to paint the north Georgia mountains with streaks of red and gold.  The whole day had been spent lounging about, playing board games, and measuring how much water seven people displaced in a hot tub.

I went into the weekend in a horrible mood.  Work and freelance projects had left me stressed and frustrated.  I had spent most evenings of the previous week alone in my apartment, typing away on my laptop.  The relative lack of non-professional human contact had left me cranky and overly-sensitive.  I was the only single person on the trip and I was waiting to be offended.  Not only waiting, I was looking for ways to be offended.  One stray remark, one idle comment and BAM! my tongue would be unleashed in a firestorm of  “righteous” indignation.  Oh, they would understand, these people with their significant others and, in one case, their (incredibly adorable) offspring!  They would know the injustice of my existence, the pain of my being!

The only kink in the plan was the fact that I had awesome friends.

As a slap in the face to my self-indulgent bitterness, I never felt left out or isolated.  Instead, I was drawn into a game of Scrabble by the fireplace, I helped wash the dishes, I was asked to hold the kid, and I staked claim on my own corner of the hot tub.

Contrary to what I had feared, when my current wave of friends started to marry each other, the only thing that really changed was the living arrangements.  Instead of marrying and moving on, they had married and dragged me along with them.  I didn’t realize what had happened until, at an extended gathering, another friend leaned over to me and said, “Dude, what happened?  When did we become ‘the single guys’?”  Now, most of my close friends were married and, while I was sure the dynamics would evolve over time, it seemed as though they were more than willing to keep me as a recurring cast member in their lives.

Rain started to fall on the metal roof high above my head.  I wasn’t going to be awake for much longer and, before my mind started to slip into incoherent dreams where I was inserted into action scenes from movies I had watched months before, I prayed silently thanking the Lord for the people in my life that made it worth living.  I prayed that my tendency towards self-martyrdom never made me lose sight of the fact that I was surrounded by people who loved me and people who I loved.

My vision blurred and I found myself in the Nevada desert surrounded by zombies that had been unleashed on the world by a corrupt corporation.  I raised my machine gun in preparation for the undead onslaught.

This time, it was personal.

March

The ceiling fan stirred the cool March air from the open window with the heat flowing up from the floors below.  I lay on the floor of my empty studio apartment and stared at the ceiling.  A couple of months earlier, as I had determined to get off the church/gay fence once and for all, and for the first time seriously considered the side that I had fearfully avoided my entire life.  I took a good long look at my sexuality…and I actually liked what I saw.

The part of myself that I kept locked away like a queer Tasmanian Devil had been let loose and when seeing it in the daylight I realized that it wasn’t so terrible after all.  In the past few months I had made gay friends, come out to people, and more and more thought about leaving the church, whose meetings by this point I could barely stand in their entirety.  It was not uncommon to have to leave elders quorum and end up in the parking lot with tears streaming down my face.  How could God make me gay, make accepting my sexuality feel like the right thing to do, and make acting on it an abominable sin?  I couldn’t take it anymore.  I was going to leave.  I had to.

I thought about all this all this as I stared up at the spinning fan.  Could I really do it?  Could I really leave?  The thought was both terrifying and exhilarating at the same time.

What about your friends?

It was true.  Most of my friends were LDS.  Many would not understand why I would leave, but then again, many grew up around gay kids in school.  It’s not like they hadn’t had gay friends before.  Some would distance themselves, but I felt my closest friends wouldn’t treat me any differently.

What about your family?

While my family loved me, they would certainly not approve of a decision to leave the church and pursue a gay relationship.  Even though I thought they would grow used to the idea over time, I knew that there would always be a layer of tension on some level.  Quite simply, things would never truly be the same.  But it was also a decision that I had to make for myself.  I couldn’t live my entire life in a certain way simply for the approval of my family.

So, are you going to start drinking, too?  Going to gay bars?  Sleeping around?

I’m sure everyone in the beginning thinks that they are going to act the same as they always have, don’t they?  “Oh, sure, I’ll still keep high standards.”  I guess everyone ends up…wait, no.  No, I won’t.  I hate alcohol.  I always have.  I hate bars.  I have no desire to turn into a man-Paris Hilton.  The whole point of this is to be honest with myself.  Drinking, sleeping around, all of that.  It isn’t me.  It never has been.  Even if I weren’t a member, I would hate those things.

That probably cuts down on your chances of finding someone.

Maybe.  But then again, how do straight people who don’t go to bars find each other?  Just because the majority of people behave a certain way, doesn’t mean I have to.  There are several gay friendly churches in the neighborhood; maybe one of them would be a good place to start looking for like-minded guys.

What about your testimony?

I guess I’ll have to…I don’t know, to be honest.  If I left the church, I imagine that my testimony would keep bothering me.  But with time it would go away, wouldn’t it?  Or, I’d have to allow anger and bitterness to kill it quickly.

Do you really want that?

Well, no.  I don’t want to become bitter and angry.  I guess I’ll just have to keep telling myself that it isn’t true and slowly wear it down.

But is that was you really believe?  Isn’t the whole point of this to be honest with yourself?

Good point.  If I told myself that the church wasn’t true, I’d be trading one lie for another.  I do know the church is true.  I don’t want to have to lie to myself.  I’m tired of that.

So what now?

Maybe there is a middle ground?  Maybe I can accept my sexuality, which has already made my life a lot more livable, and still retain my testimony.

So you would pursue homosexual relationships and still attend church?

I know me and I can’t see myself maintaining that situation.  Besides, if I know the church is true, why wouldn’t I try to live according to its doctrines?

You know what that means don’t you?

Yeah.  That means that unless I get to the point where I feel like I can honestly marry a woman, then I’ll have to be alone for the rest of my life.  That means no relationships that go beyond “just friends”.

Do you think you can do that?

I’m not sure.  Maybe.  What I can’t do is pretend to be something I’m not.  I’m not straight.  I won’t go back to pretending that I am.  I can’t do that anymore.

Is anyone asking you to?

Well, no, I guess not.

Can I really do that, though?  Can I really embrace my sexuality, embrace my testimony, and still feel as though I am being honest with myself?

In my small studio apartment I looked out at the city.  Its hum drifted through the open window as the fan whirred overhead.  My life wasn’t heading in the same direction it was going five years ago, or even the day before.  And, unlike the train as it switched tracks at Lindberg station, my future didn’t have a clearly defined path.  Much of it I would have to discover on my own.  I would likely make huge mistakes, but I also thought of the things I would learn along the way.  Could I really do it?  Could I really make it work?

The thought was both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.

Off The Fence: 6 Months Later

It’s been about six months that I hopped off the gay/church fence on the side of the church after years of going back and forth (and back and forth and back and forth and oh-my-gosh-I’m-getting-seasick).  There have been ups and downs, but I generally maintain the feeling of peace I had when I first decided I was going to stay in the Church.  There have been a few breakdowns, but except for a nuclear meltdown soon after the decision were made, my relatively few emotional dips have lacked the edge of despair that they used to have back on that old rickety fence.

I have learned a great deal in the past six months and have spiritually grown a lot (I think, anyway).  There are areas in my life where the need for improvement is glaringly apparent, but I feel I am making progress, which is the first time I’ve been able to say that in years.  It has been interesting as I have directly confronted issues in my life that I was too scared to approach before.  I feel like I am more honest with myself and with those around me.  As I have done this I’ve made some observations that I thought were surprising:

Sometimes Faith=Procrastination
Right after I made the decision to stay in the Church, I knew that I wasn’t strong enough spiritually to handle all the doubts and questions that I still had, so I basically put off dealing with them.  I knew I was going to have to work them out one day, but I couldn’t do it right then.  As I have progressed, sometimes I have taken some of these questions out and have taken a look at them.  If I am able to make progress with them, I try to resolve the concern.  Otherwise, it goes right back in the mental procrastination box.  I see this as an exercise in faith in the same way I view my initial concerns and then testimony of the prophet-ness of Joseph Smith to have been an exercise in faith.  Sometimes working spiritual stuff out takes time.

Lying To Oneself Is Never Good
You might say, “um…duh,” but how often do we lie to ourselves in order to make ourselves feel better about our situations?  I think we all do it.  For example, there may be some official ideas of the Church that sometimes bother me…a lot.  In the past, I would probably try and immediately talk myself into thinking that I agreed with the Church on every issue, but I’ve found that that weakens my testimony instead of strengthening it.  Now I try and openly acknowledge to myself if something bothers me or if I don’t agree with something.  If I find a potential solution to my dilemma, I try and work it out.  Otherwise I toss it into my procrastination=faith box for sorting out later.  Interestingly, as I have tried to maintain this attitude of honesty with myself, I’ve found the need to toss stuff into that box to come much less frequently than I anticipated.

I’m Still Gay, And I’m Cool With That
While I never expected the Lord to remove my attraction to men and give me the hots for the womenfolk (He hasn’t, btw), I find it interesting how comfortable I am with my homosexuality.  Okay, most of the people at work don’t know and I don’t foresee telling them, but I usually don’t feel weirded out when I realize that other people think of me as gay, because, well, I am.  I also have discovered that I still want a relationship with a man and, while the intensity of that desire isn’t the overwhelming thing it once was, I still sometimes see a gay couple holding hands in the park and still feel that pang of longing.  Instead of burying that feeling, I allow myself to feel it for a bit.  I do this because I have no intention of ever running from my sexuality again.  I allow myself to want a relationship with a man for a few moments and then I move on.  Because I have things to do.

I Choose “Peace” Over “Happiness”
I have chosen to live according to the doctrines of the Church – potentially alone for the rest of my life.  Why?  Because there is a peace that comes by knowing you are living your life in harmony with your core beliefs – it is a peace you can feel even in the midst of unhappiness.  This isn’t to say that I am generally an unhappy person, but as I have said before, I remain one-hundred percent convinced that I would be happy living in a monogamous relationship with another man.  Sometimes I am unhappy directly because of the choice I have made, but even through the unhappiness, I can still feel that peace.  True, my sexuality is part of my core, but my spirituality runs even deeper.

It’s been a big six months.  I’ve decided to stay in the Church, came out to family and ward and world, and openly write about being gay and Mormon on the Internet.  Who knows what the next six months hold./?/!

I’m Still Here…

…I’ve just been crazy busy.  Europe was amazing, but now I am buried in a sea of post-vacation work and am dealing with a problematic internet situation at home.  There will be updates, just…later.

Thanks for sticking around! :-)