I wrote this last night after I posted.

I was just reading a blog that mentioned a young gay entrepreneur in Manchester, England. This young man was able to secure a business grant at the age of 18 to run and maintain a website designed to break down walls and remove labels on race, sexuality for young people. He mentioned that his sexuality caused him major problems, being brought up to think that being gay was wrong and horrible. That struck a chord in me, and a righteous chord at that. I too, like many others, grew up in a house with a loving family. Some people don’t, I know. But included in that loving atmosphere, however dented, was an very strong anti gay vibe.

Queer jokes, gay bashing (verbally) went on. Racial jokes were made as well. I too was brought up by my family and my Catholic schooling taught that being gay was the absolute worst thing a person could be. So imagine finding out on your own, that you are what you were told was disgusting and immoral. Imagine finding that out at 14. No one to talk to about. Run to the encyclopedia, run to the dictionary and reading that you’re abnormal, a deviant. A lot, not all, but a lot of heterosexual people ask, ‘why make it a big deal about being gay?’

Because it will show that things we were told about ourselves when we were growing up was wrong. Sometimes murderously wrong, sometimes suicidally wrong. Education could be the solution to this epidemic of ignorance, but then you have certain sections of this country dead set against any positive portrayals of gay life. Or it goes so far as to not mention gay people at all. In a society that’s ever changing, it’s not changing fast enough. And it’s not just this country, it’s the whole world.

About 15 years ago when I was working at Skyline Studios, there was this young man, Roget Romain who had a deal to do some downtime production work. He worked with some up and coming artists in hip hop. It was a cool studio and a lot of times I would hang out after I was through working. One night I was with Roget and my friend Miriam who was working as an engineer. We were getting jazzy. I was as I am now, open about my sexuality, but not in your face about it. The three of us, hanging out, listing to dub.

Roget wanted to ask me a question about being gay. I was open to it and gave him a green light. First off, the main question, ‘When did I decide to be gay?’ I think it was the first time I was actually asked that, and I had no set answer. Me, being me did say this, ‘When did you decide to be straight?’ He was taken aback. ‘I didn’t decide to be straight. It just happened. It’s how I am.’ I had to ask, ‘What makes you think it wasn’t the same for me?’ I think most questions about gay people, can usually be answered by changing the gender of one of the subjects.

Roget then moved into sexuality. ‘How can a guy take it up the ass? How can a dude suck a cock?’ I asked him ‘Do all the women that he’s been with, do they all like to suck cock? Do they take it through the back door?’ ‘No, some do, some don’t.’ ‘Well there you have it. Not all gay guys like to do this, some do, some don’t.’ It was fun to just hang out with an open minded young man, maybe I planted a seed in his brain. Cracked open his door of perception just a bit I like to think. There is no shame in being gay, lesbian bisexual or transgendered. Some people see it as a frivolous lifestyle choice.

There are many good and great things about being LGBT, but there are some battles that come along with it. Some kids when they come out to their families, they are out on the street. Abandoned by parents who’s child they loved one day unconditionally, now repulsed and shamed by something that was out of anyone’s control. They would prefer to live the life of a lie. In the closet. Get married, have kids, and fuck around on the side.

About 12 years ago I answered an ad in the Village Voice, met an older guy at a bar in the Village. We didn’t click sexually but had a good chat over a few pints. He was married, hadn’t had sex with his wife since 1980, has three kids, all grown more or less. He was gay. For some reason I was filled with righteousness that night, telling him that he’s getting up there in years, living a lie. Do you want to go out the same way? You’re doing more harm than good to yourself by living this way, a shamed existence, shamed by yourself.

We parted ways, and I gave him a kiss as he was about to get on his way to Penn Station. He was surprised and probably the first time he was ever kissed by another man in public, on a street corner. I gave him my number and asked him to keep in touch. He called a few days later. He told his wife, she was filing for divorce. Two of his kids were fine with it, one had a problem. But he was glad he did it.

He felt free.

I’m just so tired that people need to be told this. I know the five of you that read this irregularly are somewhat enlightened but I just wanted to get this off my chest. Preaching to the choir, perhaps. But I guess it has to be told, over and over, one way or another. And while you may be enlightened, the majority of the five of you aren’t LGBT (at least as far as I know) and you wouldn’t really know, you couldn’t walk in our cha cha heels. Like I wouldn’t know how it is to be anything or anyone else, other than knowing how it is to be me.