Who am I?

Let's dive into this, shall we? Today is June 16th 2016. We are still vibrating from the massacre at Pulse nightclub. I feel a fire I haven't felt since I was Cupcake Jay and telling my bittersweet tales in a former blogger life. I recently made online statements about the condition of our community and was met with an unusual response. "Who are you to be the voice of the gay community?" My initial post was apparently so controversial that it was hidden and I was censored beyond being able to respond. The desire to have a permanent voice that can't be silenced is why I have returned to this medium. I'll go into detail about more of these things over time, but for now I would like to bullet point my authority.



*edited on 6/12/17 to add lines 13, 20, and 23. All three events happened before writing this initial piece. They have been added after carefully weighing the importance of sharing my story to help others compared to remaining silent to satisfy people who have already tried to sacrifice my happiness for their own ends.

1. I am gay. I've known since I was four and had to stop playing with dolls so I could blend in with my two older brothers who made songs to tease me for my choice of toys. "Children should be seen but not heard" was my motto, taught by my parents. I asked myself if God made a mistake and if I was supposed to be a girl, but I knew I liked being a boy. I told myself that God makes no mistakes.
2. My dad went to bible college. He has taken on many roles within the church, most often a pastor.
3. I have something in common with the shooter from Pulse, this "He Who Must Not Be Named". We both had our dads nudge, point, and snicker when they saw somebody in public who was openly gay. I hid my shame.
4. In middle school, I started to explore my sexuality. I wanted something in me, but didn't know how to fit the pieces together. I was told anal sex would hurt, so I tried inserting a thin, 3 foot long rubber cord into my urethra. Ironic, right? I took the pain for pleasure, for the thrill of having something inside me. I knew it wasn't what I was looking for, but it was all I had so I took it. Then I lost it. The cord that is. Lost inside my body. I told nobody for fear of my parents. I had hoped my urine would disintegrate it over time.
5. By the time I reached high school, the last active members of Seaside's Gay Straight Alliance had all graduated. I was entering hostile territory all alone, hiding it while my family cheered and jeered that the club was abandoned. 
6. I remember being a teenager and in the car with my dad while anti-gay legislation was being tossed around on the radio and having to hide the heart that I now wear on my sleeve.
7. I used to pray and cry to God, pleading he would fix me. When my prayers went unanswered I started to pray for death. Surely that would be more pleasing to him than living in sin, right? He didn't answer those prayers either. I had to accept God makes no mistakes.
8. One of my favorite teachers, Jan Priddy, was loathed by my parents for not allowing my brothers to use the bible as valid reference. I knew she saw the real me and I knew she was keeping my secret and I was so grateful to know she knew, even if nobody else did.
9. I fell in love with the art department at my local college. I started modeling while taking classes, not telling my parents. I took artistic photos of myself shirtless pretending to carve out my heart and give it to the love of my life. I posted the picture on my Myspace. I didn't know how to hide myself online, so when my dad found the pictures he asked me if I knew that men online would likely masturbate to my photos. I didn't know, but I suddenly wondered why the thought made me blush. Even more bizarre was why he was able to think about that when I didn't. Interesting how people concern themselves with your sex life even when they really know so little about you.
10. My first tattoo was on my left hip so I could hide it beneath my clothes while living at home. I had thought of the design a couple years before getting it. It was a blue and black nautical star with a red and white striped banner. I knew I cared about my country, but I didn't know how until I amended the tattoo with the words "Whatever happened to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." Now it made sense.
11. My mom had always told me to grow a pair and stand up for myself. I just didn't care enough to make a fuss about things. When I finally did grow a pair and told them I was moving out, they dragged the truth out about why I would abruptly leave their nest. They dragged me out. Suddenly it was a problem that I grew a pair. I find it a running theme that people who want me to stand up for myself don't always like it when I finally speak my mind, and that's not my problem. My mom cried. My dad preached. They convinced me to stay over night and had a youth "counselor" come over to try to talk me out of what I had already hid for 19 years. I woke up the next morning with the greatest peace, knowing it was time to move out. The feeling of self acceptance was like what they said blessings from the Holy Spirit were like. Peace beyond understanding.
12. I made sure to get my right ear pierced. It was all I knew about my new found people, that the right ear was the gay one, but I would be damned if I didn't stand behind my new found self with everything I had. People already knew in a small town like that, no matter how I tried to hide, so may as well give them a show. People had always yelled things out their windows when they drove by me walking down the street. The more they honked, the more faggoty I became, slowly turning into Cupcake Jay. I didn't know what the colors represented, but the rainbow became my battle colors and makeup my war paint.
13. The second of my two brothers had announced his engagement and was beginning to plan his wedding. He wanted to reach out to me and asked me to be one of his groomsmen. Family first. I wasn't in a relationship at the time, but my dad decided it would be a good idea to call me and tell me that I couldn't bring a date. He said it was because a) it was my brother's wedding and he didn't want me to steal all of the attention from the service and b) my grandfather from Southern Oregon was coming to the wedding and my father was concerned my grandfather would literally have a heart attack and die. To add insult to injury my mother and her gaggle of hens kept flapping at the wedding about which girls they knew that they could hook me up with to get me married next. I took my first mirror selfie that day. I was pretending to flip off the camera, but I used my ring finger. None of my friends liked that picture, but didn't seem to understand why I took the photo.
14. One of my closest friends met an older couple and they started a poly-amorous relationship. It was then that I realized that love was what you made of it and family was yours to choose.
15. My first Pride was so overwhelming. My friends that became my family introduced me to Scissor Sisters during the car ride. We only stuck around for the parade and fair because of how far the drive was and most of us were under 21. There were no gay bars where I came from, so I didn't even know that there were that many gay people in Oregon, and so many different shapes, sizes, and in all the beautiful colors of the rainbow. I wore a sleeveless shirt with a bleeding glittery heart that I painted on the chest. Still a bleeding heart.
16. I fell in love with a long distance alcoholic. Wild Rose was his poison. What should have been a week turned into a month away from my home and in another state. The money to get me home fueled his drinking. My friends and family worried. So did I. When I got home, or what was left of it, I tried to keep working on the relationship with him. I did love him after all, in a magical way I almost didn't trust. I eventually broke up with him and used the same magic to release him. This would not be the last of his relevancy in my life.
17. I joined the Clatsop County Marriage Equality Project and started work in a local coffee shop. I didn't have much to give the community, but I gave what I could and attended all the meetings I could to learn as much as I could. I was the youngest to attend most of their planning meetings.
18. I allowed my young lover to move in with me, and after a short time of me supporting him we parted ways. Broken hearted, I left all I had in my town and took a leap closer to the big city. It was a long journey with many small towns in between. Many years, hard luck, no employment, and plenty of loneliness. Sure, my chosen family was with me, but I was missing love. I took interest in the Occupy Movement and expressed support for them. This was around the time I lived my last blog life, writing essays about things like the privatization of prisons and other bittersweet lessons that I thought I had learned. 
19. I could feel my light growing weaker. I thought it was depression, and it partly was, but my urethra hurt pretty regularly and I had started seeing traces of blood in my urine. I thought maybe it would clear up on its own. I was still not confident enough with who I was to get help so I did what I did best in my childhood. I hid it. 
20. My grandfather who lived in Southern Oregon was dying. I hadn't seen or spoken with him since my brother's wedding that I was asked to not bring a date to. I went with my family to visit him, and the last thing he said to me was "you're beautiful." I wasn't sure how coherent he really was because he was so tired, so I'm not sure if he saw me simply in that moment or if he saw me as his grandson. I never got to come out because by then I just wanted to enjoy those last moments. I credit my father for that.
21. I fell in unrequited love with a man that was HIV positive. I hadn't come face to face with this in my life until that point, but I was able to see past the stigma and learn that status does not define a person's worth, but their heart and mind. Still learning.
22. I thought it was a prank, but the obituaries confirmed it. The long distance alcoholic died. It seemed to be stomach ulcers. I was told by his girlfriend at the time. He had told her about me and she thought I should know. I felt awful for her, but I also had my own sense of universal loss. I thought about when I last saw him. I told myself it wouldn't be the last time, but I knew I was lying to myself. I didn't know how or why, but I knew.
23. A heterosexual man sat me down to try to "help" me. He compared my homosexuality to his diaper fetish that he "overcame" and said that my homosexuality was a "brotherly love that was corrupted by a fetish." I have nothing against people having fetishes and kinks, but I had to face that some people fail to understand what it's like to be gay and to romantically love somebody of the same gender. I had forgotten how brainwashed and desensitized people are.
24. I met my chosen younger brother, who at the time didn't know he was my brother but instead thought he was my sister, the drag king. It has been exciting to see him grow into himself after a childhood identifiable to mine. Still learning, always learning.
25. I fell in love, and it stuck. I finally stopped searching, just put myself out there with all of my flaws, and love found me. I learned many hard lessons about love and honesty along the way. My new family helped me learn many other lessons about myself and where I really came from. For the first time, I had found everything I wanted, and all I had to do was start focusing on loving myself.
26. I was wrong about my health. The cord had formed a bladder stone 3 inches long that caused my urine to flow back into my kidney, causing a leak that festered into an infection that took up 80% of my body. At my lowest point I weighed 79 pounds. I had two blood transfusions and several surgeries. My partner stayed with me for the month I was in the hospital. He watched me wither and pulled me through the other side. I faced death at the age of 25 and fought through it to be stronger than I was before. Life had new meaning, and I hadn't even faced my Return to Saturn.
27. Love won. I learned about Stonewall, the original 8 colors of the Pride Flag's meaning, Divine and John Waters, and all these other things that seemed like secrets. Secrets that needed to be shared. I started to train myself to stand up to people when they are intolerant instead of just letting things slide. I learned true Pride. I knew that there would be others who didn't know about these things so I decided to dedicate my art to educating the children. 
28. And then "He Who Shall Not Be Named" killed the children. So many children. They hadn't even faced their Return to Saturn. Some hadn't even had the first drink of their 21st birthday, something we all dream of and expect to reminisce on. All of our infighting about our pop stars and reality tv, and we forgot to fight our enemies. It had been so long, hadn't it? We had started to ignore the hate crimes that were happening, until we were attacked with an assault rifle. Why is it named an assault rifle if it's not meant for assaulting things? Why did we not pay attention to other hate crimes? Why did we let our guard down?

I have faced all of these lessons and have somehow walked away with a sense of hope and purity that some would mistake as naivety. I see the fractures in the queer culture, the superficial dividing points in our own foundation. I have been a long standing advocate and now choose to be an activist. While strangers question my opinions and my right to speak on behalf of or to the gay community, I instead choose to focus on people who think I'm a superhero. People who see the light that I hid for so much of my life. People who see the flames inside of me that won't be extinguished by hate. My raging fire that grows brighter as the world gets darker. This is who I am.