My Queer State, Not That Queer

I just got back last night from a two days in New York. I was visiting friends in Brooklyn and I am amazed at how shamelessly I admired men in coffee shops and restaurants, on the subways and parks, and how shamelessly they enjoyed being admired by me. It occurred to me that we gay men and women are getting absorbed into the mainstream even though we always have been.; it's just that we were never allowed to take our sexuality with us before and in the big and not so big cities of 21st century America (I guess with the exception of Colorado Springs and some places in Utah) it's no big thing to be gay anymore. But we do have opposition. Just like it seemed to be no big thing to be Jewish in Berlin in 1924 and look what happened 20 years later. It's still a stigma to be homosexual. It can be easily held against one if someone else is looking to be malevolent. Gays themselves can be guilty of this. Some of the most homophobic people I have encountered were acknowledged out gays themselves. So watch it guys and girls and watch what you say about your own kind. That's a good reminder to me too. It can be very insidious.

I guess the first subject I think would be my gay friendly home state of Vermont. Gay friendly it is as this was the first state to recognize same sex union. On December 20^th 1999 with Baker vs State. This to the howls of nationwide conservatives and right wing Christians and even not so right wing Christians. Perhaps not so conservative either. On radio Howard Stern, then a still immensely popular syndicated radio host, would use certain metaphors referred to someone as being homosexual as 'they are taking their vacation in Vermont'

Although the State of Vermont has a progressive national profile the interior can be another matter. With the passage of the same sex union in 1999 and passed by the state legislature in the summer of 2000 there was a backlash. According to Greg Johnson's Civil Union, a Reappraisal '...an ugly, nativist “Take Back Vermont” movement was born and flourished in many counties of the state. Several lawmakers who heroically supported the law in the face of intense opposition lost their seats in the November 2000 election. Although most statewide candidates who supported civil union (including then-Governor Howard Dean) were re-elected, Republicans seized control of the Vermont House of Representatives on the strength of the backlash to civil union.' ¹

This is a largely rural state. Sparsely populated with an even smaller population of natives. Flatlanders as we are called have moved here and replaced the dwindling youth population who grow up here and head for more cosmopolitan centers in New York, Boston and California. But I also notice a large group of 30-something with children. Many of these parents did grow up around here, moved to metropolitan centers and then moved back when they had children. Probably because of the better living standard and most probably the educational system which this progressive state government invests in; not to mention a state run health care system to ease the burden for middle and lower middle income families.

But any way it falls, a lot of the money and politics resides here with the refugees from some other place. This was an immigration sparked in the 1960's; most likely brought on by the states new accessibility with the construction of interstate 91 and fueled by the late 60's 'back to the land' movement with their communal farms and young urban refugees looking for an alternative lifestyle. It is interesting to note that before 1967 Vermont was a republican state and after that year it turned notably democrat and not to no small chagrin of the small rural farmers, loggers, tree farmers, etc, 'Woodchucks' as they are known. English, Irish, Scottish, French Quebecois with a smattering of native American. They are the natives of this state, many who trace their ancestry on this land before the American revolution. It is not a matter of if you were born here, it is if your grandfather was born here that makes you a native Vermonter. And we, from other places, 'flatlanders', will always be outsiders . This was the political base for the Take back Vermont movement that Johnson mentions. It is not that the native population is all homophobic. No more than rural California or Upstate New York. But it does conflict with the national view that Vermont is this haven for progressive thought and gay rights even though gay marriage passed through the state legislature in 2009, nine years after the Civil Union bill passed. One of the things that impressed me most of all about it was that, unlike Maine. California, Colorado, etc, etc, the bill passed unopposed by any grass root organizations or churches; the exception being a few Westboro Baptist church members protesting in downtown Burlington and even they were surrounded by UVM students who chanted 'GO HOME'

But the homophobia is here. Not blatant (nothing is blatant in Vermont) But sort of a passive hatred, an indifference. Like; I don't care who they are, I just don't want my children around them or want them for neighbors. That insidious and quiet, reserved distaste for these ideas from the cities that have polluted the fine old values that the old natives hold dear. A world were homosexuals can get married and adopt children are not one of the fine old belief of generational Vermont even though we really are everywhere, even out in the old family sugar house, whether accepted or not, whether allowed to get married and adopt children or not. But that Yankee (almost British) habit of loud actions to mum words can be just as deadly as the gay basher in the park.

Another curiosity; as the first state in the union to legalize civil same sex union, a bold and courageous piece of legislation, opening the way to marriage, I might add; But there is not, to my knowledge, one gay bar in the whole state. Not one! Not in Burlington, Brattleboro, Rutland, Montpelier or Bennington! What does that tell you?

1http://lawreview.vermontlaw.edu/articles/v30/3/johnson.pdf

Out of the Closet and on to The Blog

In the month of June 1970 when I was 18 years old I formed a life long ideal. I was not a very worldly young man but I had this conviction that I still hold at 59 in 2011.

On a sunny Sunday morning in June 1970 I marched up Seventh Avenue, New York to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Stone Wall riots. The Stone Wall was a gay bar in New York City that was raided by the police solely for being a gay bar and for the first time in modern history all the gays in that bar pushed back and drove the stunned police out. A riot ensued on the streets of Greenwich Village that lasted several days. This is widely accepted as the beginning of the Gay Rights movement and the march I participated in that one year later was the first Gay Pride Day ever and I have maintained the memory of this day in my youth with great personal pride.

I have always been a homosexual but there have been times in my life where it was a don't ask don't tell situation. Especially when I was surfing. I am not exactly proud of that. But I was not trying to hide it either. One had only to ask and I would have gladly informed. But no one asked. I would have found it hard not to suspect who I was. I was in my forties and fifties, not married, never had been, no girlfriend, no talk of “babes” and breasts and all that other stuff surfers talked about while waiting for waves. I don't know... maybe they just didn't care. The surfing scene was pretty homophobic though. It was probably more like don't ask don't tell. There were quite a few surfing rednecks who I got chummy with and I was not exactly flamboyant enough to rouse suspicion. I rode waves and charged when they got big. I earned the respect of some who would have ostracized me had they known my past. There are a few gay friends of mine who will surely balk at this knowing who I really am and my flamboyancy on demand....sure...I need an identity at 59...I am really an old queen! And suddenly I find myself possessed with a sense of pride about it.

To confess; I don't think there really is an excuse for my “straight” behavior down at the beach except that I wished to be a chameleon and for the first time in my turbulent existence; fit in and be one of the guys, I didn't want to discuss my sex life to anyone except perhaps one or two but the whole thing seems farcical because I make friends easily and got to be good friends with a few men who, I guess, were under the assumption that I was straight but here I was posing as a...what? Straight man? L.O.L.! The ghosts of my dead brothers in San Francisco are howling with laughter like banshees. What was I thinking about? The truth is I need to come out. “Out of the closet and into the streets!” we shouted on Seventh Avenue that sunny June Sunday in 1970. And it was my anthem.

But let me face a fact. I am 59 years old, I write. I have written one damn good novel, working on another equally damn good one which is taking a long time to finish but what's the hurry? I have three novellas, endless short stories and this blog that no one seems interested in. Indeed! No one seems interested in any of it and I am finding that any American writer at 59, unless he or she has something unique to write about or one is Robert Stone or William T Vollmann, becomes irrelevant to a youthful reading audience.

So go queer writer in Vermont. Write the social, economic and political conditions of the homosexual around the world. Commentary from an old queen retired to icy Vermont, the same one who almost burned down San Francisco city hall in 1979 when Dan White got his light sentence for Murdering Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone, who put on a dress and a blond wig and tap shoe 'd up Market Street, I got laid that day, who chased L.A. gang members down the street with a bat after they tried to beat up another gay guy on Christmas night in 1988, who fucked rock stars (I won't drop names, no it wasn't Elton John), who shed tears and watched helplessly as friends and lovers died of AIDS, one after the other as an indifferent Reagan era turned away, who finally took his tempestuous soul to the sea and rode waves, who woke up one morning and could hardly walk, who cried more tears at not being able to surf again, who took his broken heart here in this small Vermont town to write memoirs and stories and novels and Queer Notes from Vermont.

This is not necessarily out the goodness of my heart.

This is a queer writers blog. I invite others to contribute. I do not shy away from controversy, I welcome the unorthodox, I may disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it. .

But enough about me, lets talk about you. What do you think of me? (just kidding)