Pride Was a Riot
The Runway The LGBTQ+ Community Built For Me
Dedication: Glory to God in all things. You made each of us unique so that we may contribute something to this world. I am grateful to be here and I know that I am fearfully and wonderfully made by your hand.
To all the LGBTQIA+ rights advocates and allies who came before… thank you. Your example reminds me that I am not alone. I, too, come from a lineage of advocacy that expands across time and space.
To my Chosen Family, to my community, and to those who are supporting my work… thank you. It means so much. I am honored to be leaving my mark through the power of my writing and my art.
Right now I am writing this newsletter from the patio of a neighborhood cafe in D.C. Jazz serenades me as I sip my iced oat milk vanilla latte with an extra shot of espresso. A few years ago if you told me this would be my life— I wouldn’t have believed you. Back then I was still wrestling with my identity and all the challenges that came with accepting it. The victories and lessons hard learned along the way shape me still.
Just before I started writing I came across an old friend of mine that I met while I was still in college. Though he and I fell out of touch… the warmth we exchanged was as real now as it was back then. It was he and his family who first carved a space for me to build my life so I could begin anew in D.C. It reminded me that there were a lot of people who prepared the runway.
Back then I was still a painfully shy, small-town kid from rural Pennsylvania. I was the grandson of a Baptist deacon on my father’s side and the grandson of a Republican county commissioner on my mother’s. Coming out was not an easy feat.
Nor was it an adventure that I undertook alone.
It is a journey that unraveled everything that I wasn’t and forged me into everything that I am at the same time. Moving to the nation’s capital to build this chapter of my life would change me in ways that I never could have foreseen. Surviving a global pandemic, getting fired from a toxic workspace, escaping an abusive relationship, all of those things shaped me into who I am now. Those events showed me something that I did not realize until they happened: that I am braver, stronger and wiser than I ever thought.
The same resolve led me to where I am now as a Creative Director. I was forged to be one. A recent trip back to my hometown in Pennsylvania revealed something that I am comprehending.
Everyone has the right to live how they want. LGBTQIA+ rights are inseparable from the greater human condition. There is no freedom without it.
This Pride Month I invite you to take a moment to explore this with me in my newsletter.
Breaking News
The Journey That Shaped A Sexologist is now available to stream across platforms including Spotify, YouTube, Apple and here on Substack.
This one hits close to home for me because what Mahmoud Baydoun and I are discussing in this episode is not just about sex. The Brazilian-based sexologist shares more about how narratives do not always align with reality. How can a country that is marketed as a place where pleasure and freedom are happening all the time also be a stronghold for some of the most malignant discrimination against the LGBTQ+ community? How do we build a movement that celebrates bodily autonomy and liberation for people across borders?
I chose to start this conversation by featuring a voice impacted by the rhetoric. The hilarity in the conversation is also welcome. Watch it now wherever you stream your favorite podcasts.
I just released my first exclusive commentary for subscribers to my Substack. This is for those who want to go behind the episode. Believe it or not— I have a reason and purpose for the topics that I discuss across the Insight platform. The scope of my work is not only diverse in ensemble but wide in depth. The topics I am navigating are the contemporary issues of our time.
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“The police that night were so terrified that for the first time, they ran away from us.”
Those words from a brief documentary I saw on Instagram still resonate with me immensely. Something is truly special about Pride Month. For a lot of people— the rainbow extravaganza reminds them of the joy and pride that they belong to an expansive community.
Yet for many folks it is also a time for mourning and lament at everything they lost along the way. It is also a reminder of the vitriol they face from society. Which is why it is important to me that I contextualize the historical implications of Pride.
Pride was a riot.
Not a parade. Or a march. Or a rally.
A riot.
It traces its roots back to when police raided the famous Stonewall Inn on June 28th, 1969. Many members of the LGBTQ+ community were already living in harsh conditions. Many of them were not out to their families and communities. To be seen out in public holding hands or kissing could award you with jail time.
Those who faced heaviest of the stigma were often denied housing, opportunity, and healthcare. These people were charged with public indecency under morality laws that were set to punish and prohibit same-sex attraction, intimacy, cross-dressing, sexual encounters, and drag performances. Gay bars and clubs were created as a safe space for members of the LGBTQ+ community to congregate and to find solace in a world that destroy them before it showed any mercy.
Police raided these establishments not only to enforce the law but also to crush the spirits of the community.
Stonewall wasn’t just any gay establishment though. It was a community fixture. LGBTQ+ people across the board found solace there. Not only could a person dance and have fun there but it was also one of the only places where people could go to find intimacy and share tender moments. Many attendees would dance slowly to romantic, heartfelt songs on the dance-floor.
Soft, tender reminders that it was always more than just about the sex.
Legend says that the first brick at Stonewall was thrown by Marsha P. Johnson, a Black trans-woman who had previous encounters with the police before that night. Sylvia Rivera— who helped Marsha found the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries— was among a list of many other renowned activists allegedly there the night of the Stonewall Riots. It was a night that turned the tables around. Police— who were so accustomed to harassing and bullying members of the LGBTQ community— suddenly found themselves running away.
That night, the LGBTQ+ community showed that we are not weak, timid, or meek. We are among the bravest, artistic, strongest, loudest, innovative, and resourceful groups in existence. We survived millennia of discrimination, hostility, bullying, harassment, bigotry, shame, and persecution.
We were carted off in death camps. We were hunted by authorities. We were prosecuted, jailed, tortured, imprisoned and executed. The very slur used to describe us— f*ggot— came from the historical reference that they used to burn homosexuals with the rest of the firewood during the Dark Ages in Europe. When Europeans began colonizing the rest of the world they passed codes that criminalized the local communities that they conquered— a continuation of the violence they wrought against the community at home.
Elsewhere in the world, LGBTQ+ people had sacred duties and roles that they fulfilled. They were not only hunters or warriors but also mediators between men and women and also between the mundane and the sacred. Missionaries worked tirelessly to convert people— oftentimes through coercion— because they knew dividing the people from the sacred was the easiest way to control them.
Conversion therapy. Hate crimes. Sexual assault. Intimidation. Coercion.
The AIDS crisis— and the mishandling of it— was more than just a policy failure. It was the blatant disregard for the lives of those who were deemed inconsequential in the eyes of the state. Although HIV and AIDS can be transmitted to anyone— it was believed to be a disease that only infected homosexuals. Gay men, trans people, drug users, and sex workers were all victims to the negligence.
Which gets to the heart of another issue entirely. It is not only queer sex but also queer intimacy and love that is punished in society. This is all possible because there is a global order that prescribes certain roles and functions to its constituents so that it can profit off their labor and bodies.
Now let me make something abundantly clear. There is plenty to be said about systems and how they continuously fail people. Queer identities are devalued not only in societies built on capitalism but also wherever White Supremacy and/or Patriarchy reign supreme. This is why we encounter so many LGBTQ+ people persecuted in places including the United States, Cuba, Russia, Israel, and beyond.
Different nations. Different systems. Same line of logic. Punish freedom and coerce the body for maximum profit.
Many of us didn’t survive these disasters all the way through. We celebrated from dusk to dawn and only some of us lived to see another day. Many of us left this world with a hole that once held us in it. That void in our communities not only bore our physical loss but also took the knowledge, wisdom, and insight with them. An entire generation of LGBTQ+ advocates and leaders were all but swept away entirely because of what happened during the epidemic.
It is not coincidence to me that the challenges facing the LGBTQ+ community— especially our trans and queer siblings— are not separate from the increased attacks on women who experience miscarriage and who seek abortions. This is also coming as we see increased attacks on Black, Brown, Asian and Indigenous communities, immigrants, refugees, the houseless, and those with physical and mental disabilities.
On the surface all of these issues appear to be separate.
Worker’s rights, union organizers, artisans having their work stolen, small farmers and business owners being priced out of the market, education being cut and healthcare being privatized, social security getting threatened again and again…
None of these causes are separate…
They all connect back to the same problem we encounter across the board…
Our systems tell us to be grateful for the scraps. They say that we need to sit down, shut up, and stay in our place. They do everything they can to undermine our confidence in ourselves and in our communities. They then blame us for the faults and shortcomings of those systems.
Pride started with a riot. It continues still to this day. In the streets, the boardroom, on the school board, in the office, the classroom, the public space, on the stage, behind the camera, the pulpits and the pews, and in the halls of governance themselves.
There are people out here who will have you think that they are God’s gift to humanity. They were deemed judge, jury, and executioner. Those people will lead you to believe that the power of God deemed their cause holy and righteous.
I tell people this though…
Nobody is perfect.
Who gets to define that anyway?
I am inviting you to subscribe and read on. You are not just reading more content. I am a voice just like you… doing his part to show up and make a difference by connecting the dots that people tend to miss. I do this through the power of our stories.
