What I think of labels and their connotations...

There are so many labels placed on us these days - from gay, bi, queer, trans, homo, dyke, etc. Do you identify with any of these labels, and if so, why?
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It’s been an interesting road coming out to the world. Before I was out, the world viewed me in one way. The assumption that I was straight came with it, all of these attitudes and beliefs about the kind of person I was. While some definitely might have thought I was gay, everyone treated me in a heterosexual fashion. And it’s not to say that a lot of the things I did while in the closet aren’t consistent with who I am, because to be honest, a lot of the things I did while I was in the closet I loved. I loved being involved in my school student council and leadership committees. I loved leading our volunteer and community service organization, Key Club. I loved playing on the soccer team and going to the state championship. I loved being in the symphony orchestra. All of these things were and are who I am, but the way I was perceived at that time because of the “word” or “identity” of “straight” made my peers view my participation in those activities as something a “boy” should do and that was normal. I would hang out with all the guys on the weekend, talk about random things, and just be one of the “boys”. Girls would still get crushes on me and keep a distance in that passive ways that “young ladies” get around people of the opposite sex.
Coming out, hasn’t necessarily reversed all of those things I used to do, but rather the world’s perception of me and the things I do. On the one hand, it’s hard to automatically be assumed completely feminine, because with that assumption comes the ousting from some of those things I used to love. In college, I was never asked by the guys to go shoot some hoops or kick a ball around, things I always enjoyed. It was assumed on their part that I just wasn’t interested or wouldn’t be good at such activities. My friendships with straight men has felt somewhat estranged, especially since college tends to be a time when one uncovers their sexuality and at that point sexuality is somewhat ambiguous for most people. I used to automatically be accepted into a group of guys, but now either the conversation changes completely when I come into a group and/or I am left out all together. In that sense, taking on an identity that has so many stigma’s, myths and stereotypes surrounding it has in part taken away from my humanity and the person that I am.
However, on the flip side, coming out has also been one of the best experiences of my life, because it has allowed me to be honest and true to the greater world. I can express myself on a much deeper level and am completely authentic in my soul and heart. The positive thing about accepting yourself for who you are and being able to say I’m gay, is the fact that the word and the connotations behind that word suddenly aren’t a threat any more. So what if I look “gay” expressing characteristics of my feminine side? So what if I decide to shave my legs one day, or even to express my emotions and feelings…something that “straight” men have a hard time doing because of the fear of being labeled “gay”. I am a greater whole by accepting who I really am, and while some opportunities have been taken away from me, I have gained even more. And just because the world has insecurities surrounding gender and sexuality doesn’t mean I stop being the person I am and doing the things I love to do.
So in a nutshell, labels suck and they can have both good and not so good consequences. However, the stereotypes and myths we surround those labels with are more of a detriment rather than the label itself. As one of my favorite professors once told me, “Celebrate, don’t exaggerate”. In that it is important to acknowledge a person for all of who they are; but to extend one single characteristic of that whole person into a plethora of ideas and assumptions our culture has created around that one character trait is wrong and damaging. I am a white, upper-middleclass gay male American who likes to think that they are a colorblind gender queer and label free global citizen, but in reality must use labels to navigate my way through this beautiful life I’ve been given and to communicate with all of the people that may come into it along the way.

In the Eyes of the Beholder

You know I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what beauty is and what it is people see in each other when they think of beauty. For many in our society, mainly in the mainstream media, beauty comes in the form of 6 ft tall size 6 women that have large breasts and long legs. In regards to men, it is becoming the ideal to have a six pack, a nice set of pecs and a chiseled face. All Asthetic, all things based upon our physical traits as human beings. In the media, there seems to be a cookie cutter shape and form for what beauty is. However the more I think about it, the more I have come to realize that every person in this world has different things that are attractive to them. Not only that, but white, blonde and fit people are not the only form of beauty in this world. Our society has looked past the beauty of many other cultures, and sizes and shapes that create this universe. While it is striving to be better in all these areas, emphasis is still placed on the asthetic appearances, rather than the intrinsic qualities within a person. I’m sorry, but the last thing I want is a man who is all looks, but has no personality, no heart, and no intelligence. We treat beauty as if it is something we need to survive. The beauty of Youth is so valued in our culture, that when we get to our golden years we start to de-value ourselves because we are no longer considered beautiful in the same sense. Why is this? And how does this play out in our interpersonal relationships?

For me, and one of the saddest things about this, is the fact that I feel like what we have become is objects to each other. When we are out there searching for that special someone, what are we really looking for? What is it that draws us to one another and what traits are attractive to us. If all we can think about while we’re pursuing someone is how beautiful they are, what they look like, or what we will look like together, than how is that treating the other person with any kind of love or compassion or understanding. There is a little saying out there, and yes it comes from a religious text or two or eight, but that doesn’t mean it has no value. It is called “ do unto others as you would have done to you”. I think about this, and I ask myself, do I want to be viewed in that way. Do I want someone to only see what lies at the surface? Do I merely want to be some thing, as opposed to some one? Do I want to be objectified? Do I want to be treated as a scrap of meat? And in this thought process I also think of “Love thy neighbor” and I think, what if I met the next Albert Einstien, Rosa Parks, Elanoorre Roosevelt or Martin Luther King, and I never took the time to get to know them? Never took the time to understand the true beauty that lies within all of us?

I’ve been used before, and I’m not going to lie, I’ve used before as well. I cannot say I regret it, only because I would not have come to the understandings of life I now have because of those experiences. I’m not perfect by any means, but I do know how painful those times were for me. I do know what it was like to look into some ones eyes and only see my own reflection, to see no depth or life, but simply the here, now and present. I couldn’t see within them, the pain I carried deep within my own heart. The loneliness, the isolation and the confusion of who I was. I didn’t realize at the time, they they were in as much pain as I was, and that my treatment of them, their treatment of me was contributing to my hurt/ their hurt more so than it was helping. The temporary moments of holding someone, of being in the arms of another, were small breaks in a long road of hurt, and made the road even darker when upon reflection I would realize that they were nothing but the moment, nothing but meaningless and emotionless aspects of my life.

The tears that would later flow from my heart, became from my own self hatred my own self loathing. It was from my realization that the objectification of another, the objectification of myself, contributed no more to my happiness or my well being than all of the hurtful words others would use in my direction. I realized then that if I wanted to be okay, if I wanted others to see more than just WHAT I was, but who I was, I had to start seeing WHO other people were too. I couldn’t just see someone for what they were, but truly for WHO they were.

In this discovery I have finally understood the beauty of life, humanity. The understanding that there are so many different types of beauty in this world, so many different ways to interpret life and so many different ways to live. I realized that to see a person, to love a person, is to see within their soul. To know who they are completely and to love them anyway, unconditionally. With all of my heart and soul. I’ve learned that to fall in love with a person, is to see all of them, and to live life is to say that you know who you are, but also that you know who others are as well. To live life, is to love life and to love life, one needs only to look around them and see what is truly there. They need to look at the sky, the trees, the leaves, the roots, the trunk, the grass, your own hands, the lines on your hands, the finger tips, and then, the eyes of another.
I’ve learned that to know a person, you have to take the time to listen. And before we hate, before we objectify and abuse, we must understand the inner most depths of the human soul.

To care for things as if they were people, is illusion... To care for people as if they were things, is violence... To care for people as if they were people, is justice... To care for people as if they were ourselves, is love...

Thesis

I used to be afraid of the world. One of those things in time where as a youth I hated myself so much and was so afraid to just live. It was my fear of living that closed me off to really seeing what was right in front of my nose. And through the course of my life I realized that I would be okay, and in the end would discover how much I had missed out on, but how much was still left to be discovered.

Body

I think I was one of the happiest kids growing up. At school I was always the outgoing one coming up with new and inventive ways of doing things. At recess My friend Brad and I would always play the fourth graders in basketball and would always win, making us THE kids to know as merely second graders. I was proud of that, and will still brag about it to this day.

At home, my sister and I were best friends. We would always build these elaborate forts made of cushions and chairs and go out onto the lake behind our house in our small inflatable boat to catch snapping turtles and craw dads. We would have dancing nights, where my parents would put on the old country music and swing each other back and forth while my sister and I used our light bright to create “ambience”. My dad was a girl’s basketball coach at a local high school and I was his biggest fan. I would sit at the end of his bench and always scream at the players “Good Job” and hiss and growl every time the opposing team would be shooting free throws. I attended his basketball camps every summer and was the star every year.

I was always the adventurous kid and in my spare time I always wanted to explore the world around me and see how far one path could take me, before I had to turn around and come home. I would always take my bike, sometimes miles by myself exploring the trial that ran behind our house.

Another important part of me were My Grandparents on my mother’s side. Whenever they would visit, I was always excited, because I knew that they would bring me back gifts from their travels around the world. It was that time in their lives where they had just retired and spent the first 10 years of it traveling the globe. My grandmother would always bring back treasures from everywhere. One time she brought back a beret from France, which I proudly wore to school every day until I was 10. Another item she brought back was this intricate hand woven vest with dragons and circles on it from China. She had told me that she purchased it on the Great Wall where she learned about the culture there and how dragons served as a means of protection.
When the war had broken out in Ireland between the Catholics and the protestants, my grandparents joined a group that every summer would bring together one Protestant and one Catholic to try to create peace in the country. My grandparents were amazing people and I loved them very much.
Being a teacher from New Mexico that worked with lower income families, my Grandmother had the opportunity to work very closely with the Native American Tribes in the region. She would always share stories of the culture they had, stories of respecting the land, and honoring everything and everyone within it, telling me tales of great warriors, spirits and tribal dance. One time she even went in to have eye surgery, and because my sister and I were visiting and she had no one else to drive her, she decided to forgo anesthesia “like a native warrior would” so she could drive herself home and be with us. She was an amazing woman and one who inspired me greatly. One of the fondest memories I had of her, was the day she came to visit and she brought me a gift… it was a picture of a guardian angel, and she explained to me what a guardian angel was and it was in that moment that I felt protected by something greater. My Grandmother in that moment became my guardian angel which would become much more apparent many years later.

Back at school, I started having some trouble. I had always known that I was different than everybody else…and it scared me. As far back as I remember, I can recall always having a different orientation to the world. I was different than the other kids my age and worst of all, I knew it. And I knew enough that to be different was not good and that if I were to get along with my fellow classmates I would have to hide my innermost feelings and suppress how I really felt about a lot of things.
Over the course of the next few years, I became more aware of my difference which made me feel more and more alienated from people around me. The same world my grandmother had once taught me to love and to cherish slowly seemed to be crashing in on me. I was alone.
As adolescents will do when faced with those who stray from the “norm”, I soon found my self slowly ostracized from my peer group. I wish I could have taken pictures from above my group of friends, because at the beginning of my sixth grade year I started out at the very center and over the course of a couple months I slowly was pushed out. My difference became something that was harder to hide; and internally harder to accept. I would be called such horrible things by people I once considered friends, and found myself deeper in isolation. I found solace in knowing that I still had my family and my soccer team and even God left in my life. When I was called such horrible things it was “Father Forgive them for they know not what they do” that I would repeat to myself over and over again to get through my day. It was this that kept me going, words my grandmother had once instilled within me.

And the funny part was that throughout all of the name calling and degradation, to the whole world, everything appeared fine. I still excelled in everything I did. I was the captain of my soccer team, first chair violinist for our school orchestra, acknowledged for my work ethic and simply put a kid that seemed to have it all. And yet, every day I would find myself coming home and escaping to the seclusion of my room. I became the hunchback of Notre Dam; I became not afraid of the outside world, but more so, myself. The same names and taunts that others used against me, I had internalized and when I looked into the mirror, I knew what I really was.
As the years dragged on, the taunting became a constant in my life. It became something that drove me away from some of the things I loved the most. While I still had my club soccer team to turn to, my passion for basketball dwindled, to the point where when I actually made the basketball team in 9th grade, I decided not to play because my teammates had been my tormentors. My father the basketball coach, the man who had watched me play all those years and knew how good I really was, was quite shocked when I came home and told him that I had decided not to play. When he asked why, I was scared to tell him the truth because I didn’t want him, my father to start thinking the same thing that they did. The more depressed I became, the more I tried to hide it from those I loved the most. I stopped going out with my family because I was afraid that someone from school would call me those awful names in front of them and that my family would think the same thing and reject me as my peers had. I had heard once on TV that people like me were often rejected by their families, kicked to the curb if you will and left to live on the streets. I even heard once that families of people like me would rather their children be dead, than different like I was.
To escape the pain, I buried myself in movies and music and slowly drifted into an abyss known as my dark and cold room, where I would simply sit and wonder about why I was the way I was. I asked myself, is it true that someone like me was going to hell? Was I bad person? Inhuman? Was their something wrong with me? Sometimes I would cry myself to sleep and other nights I would yell at God and ask why? Why me? What purpose do I serve?
Fighting the internal hate and sadness that had overcome me by that point in my life, I often would ask God to simply end it all. It became a burden I no longer felt I could bare and on top of that I had distanced myself from everyone simply to numb the pain of wondering constantly “if they only knew who I really was, would they still love me?”.
I would fall asleep at night hoping never to return to the consciousness I knew, to die in my sleep and to forever escape the anguish of knowing who I really was.

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And yet I would wake, each morning. Faced with a new day. I was given life over and over again. And suddenly one day it just dawned on me… wait a second I wasn’t alone. Someone had been with me the whole entire time. Someone who loved me, who cared for me, and created me just the way I was.
Slowly but surely the more I started to think about it, the more I realized how wrong I was, how wrong my tormentors had been. In fact, I started to recognize that instead of being some ugly demonic person both I and society had made me out to be, I realized that my existence was quite the opposite.
I realized that not only am I something beautiful, but someone who is connected to something greater. That my existence is apart of a whole world of people all connected and all related in some way or another. I remembered the children in China my grandmother had once told me about. I remembered that stupid beret I would were every day. I remember the kids my grandparents would host every year from Ireland, the same kids who in their native land would be bitter enemies, but some how became the best of friends when they realized they were simply human. I remembered the stories of love and forgiveness of some foreign man who died on a cross my parents would read to me at night.
As I slowly came out to people and told them the truth about who I really was, the more I realized just how amazing it was to know that all along I had someone with me. That the same people who I once feared had always been there, that God had been in them for me and my life. From my mother who stood by my side on a rainy Sunday afternoon embracing my battered body and sobbing soul as I revealed to her who I really was. It was ok. In her heart she had always known and even more so, had always been there, whether I knew it or not. My father’s first words to me were “First foremost, and always, I love you…the same emotions and feelings of unconditional love a man once told his people. My sister my best friend, simply said, nothings changed, and it hadn’t. She was and always had been there. My friends in school, many had suspected all along and had remembered the times I made them laugh, or been a shoulder to cry on. They said that if I wasn’t the way I was, the way God had made me to be, then I wouldn’t have been the same person to them. They had been there all along too.
The same love I now knew was there, both for myself and from others, led me to also recognize the same beauty in even those who had hurt me once before. While my tormentors raced through my nightmares over and over again at one point in my life, I saw in them the same beauty I now knew to be in everyone, including me.
I am created of a different dust, but am still human, still thy brother, still thy neighbor, still thy friend. I am gay. I am human, in and of the same being. Of His flesh, His blood; of your flesh, your blood. I recognize that God exists not only in one person, but in everyone and everything. That we were all made in a common image, and that would be our existence itself. I am apart of something and what is in everyone and everything is God.

In my eyes, God is love. Love is what connects us to one another and what we strive for. It is the simple connection between one person and another. It is in every human being, in everyone.

conclusion

In conclusion, I just want to say that my story may be similar to many, but unique to me and me alone. I have realized how truly blessed I am and recognize the privilege I have been given in my life of knowing who I am and knowing that God loves me. There are so many people in this world who suffer far greater than I could have ever imagined. There are young women and men being exported from their native countries as sex slaves to greedy men. There are children in Darfur and Iraq who see bloodshed every day. There are people who are dying from starvation in both our country and abroad. There are people who experience hate and bias in multiple ways from the color of their skin, the country they were born in, the language they speak, their abilities to walk upright, see clearly or hear perfectly, people who are born of one gender or the other, people whose love is not recognized by others, children, elderly, and even some of us. There are people on our very campus who sit alone as I once did, scared of the world and scared of themselves.

If you take away one thing from my talk today, I hope it is not the loss of hope or feelings of despair, but rather the genuine sense that there is something greater in our lives that connects each and every one of us. There is something beautiful that we should embrace and cherish, love and commit ourselves too. So many times we have distain and disgust for things we may not know of first hand, but if we can open our eyes and accept all people no matter who they are, even people we’ve never met as truly God’s children, as perfect beings in and of themselves, then I think it will be easier to also accept ourselves.

Walk away from this Search, this experience not only KNOWING that you ARE LOVED, but remembering to give back this love to others as well, from a simple smile to that homeless person on the street or contributing your time and energy to one of the many humanitarian services around the globe, place these feelings and emotions into action, and remember those people out there who might not know or realize just how loved they truly are. I leave you with Yeha-Noha or Wishes of Happiness and Prosperity) by a group known as Sacred Spirits….a group my Grandmother once introduced to me.

SEARCH OPEN LETTER

Spirtual lessons learned from my study abroad

Dear Searchers,
Welcome to Search and to an experience that will forever alter the course of your life. Know first and foremost that you are meant to be here, in this moment, at this hour, in this place sitting next to the people to your right and left, in front and behind you along with all of the people that will come into your life in the next couple of days, whether you know them just now or for the rest of your life. Whatever that moment is to you, cherish it, respect it and honor it, for it can be a powerful tool for you throughout the course of your life.
For me, this moment in time, represents love. Pure and simple love and the idea or concept that no matter who you are, where you come from, or the life experiences you have faced or will face, you should know that somewhere in this world there are people who not only love you, but are there for you in ways you would never expect them to be. In your darkest hour know that there is someone in this world who loves you. It truly is all around you, and every where you have ever gone or ever will go.
In fact, I’m writing to you now from Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam on my travels around the world through a program called semester at sea where we live on a fully staffed cruise ship traveling the globe at yes, 20 miles per hour. We have visited such countries as Brazil, South Africa, India, Vietnam, and Malaysia. It’s been an amazing adventure so far and when you get this I will be in the historic city of Bejing, China. I’m truly living my dreams.
One of the most fascinating things that I have learned on my adventure is the incredible capacity for human beings to love. One of the saddest things in the world to me used to be the simple fact that I would never meet each and every person in the entire world. There was just something about not being able to know who each person is on the inside and out, understanding their life histories and what life experiences made them who they were. But I’ve come to realize that to a degree I already know every person in the world who has existed and will exist some day and that is because we share something very important in common, and that is our humanity. No matter where I have gone, a simple smile lights someone up inside. A child’s innocent laugh is just the same as well, and so are the tears of woman begging for food for her child. The joy and pain of the world is cross cultural and imbedded in each and every one of us.
On my journey I have been blessed to feel the warmth of the Indian Ocean as the sun beat down on our ship. I have tasted the spices and teas of India. I have heard the beautiful laughter of children who simply love life in South African townships. I’ve smelt the incense in the air at a Hindu prayer service. I’ve traced my hands along the marble stones of the Taj Mahal. I’ve been part of a massive gyrating body of people creeping down the street to loud music celebrating carnival in Brazil. I’ve gone on a safari and seen baby lions, elephants, deer and more I’ve awoken to a sunrise so beautiful it brought me to tears. I’ve taken the same path that millions of slaves had to travel from South Africa to the Americas. I’ve felt the hand of an untouchable. I’ve seen, heard, tasted, smelt, and felt the world and when it comes down to it, I’ve truly seen how interconnected we are. How our lives are parallel to many we may never meet, but most importantly in my heart I have witnessed how alike we all truly are.
So as you sit there bathed in love from around the world, reflect on what this love means and how it applies to you and your life. How this feeling that you are feeling right now is shared by millions around the world in a million different ways and how truly interconnected we all are and could be if we were to give it a little more attention. No one can be alone in the world when they learn to look into each other and see what we all have in common, what we share, the love that we have for our world and one another. So please continue the rest of your Search knowing how beautiful you are simply for being you and how your existence in and of itself makes the world we all share that much brighter and beautiful because you are here. Remember to live awake and aware that this world is amazing and that right here, right now is the moment to shine, to be yourself, to love yourself and others, and to live your dreams in the here and now.