Tag: GLBT

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GALA Festival X – Music Can Heal, by Carol White

On the third day out from
having been immersed in the music of GALA Choruses Festival X for six days and
nights, with songs and melodies and harmonies and words swirling around in my
brain and my heart, I feel compelled to write down just a few stories from my
own personal experiences at the Festival to illustrate the Power of Music to
heal our souls and perhaps even to transform the world.
On Saturday, July 2,
2016, 6,600 gay and lesbian people from around the world showed up in Denver,
Colorado at our esteemed Performing Arts Complex with one goal in mind:  To Sing. 
There were over 200 choruses and ensembles who had been scheduled to
perform for each other at Boettcher Concert Hall, Temple Buell Theater, Ellie
Caulkins Opera House, the smaller Stage Theater, and the gigantic 5,000-seat
Bellco Theater.
The buzz in the air was
palpable at registration, lifting us to another plane before the music even
began.  And then it started — with over
400 voices from all of the Colorado GLBT choruses lined up on four levels of
the parking garage, overlooking the Galleria outside the theaters. 
The trumpets began and
the voices rang out with a special power as they proclaimed “In praise of song”
that echoed throughout the space in the garage and the covered Galleria, so
that the sound appeared to emanate straight from heaven itself.
This was followed by a
big and stirring arrangement of “America the Beautiful,” during which song
several large banners on the different levels were unfurled that said, “We
Stand With Orlando.”  Coming so soon
after the worst mass shooting in American history at a gay nightclub in
Orlando, Florida, the mass chorus added a verse for those we had lost, and
ended the song after the last verse with a rousing “America, America, America,”
each higher and louder and with more harmony than the one before.  Chill bumps and tears came easily and
naturally.  And a measure of pride that
said, “Those are MY PEOPLE singing that!”
Then came the third piece
commissioned for the occasion and conducted by the composer, “Mountains and
Rivers,” a song about Colorado to give a rousing welcome to everyone at the
Festival.
All this and we had not
even started yet.  On to Boettcher for
the Opening Ceremony, so to speak, featuring several choruses, including the
New York City Gay Men’s Chorus, One Voice mixed chorus from Minneapolis, the
Atlanta mixed chorus, the San Diego Women’s Chorus, and Take Note from Denver,
all singing in the round throughout the hall. 
And this concert had to be repeated to accommodate all of the attendees.
Keep in mind that, in
order to give everyone a chance to perform for at least a half-hour set,
concerts were happening in these three halls simultaneously mornings and
afternoons every day of the week, making it impossible to hear everyone and
forcing us to choose what to attend, and where and when.  So I can only comment on a few that Judith
and I attended, with no intention to leave anyone out.  We heard about 50 choruses out of 200, so
there were many that we unfortunately missed.
Probably the most moving
and memorable moment of the Festival came on the second day in Ellie Calkins
Opera House.  It was during the 3 to 5
p.m. “block concert,” each of which featured four different choruses.  The last choir to perform in this block was
the Orlando Gay Chorus.  Every seat in
Ellie was taken and people were standing behind every section in the
audience.  As approximately 65 men and women
took the stage and got onto the risers, there was a several-minutes-long
standing ovation before they sounded a note.
The conductor took the
podium and they sang three or four songs. 
Then he grabbed the microphone and began talking about the Pulse
Nightclub shooting and how it had shocked their whole community, and that their
chorus had come together and answered the call to help to heal the LGBTs and
everyone else in their city by singing at over 20 different events, vigils, and
memorial services within the last two weeks. 
Then he said, “If you know this next song, sing along with us.”  The song was “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” 
Well, 2,000 singers in
the audience joined with the Orlando chorus and we all raised our voices in a
gorgeous mutual message of assurance that gave that song more meaning than it
had ever had before.  The second time
through everyone was standing and holding hands as tears flowed freely down our
collective cheeks.  No one who was there
will ever forget it.
On the way out of the
theater, as the Orlando Chorus filed through the lobby and into the Galleria
outside, they were surrounded by 2,000 cheering and clapping and hugging
fans.  They said they had never
experienced such love.
Just to mention a few
other highlights:
1.   A chorus of 1,000 gay men with orchestra in
the Bellco Theater singing “I Am Harvey Milk” cantata with the composer from
Broadway singing the part of Harvey Milk.
2.  The Seattle Men’s Chorus performing with the
Seattle Women’s Chorus on stage at the Buell Theater for a mixed chorus of
approximately 300 people singing a stunning arrangement of “I Love You” and
“What A Wonderful World.”
3.  The Las Vegas Men’s Chorus singing a deeply
moving song called “Tell My Father” from the Civil War musical.
4.  One Voice mixed chorus from Charlotte singing
about “Glenda and Lauree: Certain Kinds of Love Never Die.”
5.  Our Song: The Atlanta Gay and Lesbian Chorus
singing and staging Eric Whitacre’s “Fly To Paradise.”
6.  The 200-voice Turtle Creek Chorale from
Dallas singing “Angels Calling.”
7.  Combined choirs at the Opening Concert singing
“Glory” from the movie Selma.
8.  The Classical Masterworks Singalong in
Boettcher where hundreds of us got to sing with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra
on some famous choruses by Bach, Handel, Mozart, Brahms, Verdi, etc.
9.  International groups such as Mano a Mano,
five fabulous flamboyant men from Cuba; Homonics, three men in suits from
Dublin, Ireland; the European Queer Choir; Schola
Cantorosa, 25 excellent singers from Hamburg, Germany; the Beijing Queer
Choir, 12 darling women and men from China who were able to remove their masks
for the first time; and a combined International Chorus at the Closing Concert
singing “Imagine.”
10.  The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus recounting their
tour to the Middle East.
11.  Charis – St. Louis Women’s Chorus doing
“Sometimes we have to sing in unison, Sometimes we have to sing in harmony.”
12.  Denver Women’s Chorus singing “An
Exhortation,” words by Barack Obama, and “You Are My Music.”
13.  Des Moines Gay Men’s Chorus, when the woman
conductor walked out onto the stage, had everyone in Boettcher stand, and on
July 4 conducted all of us in the best “Star Spangled Banner” I have ever
heard.
14.  Jubilate! The Women’s Chorus of Corvallis,
Oregon, singing “Endangered Species” by Denver’s own Diane Reeves.
15.  The largest and arguably the best – San
Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus – at least 300 men in tuxes and top hats overflowing
the risers at Boettcher and singing Broadway and more.
16.  The Turtle Creek Chorale Chamber Chorus doing
“Come Ye Disconsolate,” including the text, “Earth has no sorrow that heaven
cannot heal.” 
As you can tell, I could
go on and on.  Maybe from this small
sampling you get the idea.  The GALA
Festival that happens every four years is a coming together of GLBT voices that
is at the same time joyful and healing and powerful and unifying.  It is life-affirming and life-changing. 
When I was conducting
GALA choruses years ago, I had a motto: 
“Make ‘em laugh, make ‘em cry, and inspire ‘em.”  This Festival did all of that and more.  As they said at the end of the week, “We have
started a song and it cannot stop.” 
GALA Festival X has 6,600
stories.  This has been one of them.
© 19 Jul 2016 
About
the Author 
 I was born in Louisiana in
1939, went to Southern Methodist University in Dallas from 1957 through 1963,
with majors in sacred music and choral conducting, was a minister of music for
a large Methodist church in Houston for four years, and was fired for being gay
in 1967.  After five years of searching,
I settled in Denver and spent 30 years here as a freelance court reporter.  From 1980 forward I have been involved with
PFLAG Denver, and started and conducted four GLBT choruses:  the PFLAG Festival Chorus, the Denver Women’s
Chorus, the Celebration ’90 Festival Chorus for the Gay Games in Vancouver, and
Harmony.  I am enjoying my 11-year
retirement with my life partner of 32 years, Judith Nelson, riding our bikes, going
to concerts, and writing stories for the great SAGE group.
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How Being Lesbian Has Directed My Spiritual Journey – A Journey to Serenity, by Betsy

I was recently reminded of the
huge respect I have for the 12 Step Program when I attended an Al-anon meeting
as a guest.  I had some knowledge of the
12 steps from some previous experiences, but have never actually worked the
program. 
I was amazed to hear a member
share that he was thankful for the alcoholism in his family as it is because of
that that the man had been introduced to the 12 steps program.
For the next couple of days, I
attempted to draw parallels in my life to what I had heard in the meeting and
to apply my experiences to some of the steps. 
It finally occurred to me that I could make an analogy with my
experience of growing up gay and coming out.
Consider the first step, for
example.  “We admitted that we were
powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable.”  Apply this to coming out, I mused.  I acknowledged, accepted that I was
homosexual and powerless to change that fact.”
Growing up pretending to be
straight, living the life-style of a heterosexual person can be seen as
resistance to nature itself. A self-imposed resistance put in place by societal
norms and the culture around sexual behavior of the time.  Admitting, that is, giving in to the reality
that I am homosexual, not heterosexual, accepting this fact and being totally
aware of it could be seen as the first step to take in managing a large problem
in one’s life. Clearly I prefer using the word “acknowledge” or accept” to the
word “admit” in this context. Making others aware of our true self reinforces
one’s resolve and strength to manage that life and to live honestly.
Being gay, of course, is not a
direct parallel to abuse of alcohol. Although there are those who may see
homosexuality as an addiction and something of which one should diligently work
to deny him/herself and to be rid of.  Fortunately,
it appears that most people today know better. 
Today we are anxiously waiting to see whether our Supreme Court wants to
be included in that majority group.
Step 2: “We came to see that a
power greater than ourselves restored us to sanity.”  I see my sexuality as part of my Being and my
being represents, according to my belief, the power of God within me.  This is not something I control any more than
I can control the color of my eyes, the shape of my face, or any other aspect
of my tangible or intangible form.
Steps 3, 4, and 5 further
reflect the healing effect of acknowledging who I truly am both in word and
life style.
I’m going to skip step 6—“We’re
entirely ready to have God remove these defects of character.”
However, I can see
interpreting this as a supplication to God to forgive me for not honoring my
true self at an earlier time in my life.
The rest of the steps are more
directly applicable to issues other than coming out/being out. However, I see
them as very powerful concepts to put into practice for any one any time.
I also was reminded of the
Serenity Prayer which is used to open and close the Al-anon meetings.  I have a miniature of the Serenity Prayer on
my bedside table.  It’s been there a long
time and I usually forget it is there. I am very happy to be reminded of its
powerful words—very appropriate for GLBT’s—and I hope to remember to utter them
or at least think of them every day.
“God, give me the strength to accept what I cannot change,
The courage to change that which I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.”
© 10 Jun 2015 
About the Author 

Betsy has been active in
the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old
Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been
retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major
activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a
volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading,
writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage.
She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren.
Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her
life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.
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Writing by Michael King

Off and on in the past, I attempted to do some writing. The stories were probably OK but I never did anything with them. They may be in some notebook that I will never open again. My spelling was atrocious and I printed so that even I might be able to read it. I didn’t use the dictionary until more recently and then along with the arrival of Merlyn there is a computer and spell-check.

About four and a half years ago I started attending the men’s coffee at the GLBT Center when it was still on Broadway. When I found out that Jackie, Ken’s intern with the SAGE program was doing a “Telling your story” group, I decided to attend. At first I did a couple of oral reports based on the topic. Then I decided to write the stories. It seems that no matter what the topic was, some suppressed memory, baggage of the past would appear. I would choke up. I had no idea how much childhood pain I had hidden from myself. I’m sure it is a form of self-protection to ignore unpleasant and traumatic experiences so we can continue on. Having been unable to resolve the situation and not having the skills to confront those family members that I depended on, I tried to ignore all unpleasantness. Some things that nearly brought on tears and caused me to feel like I was falling apart had been forgotten for well over 60 years.

Within a few weeks of these emotional breakdowns, I realized that I started feeling a resolve, a freedom, an understanding. I recognized that as a child I could not possibly have known how to be perfect, wise, in control, etc.

As time went on I had less and less flashbacks. I had a new freedom and was realizing that for me to really be comfortable with myself I had to discover my own truths, my now unencumbered potentials. I needed to examine what I wanted to do with my life all over again. I no longer had the old encumbered paradigm of how to be. I could more freely create a future that is based on my wishes and desires, hopes and dreams, freed from outside limitations and expectations.

This new awareness allowed for subtle changes, no dramatic or immediately recognizable differences. Mostly I could be without guilt or self-doubt. I could say “No” without getting emotional. And interestingly enough, I could have critical thoughts and not feel I had to say anything or sense regret. I could just keep them to myself or I could, if I so desired, raise a stink or attempt to change things without the accompanying embarrassment.

Now what happens when I write is that I have little concern what other people think. I seldom get emotional and I find that writing is a fantastic tool for more self-discovery, for a kind of inner growth and allows me to critically examine what I think and feel in areas that I’ve previously given no thought to. I am very thankful for “Story Time”. Writing has opened many doors and has come to be something to look forward to each week. It also is an activity that Merlyn and I do at the same time and share with each other before we come to the group. I’m so glad we got Phil to take charge and build the program that Jackie started. I think it is one of the best programs at the GLBT Center and that seems to be the opinion of all the regular participants. It has been not only an activity for personal gratification but an environment where we have developed friendships, better understanding of one another and we get insights from the disclosures that can only be made in such a loving and trusting group.

© 13 May 2013

About the Author

  

I go by the drag name, Queen Anne Tique. My real name is Michael King. I am a gay activist who finally came out of the closet at age 70. I live with my lover, Merlyn, in downtown Denver, Colorado. I was married twice, have 3 daughters, 5 grandchildren and a great grandson. Besides volunteering at the GLBT Center and doing the SAGE activities, “Telling your Story,” “Men’s Coffee” and the “Open Art Studio.” I am active in Prime Timers and Front Rangers. I now get to do many of the activities that I had hoped to do when I retired; traveling, writing, painting, doing sculpture, cooking and drag.

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Camping: With Apologies to Certain HOMOPHOBIC Boys Organizations by Ray S

The stair treads creaked and groaned when I took another step up to the attic storeroom of my grandma’s old Victorian house.

When I was a kid my folks, my brother, and I lived with Gram for about three or four years. Dad had been transferred from his post at Rocky Mountain National Park, back to the Park Service headquarters in Washington, D.C. It was supposed to be a temporary posting, so Gram’s house in an Annapolis suburb was where we all lived. My brother and I joined the Boy Scouts of America having already completed the prerequisite Cub and Webelos servitude back in Estes Park, Colorado.

Now, some twenty-two years later I return to Londontowne, MD to help with the disposal of the house’s furnishings in preparation for the sale of the house. Gram had decided to check up on our grandpa and see what shenanigans he might have gotten into since he had died some seventeen years earlier.

I reach the room that had always been set aside for storing old steamer trunks and miscellaneous luggage, out-of-style clothes and furniture, baby diapers (just in case one of the grand children produced another leaf on the family tree), old school books, high school and college yearbooks. There even is Gramp’s Army Air Corps uniform.

Digging around in a far corner I find my old camping stuff—the mess kit, canteen, and a number of merit badges that were never sewn onto our uniforms. Gram used to say: “Never know when these things will be needed again” or “Waste not, want not.

There it is—my official BSA pup tent! My search was over. My mission to the attic jungle room was to find the little tent to give to my neophyte Boy Scout nephew just in time for the upcoming Jamboree this summer.

Boy, does this bring back memories. I learned a lot more than knot tying and lanyard weaving in the clandestine shelter of that two-boy tent. Scouting covered a lot more territory than hikes, campfires, and all the pages in the manual. Adolescent boys came to Scouts but left Scouts—for better or for worse—as budding young men. Any vague acknowledgement in the manual, relative to sex education was unheard of and besides what hadn’t you already picked up in the boys’ room at middle school?

There was stuff you knew, you were warned about or outright threatened over and forbidden to do. Of course, that said, the warnings made it all the more tempting, even if some of us were just following the leader. The high point occurred when four or five of our troop hung out in the dark of a vacant garage was what is poetically named a “circle jerk.” Curiosity always spurred you on to pursue the forbidden fruits or in future years of the joys of hetero-, homo-, or bi- or just plain fooling-around sex.

Scouting camping is such fun, character building, healthful, teaches you how to get along with your fellows. Hopefully discouraging bullying and taking the Lord’s name in vain. Scouts Honor! And so many more virtues, and believe it or not, some of these do rub off (or in) to keep the spirit of “Love thy neighbor” alive in you all your life.

Of course there is a hidden disclaimer, just like the TV ads for miracle drugs, for all of the above; Parents, do you know where your little Boy Scout is or was?

Any volunteers for a sleep-over in a two-person pup tent on a camping outing?

© 17 March 2014

About the Author  


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A Visit to the Doctor/Nurse by Lewis

This story is not just about one visit to a doctor or nurse. It involves multiple visits to several doctors. But it is all just one story. It does not have a happy ending. Nor does it paint a particularly flattering picture of the state of the health care industry in the U.S. today. The names of the medical professionals have been abbreviated to obscure their true identities. The source material was not my personal recollection primarily, though I was present for each of the events, but was taken from my late husband’s personal journal, written at the time of the events in question.

In the summer and fall of 2003, Laurin’s PSA level began to rise. He was 77 years old. At one point, his PSA level was measured at 19–almost double what was considered to be on the high side of normal. His doctor, Dr. S, recommended a biopsy of his prostate. On this particular visit, Dr. S. was accompanied by a young female intern, who was “shadowing” him. Dr. S. asked if it was OK if she was present for the visit. Laurin consented.

In the corner of the doctor’s office was an unusual type of lamp. It rested on the floor with a long neck that curved from vertical to horizontal and had a small, elongated but high-powered lamp on the end. I asked Dr. S. what the lamp was for. He said, “I’ll show you”. He asked Laurin to lie back on the examination table and pull down his underwear. He placed the light at the end of the lamp under Laurin’s scrotum and turned it on. With the light behind it, the scrotum became translucent. Dr. S. said, “See that? That’s water.” I could not begin to imagine what his point was.

Our next appointment was even more bizarre. It was a Monday. Apparently, Dr. S. was intending to perform the biopsy on Laurin’s prostate. However, Laurin and I were both confused on that point. Consequently, we had not done the necessary prep. In addition, Laurin (and I) had a number of concerns about possible adverse effects of the biopsy. (Biopsy of the prostate involves inserting an instrument through the anus. Triggering the device causes a hollow needle-like device to penetrate the wall of the rectum and snatch a bit of tissue from the prostate gland. If any procedure is likely to invoke queasiness in a male patient, including me, it is this one.)

Dr. S.’s response was to basically go ballistic. After assuring us that complications have arisen from less than 0.1% of such tests he added, “If you (meaning Laurin) were a 5-year-old, I would simply tell you to lie down and take it.”

Well, that was the end of our doctor-patient relationship with Dr. S. We started seeing another urologist, Dr. H. He informed us that Laurin’s PSA was at 9. No explanation was given for the apparent sudden drop. In addition, Laurin’s Gleason Score–a measure of the aggressiveness of the cancer–was 7. These numbers are borderline-positive for Stage IIa prostate cancer.

The recommended therapy for Laurin was radioactive seed implants, also known as internal radiation therapy. This involves inserting a large number of tiny pellets of a radioactive isotope, such as plutonium, into the prostate gland. In Laurin’s case, approximately 70 of these tiny pellets were placed, one-at-a-time, into his prostate by a radiological oncologist, Dr. T. The patient is given a local anesthetic and the process takes less than an hour. The after-effects are mild and short-lived. I was in the waiting room of the doctors’ clinic the entire time. Eventually, the prostate dries up–I won’t say is fried–so that it looks like a date…or raisin, I’m not sure which.

On one of the follow up visits with Dr. H., Laurin was in the examining room waiting for more than a few minutes. When Dr. H. came in, he couldn’t find some instrument that he needed and in a pique of righteous rage at the negligent nurse, with his arm swept everything on the counter onto the floor. I could hear the commotion in the waiting room. Time to look for urologist number three. (Some time later, I asked Dr. T, the radiological oncologist, who was really quite civil and was himself suffering from a rare form of bone cancer, “What is the deal with urologists, anyway?” He answered to the effect that urologists are notoriously emotional creatures, which I interpreted as, “When it comes to your dick, don’t get sick.”

Recently, medical researchers have been telling men that they should stop getting routine PSA tests if over a certain age. They tell us that a very high percentage of us will develop prostate cancer–somewhat like Alzheimer’s Disease–but that it is very slow growing and we could very well die of some other cause first. Laurin was given similar counseling by Dr. H. early on. Yet, doctors don’t put croissants on the table by not treating disease. I don’t know what Laurin’s life would have been like had he not had the internal radiation therapy. I do know what his life was like for years after the treatment, however.

Fecal incontinence, according to Dr. T., affects only about 5% of men who have had the seed implants. Just another seemingly inconsequential factor in balancing prostate cancer treatment against letting it run its course. Other friends of mine who have had surgery to remove the prostate ended up with a perforated rectum or lifelong impotence. In terms of the impact upon a man’s quality of life after age 75, I would have to say that fecal incontinence must be the worst of the three side effects. The horrors Laurin and I went through are too embarrassing and humiliating to attempt to describe here. Let me just say that they led to him having to put severe restrictions on his social life, undergoing a colostomy, and suffering the complete loss of his self esteem.

Let me end this diatribe with this caveat: the medical profession will never say “No” to a decision to fight cancer with everything you’ve got. Medical costs during the last year of life account for an enormous chunk of Medicare dollars expended. In America, we tend to believe in “fight to the last ounce of your strength” or, as Dylan Thomas wrote:

“Do not go gentle into that good night,


Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

However, if the light has faded to a dung brown, perhaps it’s dying be a blessing.

© 22 June 2013 




About the Author


I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth.

Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

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All My Exes Live In Texas by Pat Gourley

Actually none of my exes live in Texas, are from Texas or to my knowledge ever had any significant connection to Texas. I have been there only once. That was an overnight stay in Dallas for teaching purposes on a new HIV drug called ddc. We were beginning a study with it at the AIDS clinic where I worked. I believe the year was 1990 or 1991. I seem to recall that this overnighter was in August and other than staying in a very plush hotel it was the throat grabbing heat and humidity that I remember best. The short trip from cab to inside the hotel made me think ‘so this is what hell is like.’

For those of you who have not seen the Dallas Buyers Club, currently playing at the Esquire Theatre one of the drugs they were trying hard to have access to early was ddc. AZT was all that was available early on and many thought it was poison. Ironically it was the high dosage of AZT that was the big problem and in the long run it proved less toxic than ddc. AZT is still in use today in combinations with other drugs and ddc nowhere to be found.

I believe the first buyers clubs were in New York City and on the west coast a direct offshoot of ACT-UP organizing and efforts. They did not originate in Texas.

I strongly recommend the movie which I feel is great validation for folks not sitting by quietly waiting to be saved (or not) but rather taking matters into our own hands and strongly and forcefully demanding change and action. This is something we queers are quite adept at when we put our minds to it. There has been some controversy in the gay press about the movie and after last night’s Golden Globe awards where the best actor and best supporting actor awards were won by the stars of the movie some minor bitching continues. I won’t get into the controversies here other than to say I think it is perhaps a bit “much ado about not much.” Everyone does agree the acting was superb.

In retrospect I do feel bad that I was attending a drug company teaching session on ddc in Dallas in the early 1990’s rather than spending my time visiting their buyer’s club. We of course had to be properly trained on the drug before we could be designated a study site for it. I never got to meet the infamous Ron Woodroof and the charismatic Rayon, the lead characters in the Dallas Buyers Club.

In the movie the main protagonist is a man named Ron Woodroof played by Matthew McConaughey. The other main character is a trans-women played in quite dramatic fashion by Jared Leto named Rayon. A strong subtext throughout the movie is the genuine bonds that developed between her and McConaughey a supposedly straight man. The Dallas Buyers Club itself as an entity doesn’t really take off until Rayon becomes involved and brings in many customers. It needed a bit more legitimate queer street cred, which Rayon brought to it, countering the McConaughey character and his early on really vicious, drug addled homophobia.

Buyer’s Clubs became a quite widespread phenomenon in the late 1980’s and were a force even locally here in Denver until the late 1990’s when protease inhibitors came on the scene. The flawed but immensely better new drugs that actually worked to keep the virus at bay tended to take the desperate energy out of the sails of the various PWA coalitions and the often loosely affiliated buyers clubs.

Locally there was a strong PWA coalition and a loosely associated buyer’s club. I was never involved directly with either though I did on occasion contribute educational pieces for their newsletter called Resolute, my most infamous piece being one titled “Its Chemotherapy Stupid.” I might read it here some day.

I do though recall that our buyer’s club was run in a bit more egalitarian fashion than the Dallas Buyers Club was. Less profit motivated for sure and really queer run here. I only accessed them once and that was the day before my partner David died at Rose Medical Center on September 17th, 1995. His AIDS was quite advanced by this time and David had just been home a few days from a rather lengthy and traumatic hospital stay. He adamantly did not want to return for another stay or to die there if at all possible.

The big issue was controlling pain. All we had at home were morphine tables and plenty of them but they didn’t seem to be working and were a sustained release version. I thought a quicker acting liquid form might be more helpful but it was late in the evening and accessing it through his doc at Rose problematic. So I picked up the phone and called one of my friends, a local buyer’s club member. Within less than an hour our doorbell rang. No one was at the door but there was a small paper bag on the stoop with two bottles of liquid morphine.

Unfortunately, that didn’t work either. So we gave in and went back to Rose for IV pain relief. That did help immensely but David died the next morning at 9 A.M.

I am reminded constantly how lucky I am to be alive today. I turned 65 yesterday. I know that makes me a youngster in this room but in the AIDS community I am an old man. I do think I owe a great debt of gratitude to all the AIDS activists of the 1980’s and 1990’s for speeding up the process of drug development and access to these drugs for people with AIDS. If not for a lot of loudmouthed and uppity queens, including many in Texas, I might very well not be here today.

© January 2014

About the Author



I was born in La Porte Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

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The Essence of GLBTQ by Lewis

Wiktionary defines “essence” — in usage relevant to this topic — as 
     1) “the inherent nature of a thing or an idea” and 
     2) “a significant feature of something.”

Therefore, the “essence of GLBTQ” might be otherwise stated as, “What is it about gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer people that makes them unique from everyone else?” The inclusion of the terms “transgender” and “queer” complicates the answer to a degree that makes generalizations meaningless. In fact, the word “queer,” when appropriated to describe oneself, seems intended to obviate any attempt to characterize it in any meaningful, shorthand way. “Transgender,” because it has nothing to do with sexual attraction but is rather gender identity related, seems to me to also lie outside any attempt to describe the “essence” of the first three letters — GLB — which are primary referent to an individual’s sexual attractions.

Those who condemn homosexuality invariably do so on the basis of same-sex erotic behaviors. Those behaviors are not the “essence” of homosexuality but the manifestation — or “womanifestation,” if you prefer — of it. The essence is the innate part of our nature that is drawn to members of our gender, rather than the opposite gender. This seems to fly in the face of everything we know about Adam and Eve and Charles Darwin’s theory on the survival of the species. Consequently, it is subject to accusations that we are operating against the Will of God and Nature and, therefore, must be deviant, if not evil. It is as if we are the ugly duckling whose ugliness is on the inside and, therefore, never changing.

What distinguishes gay and lesbian individuals from heterosexuals is our being forced into the position of having either to conform to erotic behaviors that are unnatural — even repugnant — to us by repressing those desires that are such a vital part of who we are in order to appear “normal” or to act on our own natural inclinations at the risk of being ostracized by a significant portion of society. Our “essence,” in my opinion, is the strength of our characters that has developed during what is an existential struggle to be both true to ourselves and successful members of an intolerant society.

There are many gay men and women who have never allowed the prejudices of our society to interfere with what they see as their own natural and true behavior. A tip of my hat to them. They have displayed a courage and self-knowledge that I can only admire from a distance. Their “essence” has been knowing their own heart and following it wherever it might lead. This is a rare quality, even among those who have never experienced self doubt and the fear of social opprobrium.

For some who count themselves among the “GLB,” however, finding some sense of authenticity has come only with the undertaking of behaviors that are in themselves self-defacing — drug or alcohol abuse or unprotected sex, for example. For these, “essence” might well be overcoming addiction or dealing with the life-long consequences of HIV/AIDS.

Others of us have “gone along to get along.” We married in the traditional way, perhaps even had children. For these — and I count myself among them — our “essence” might be qualitatively analyzed in how we have related to our opposite-gender spouses and children, how we “came out” to them, whether or not we were faithful during the marriage, and what kind of relationship we have with them after moving on toward a state of greater authenticity.

I’m certain that there are gay men and lesbians who do not fall into any of the aforementioned categories. That is why I do not think that the notion of a “GLBTQ essence” is all that pragmatic. If anything, there may be an added layer or two of “essence” on our psychological auras. But, at the same time, we are all 99-94/100% pure human being, with, perhaps, a few more rough edges and/or a more highly-polished-surface here and there. I think the rest of the world is coming around to this view … and fairly rapidly. May it continue to be so.

We, the GLBTQ members of the most remarkable species of animal in the known universe have been granted a very special charter. We have been commissioned by the Great Mystery of All Existence not only to share our very special talents with the world but, in order to do so, to first learn to look in the mirror and see, not the “ugly duckling” that some of those we have loved may have so ignorantly and, perhaps, unknowingly branded us, but ourselves as whole and wholesome human beings whose lives will encompass a level of adventure that will make for many wonderful stories that beg to be shared.

[Everything that I have said above about “GLB” people would also apply to those on the “third rail” of sexual attraction discourse — men and women who are attracted to juveniles of either sex. Unfortunately, this subject is so fraught with phobia and loathing that merely to state that the sexual attraction toward children is akin to same-sex attractions to adults tends to elicit reactions one might expect from confessing to mass murder. I merely would state that none of us picked the type of persons to whom we are sexually attracted from a list like choosing the color of our next car. There are still perhaps 40% of Americans who believe that having same sex attractions is immoral. Those of us with a “glb” orientation should be the last to condemn anyone for attractions over which they have absolutely no control, unlike actions taken on those feelings, which are properly proscribed, just as statutory rape is properly proscribed.]

© 15 July 2013


About the Author


I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and I came to the beautiful state of Colorado out of my native Kansas by way of Michigan, the state where I married and had two children while working as an engineer for the Ford Motor Company. I was married to a wonderful woman for 26 happy years and suddenly realized that life was passing me by. I figured that I should make a change, as our offspring were basically on their own and I wasn’t getting any younger. Luckily, a very attractive and personable man just happened to be crossing my path at that time, so the change-over was both fortuitous and smooth. Soon after, I retired and we moved to Denver, my husband’s home town. He passed away after 13 blissful years together in October of 2012. I am left to find a new path to fulfillment. One possibility is through writing. Thank goodness, the SAGE Creative Writing Group was there to light the way.

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I Never Knew — Mutable Facts by Carlos

Did he remember me as I remembered him?

A couple of summers ago, playing on my computer, I typed in his name in a people search website, curious as to where the years had taken him. When his obituary of ten years earlier emblazoned my screen, a darkness of grief blotted out my emotions. I felt a suspension of thought, a resurgence of memories. I never knew.

I didn’t know he had died ten years before. After all, the last time I had seen him was at a very awkward, unexpected encounter where he had paid his respects at my father’s funeral twenty years earlier. I don’t remember what we said, only that I spoke his name for the first time in years; I did, however, recognize the gulf that divided us as he hurriedly walked away.

Interestingly, to my observant eyes, the obituary made only cursory mention of his wife with whom he had shared his final decades, yet it emphasized his ever-loving daughter and even more interestingly, his life-long allegiance to the church where he had served as sacristan, eucharistic minister and lector. How strange it was that as I read the obituary, memories of our shared pasts deluged my mind, memories of love in all its many and varied guises. Since we lost touch after I left Texas thirty years before, I often wondered if he remembered me as I remembered him. And now as I re-read the obituary, I concluded that death had finally effaced the irrational love that had since withered like a spray of once fragrant violets. I pondered whether over time I become nothing more than a sepia memory or whether I had the right to suspect that he had finally won the battle fought over a lifetime to obliterate me from his mind.

We had once shared secrets together, secrets of young love and hopeful futures over several years, as with needle and thread we quilted a covenant we trusted would last a lifetime. But I went away for a span of time and journeyed to foreign shores in distant lands as I fulfilled my obligations to my country. We wrote religiously in the interim, breathing life into our discoveries, distilling hopes like rain water percolating through layers of limestone. And when I returned, we tilled the earth in the backyard, determined to transform a plot of calcified soil into a reawakened garden of erotic extravagance. And for a while the bulbs and rhizomes we planted in the fall greeted us in the spring with rainbows of irises and ranunculi, tulips and daffodils. The sweet scent of arching peace roses and tender green grass enveloped us like a capsulated chrysalis. But he had changed; I had changed. Our improvised dance now seemed staged and amateurish. All too soon, we recognized we had miscalculated our misadventure as we pirouetted in our macabre ballet of fate. He wanted to be a father, dreaming of a little girl to whom he would build palaces of spun filigreed gold topped with silver moon beams radiating outward. I wanted him to love me with a love that was dawn and twilight and everything in between, no longer being satisfied with the love of first sight. Thus, he sent me away; I walked away. Nevertheless, even as I ascended into the skies far from him, I looked behind, hoping against hope that he would restore the primal cord that had been cut with a whetstone-sharpened steel blade.

He married within weeks, to what I believe was a wonderful woman he had known for years, a woman who was able to give him what I could not. Asking me to be his best man, I stood solemnly but tormented at bride and groom shared sacred vows. I wanted to give flesh to our sin before man and God lest we lose each other in the maelstrom of time. But I silenced my voice; I carved a smile upon my polychromed mask, and again, I flew away into the clouds. Nine months to the day, he sent me a letter informing me of the birth of a daughter hours earlier, a daughter he wrote who uncannily had my eyes, my skin, my mouth. Days later, he sent me a picture of him bathing the child, a look of sublime joy on his face. I realized he had discovered the treasure after which he had quested. I returned back to him not long after when he asked be to be the godfather of his beloved…his two beloveds joined in a momentary gasp of suspiration, the child holding her breathe as the pure water dedicated her to God; me gasping with unanswered questions.

And I walked away. Because the cicatrice in my heart kept opening and spewing molten pain that could not be cauterized, I again walked away, but this time I never returned. The moments became eons, and the eons coalesced into eternity. As I re-read his obituary, I hammered nails upon the entombed gyrations that had decimated with finality. I hoped that over time the church that he had so openly shunned when we were one offered him solace. I knew the beloved daughter he had birthed certainly did. I suspect he spent a lifetime trying to deny me, yet I retain a romantic hope, maybe even a vain hope, that maybe, just maybe, he experienced moments when he exalted me, when he honored that part of me that he carried in his heart forever.

And I wondered if he had remembered me as I remembered him.

© Denver
June 2, 2013 



About the Author 



Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.” In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter. I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic. Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming. Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth. My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun. I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time. My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands. I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty. I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.

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Casual Sex by Phillip Hoyle

Sex has never felt casual to me. Some have suggested that because of this I am not really gay, like the drag queen who claimed to my ex-wife that I wasn’t gay because when I had his beautiful body on my massage table I didn’t have sex with him. He echoed the complaint of much of the gay liberation movement that grew up during the time of free love and open relationships. The early gay movement presented these opening salvos of value to gain attention in order to gain civil rights for yet another segment of American people. They championed free-love among other rights. Still, even the most cursory look at “out” GLBTs reveals a much more complicated world of relationships, sexual practices, and preferences.

I really have no problem with the idea of casual sex. It’s fine with me although I have never been truly casual. When I came to Denver to live, I had sixteen different partners in my first sixteen months. The meetings began as casual pick-ups in bars. “Let’s have sex,” one smiling man at Charlies night club suggested. I agreed, and off we went to my apartment. The casual got a little more complicated when we negotiated what to do. It turned out we both wanted to do the same thing to one another but eventually found a mutually agreeable compromise and the once-again-casual fun began. Afterwards we talked about our backgrounds and found similar experiences, and in the exchange he emerged as a complex person, as much as I. Casually or otherwise, I liked him, his body, his openness, his personality. The several times we got together were great fun with vigorous sex, but I felt responsibility towards him and myself. Sex has always been like that for me. I feel like Johnny Carson, who said the reason he had so many divorces was that when he had sex with a woman, he thought he was supposed to marry her. When with men I don’t think in terms of marriage, but I may as well. If I’m casual in the initial act, I’m not casual in the aftermath when a real person emerges. Perhaps I was too long married, too long a pastor in churches. I just can’t maintain interest to an unattached sex organ.

Casual sex is probably the wrong expression for what I have observed in bars. There are forms for seeking to get laid that include pick up lines, banter, back-and-forth exchanges of glances, words, drinks, dances, kisses, and sometimes introductions. Even getting casual sex relies on long-established rules of communication. It’s rare to find it any other way since communications have to be understandable. 

I seek mental and emotional accord as well as sex. I want real, lively people in my life. I’m just that way. So… I’m a certain kind of gay person. I love sex but always lean towards complex relationships with complex personalities. That’s how it is for me: not too casual.

While I protest my interest in casual sex, I freely admit I have had sex outside of a committed relationship. I had sex in addition to a committed marriage, and in these variances I am not alone. In general, men seem happy to engage in casual sex even though there are social strictures against it. They do so in war; they do it when away on trips; they do it at home even with the possibility of getting caught and charged. The care of children and their mothers is a societal concern that has tended to limit the number of wives and keep men in control. In addition, control of family lineage and the distribution of wealth have long been preoccupations among the powerful. Societies don’t want to get out of control just because their men have too much testosterone, so they have developed standards of faithfulness within human marriages.

Men having sex with men don’t have to worry about pregnancies, so when Gay liberation became an issue, gay’s fought for sexual freedom as well. Gay men felt free of relational obligations until the discovery of the deadly STD HIV, then the co-infections such as hepatitis C, and then the re-emergence of syphilis. Then gay men had to calm down, refocus their attention, be less casual about it all, but they still wanted to suck it, still wanted to stick it, and still wanted to feel it buried deep inside and often with lots of different people. They (we) wanted the fucking intensity, and the rubber made it possible.

The accusations I have heard that I was not really gay, seem to point to an established form of free love, meaning casual sex within gay meanings. I am even more casual. No. I’m not. Nor am I particularly hung up. I want sex within friendship’s larger possibilities. I’m not interested to simply play out someone else’s fantasies. I want to relate at some more complex level. So I think in terms of sexualized friendships, something more akin to fuck buddies with the emphasis placed on buddies. This institution provides more than sexual release. As a form of friendship, it bows somewhat to the terms of contractual relationship. It certainly is more complex than John Richey’s young protagonist in the novel Numbers, much less goal-oriented than his adding notches to his whatever or adding variety to his numbering. It moves away from such quantitative goals to supplement them with a quality experience that I believe can only come with repeat performance. At least that’s my fantasy.

The current interest in establishing gay marriages by law seems to move the emphasis away from casual sex, but we must also remember that men who have been married to women all their adult lives still want and often get casual sex. The same surely will be true with gay men who seek formal, structured relationships, yet they seem willing to do so for financial, personal, control, romantic, or other reasons. Also they want it as a civil right and surely will win in this confrontation with general society.

© 17 February 2011

About the Author 

Phillip Hoyle lives in
Denver and spends his time writing, painting, giving massages, and socializing.
His massage practice funds his other activities that keep him busy with groups
of writers and artists, and folk with pains. Following thirty-two years in
church work, he now focuses on creating beauty and ministering to the clients
in his practice. He volunteers at The Center leading “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com
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Captured by Carlos


Captured, caught, entrapped, ensnared…all of these words have negative connotations, and of course, depending on the circumstances, the revelation of oneself to the world can have devastating effects, whether tangible or perceived. I still grimace when a few classmates in high school branded me a maricon, a joto, a mariposa since I could not catch a football or hit a ball with any finesse. After having my identity questioned, I discerned that I had choices to make. Later in life, I was again a casualty when I gave my heart prematurely to men who had no interest or inclination in nurturing it once the adrenaline rush dissipated. Again, I had choices to make. More recently, I found myself under the sword of Damocles when a professional informed me of possibilities of prostate cancer. Being terrified, I forfeited my power. And again I had choices to make. Looking back retrospectively, I’ve recognized that a challenge can, in fact, be an opportunity. Nevertheless, I’ve also concluded that no pain can ever compensate for the outcome.

In my childhood, I valued the identity instilled upon me by my nuclear family. My family never questioned why I preferred to play with my sister’s Easy Bake oven rather than with a baseball glove. My family encouraged me to love poetry rather than to critique it as being too sensitive, too different, too enticing for a little boy. I embraced books over athletics, gentleness over boldness. My parents never counseled me against watching in awe as Loretta Young, bedecked in resplendent gowns of silk and chiffon, sashayed across the screen on our Zenith television. I came to admire her demeanor, her identity, secretly of course, for I suspect that by that time I had learned the rules of playing hide and seek.

Little did I realize that once I stepped outside of my family’s threshold and into the world, my halcyon days would come to an end. The day would dawn when I would be caught red-handed, judged, and summarily sentenced for crimes against nature. When I entered the arena, that stage became gladiatorial combat, victory going to he who could assert his alpha male supremacy over others. Maybe that is why so many cultures have a strong belief in warding off the evil eye with amulets and totems, an attempt to maintain one’s sanctity and humanity in a world that so often hovers between heaven and hell. My entry into the world was fraught with insecurity and pain. Others recognized that I was queer even before I knew it. In order to satiate their own insecurities, bullies needed scapegoats to justify their own failures. Thus, they flung poisonous arrows in my direction. I was pommeled into a terrifying world of youthful competition, of constantly measuring myself against the others around me. I learned to live life in quiet desperation like so many other little boys and girls who drown in anonymity.

Later, when I decided to embrace my, dare I say, God-bestowed identity, and quest after being enfolded in manly arms, it didn’t take long for me to realize that my quest for love would not come easily. I offered too much too early to the advances of a handsome face or mellifluous words spoken in a moment of desire. I had naively expected to find redemption from a fellow inmate; instead I internalized self-induced doubt and condemnation. And the fissure grew into a fracture as I catapulted deeper into the abyss.

More recently, a urologist informed me, in her all-too-professional demeanor, that my unexpected inability to hold my bladder might, in fact, signal a developing cancer. I accepted her prognosis as thoughts of loss of control, youth, and mortality shrouded me like a cosmic black hole capturing light. After all, I was the organism being scrutinized through her lens. Thus, like many of us, I was caught time and time again and condemned to journey into the headwaters of self-loathing and misappraisal.

Many people, especially New Age types, have adopted a pseudo-belief borne from a Taoist perspective that opportunity and danger go hand-in-hand. It’s so convenient to conclude that a crisis can result in an opportunity. I recognize that this feel-good attitude toward struggle may help assuage some of the trauma of dealing with any pain. I recognize that through alchemy, fire does, in fact, transform brittle iron into solid steel. However, I am a living, breathing human being imbued with memories as well as a heart and soul that can be shattered like a fragile Swarovski crystal. More often than not, in extricating the barbs that penetrated my flesh, pieces of me were gouged out. To my credit, in spite of the taunts of my peers in my youth, I overcame. I even learned that it’s perfectly okay for macho men to play with dolls and to treasure poetry. In spite of the men who cast stones at my glass house, I never became jaded in my pursuit for love, and in time unearthed the Lesotho Diamond, the man-of-men whose heart beats in unity with mine. And in spite of an initial terrifying medical prognosis, I learned that sometimes cancer is nothing more than kidney stones. In spite of my having been ensnared, I eventually learned to embrace the man in me, a skeptic but a believer, fractured but whole.

It hurts as the flames devour essence. Picking up the pieces from the ashes is metaphorically like collecting shards of sulfur from fire-belching volcanoes. Of course, I recognize that life by nature can be a journey fraught with suffering. Of course, I realize that tragedy is only tragedy when one gives in to it. Nevertheless, realistically and unapologetically, I still long for a world in which its citizens recognize holistically that we are truly the stewards of each other’s souls. A poet writes, “Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while and leave footprints in our hearts and we are never the same.” The poem implies that our getting caught can be blissful, a journey to Nirvana. Unfortunately, it also suggests that sometimes getting caught leaves lesions that burn acrimoniously. However, it behooves me to recognize that in this world, it is to my advantage to recognize that there are some things we cannot change, but with courage there are many we can as long as we know the difference (Serenity Prayer).
                                            

© Denver 2/3/13 



About the Author 


Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.” In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter. I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic. Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming. Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth. My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun. I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time. My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands. I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty. I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.