LGBT activism – Sage Telling Your Story

May 28, 2018February 26, 2019

Springtime and Suicide, by Pat Gourley

It is well documented that suicides spike in the spring and then again in the fall but less so. A popular myth is that it is the holiday season when suicide is most likely but this is simply not the case. As to why this happens in the spring is pretty much speculation with one theory being that it is all the pollen in the air that is the root of this increase. This rather sketchy theory suggests that the increase in pollen causes an increase in inflammation and this leads to irritability and suicidal ideation I guess. I would suggest that further study is needed or perhaps more Claritin. file://localhost/. https/::www.cnn.com:2016:05:16:health:suicide-rates-spike-in-spring:index.html

“Many who drive their own lives to help others often realize that they do not change what causes the need for their help.” David Buckel – from the NYT 4/14/2018

The above sentence is from the suicide note left by David Buckel the well known LGBTQ rights lawyer who self immolated himself in a Brooklyn park early on Saturday (4/14/2018) morning. I must admit I had never heard of David Buckel but he is perhaps most well know for his work on the Brandon Teena murder, a transgender person from Nebraska. Buckel was the lead attorney in a case that found a Nebraska county sheriff guilty of liable in Teena’s murder. Hilary Swank played Teena in the 1999 movie Boys Don’t Cry for which she won an Oscar.

David Buckel also was a prominent activist in several other areas of LGBTQ rights particularly in the area of marriage equality. For the past ten years however his focus was environmental issues and he was the moving force behind a major recycling/composting effort in the Brooklyn area.

Quoting further from his suicide note per the NYT:

“Pollution ravages out planet, oozing inhabitability via air, soil, water and weather …Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuel, and many die early deaths as a result – my early death by fossil fuels reflects what we are doing to ourselves.”

I have been unable to find the entire suicide note as of today but this is a further piece of the note in addition to those quotes above:

“I am David Buckel and I just killed myself by fire as a protest suicide,” read a handwritten suicide note, according to the New York Daily News. “I apologize to you for the mess.”

Despite the fact that there were 44,965-reported deaths by suicide in the United States in 2016 they often receive little press coverage and this may be out of legitimate concern for impulsive copycat action by others. The one thing that is hard for me to reconcile around David’s protest suicide is the anguish this is causing for his loved ones, co-activists and undeniably his partner of 34 years. I am not at all sure though that this pain and suffering should distract in any meaningful way from the power and perhaps even the legitimacy of his protest.

Many of us may have first heard of suicide by self-immolation by Buddhist monks in Viet Nam. Visual images of these acts were certainly a slap in the face to me to wake up to the unbelievable tragedy that war was. More recently the self-immolation again by Buddhist monks this time in Tibet as a form of protest to Chinese genocide continues. There have been at least 148 reported suicides in this manner by Tibetans since 2009.

Deaths from the potential catastrophic effects of climate change may far out strip deaths from all the wars in human history. Apparently roll backs to climate protections by the Trump administration and in particular by that selfish weasel Scott Pruitt had been causing David Buckel considerable consternation.

I do hope this raw and powerful form of protest on his part will not detract but rather enhance the legacy of this great gay hero. Though he was definitely a strong and successful proponent for issues of marriage equality and Trans rights maybe his last ten years and death are pointing us toward even more important issues facing all of humankind including the LGBTQ communities.

Though this has been perhaps the most painful piece I have written for Story Telling I’d like to close with just a few more paraphrased words from David’s suicide note, words for me personally to ponder: “Privilege is derived from the suffering of others”.

This a link to NYT article on David’s suicide – one of many I have read this past weekend and referred to in this piece: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/nyregion/david-buckel-brooklyn.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

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.

March 29, 2017February 26, 2019

Rejoice, by Pat Gourley

“Privilege is when you think something is not a problem because it’s not a problem for you.”

Margaret Sala, Twitter – May 7th, 2016

Definitions of rejoice include showing great joy or delight. For me personally this is something I find impossible following the results of the presidential election on November 8th. I refuse to look for any silver lining and do not accept Donald Trump as my president. To accept the fact that he is now the country’s leader and that this requires support with an effort to get behind him for the greater good would mean to me at least a passive acceptance of all that is so odious about him.

It is no consolation to me that he may very well not have any firm beliefs or policy formulations around anything that he is not capable flipping and flopping on. He is definitely dragging into positions of power lots of folks who are very sure of their beliefs: misogyny, racism, xenophobia and homophobia. I also fear the influence and power of Mike Pence maybe more so that Trump. Trump is a showman and con artist, Pence a zealot.

Though I do not rule out street activism on my part, those days are mostly decades gone by. I am thinking about how best to engage in active resistance to this pestilence. Compromise only congers up the great Jim Hightower and his observation that the middle of the road is only for yellow stripes and dead armadillos.

Now nearly two weeks out from the catastrophe of November 8th I am still waking up thinking maybe this was all a bad dream and then it hits me that it wasn’t and the miasma sets in again. One of my greatest fears is that something untoward might happen to Trump or more likely that he will resign for some trumped up reason or the other before his first term ends. Lets face it the actuarial tables for a 70 year old, overweight, habitual steak eater are not really very good. Those have got to be some gummed up president-elect coronary arteries.

With Trump out of the picture though Mike Pence becomes president and it might then really be time for all women of reproductive age and queers of all stripes to head north for the Canadian border. Despite the disheartening estimate that about 14% of LGBTQ voters actually voted for Trump we may though be the one minority with a unique opportunity to stay in the country and resist.

Over the past 40 years we queer folk have become quite uppity and unlike many other minorities, especially religious and racial, we truly are everywhere. Even if we don’t live in large numbers in rural rust belt settings we still might have biological family there and the coming out process has and will continue to usually have positive impact on the hetero family members left behind. Having lived for years in Manhattan perhaps Trump has realized the power of the queer community and that is why he was interestingly silent on trashing us during his campaign. That analysis though certainly begs the question when you look at his selection of the likes of Bannon, Pence and Sessions.

So I am actually emerging somewhat from the funk and looking about as to how I can productively resist. A free press remains vital. I am donating again with a bit more this year to Democracy Now and I hope to have enough at the end of the year to send a few coins to Paul Jay and The Real News based out of Baltimore. And of course a donation to Planned Parenthood in Mike Pence’s name. That gets him a note from Planned Parenthood thanking him for his support.

And finally, though I am sure many other ways to be a resistance fighter will appear, I am renewing my personal commitment to a vegan way of eating, something that has proven very difficult for me to stick with in the past. The biggest blow to the planet and the survival of much of sentient life in the not so long run may come from Trump’s denial of climate change and the carbon binging hordes he is going to unleash. I will encourage other friends to take a look at the meatless option as a great personal action that does more to decrease one’s carbon footprint than any other action – we really don’t need to be eating one million chickens an hour in this country – really a million an hour.

Please take the time to watch this You Tube video by Neil Barnard my longtime diet guru: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLqINF26LSA

And I hope to see you all at the barricades chowing down on a veggie-burrito or at least on occasion in the fruit and vegetable aisle of any grocery store.

November 2016

About the Author

September 21, 2016February 26, 2019

Away from Home by Gail Klock

Home to me is not a place so much as a state of being. It is a place deep within me, where I am loved unconditionally, where I’m accepted and understood. It is that place where my thoughts come to my defense when under attack, like a mother lion defending her cubs. It is that place where I am allowed to make mistakes, and take ownership for my actions and make amends to others if those actions cause them pain.

I am going to be okay no matter the circumstances, are the feelings which reside in that place called home. They are the indescribably good feelings deep within me, like the ones which come coursing through my body when listening to a beautiful piece of music, or when I laugh from the depth of my soul, or cry in empathy for another’s pain. It is the beauty, grace, and power of a hawk soaring through the sky, treating me to the joys of nature.

It has taken me a long time to find home… I was away from home most of my life. I found it difficult to find peace within myself, due at least in part to my homosexuality. It was, and on rare occasions still is, hard to find serenity within, especially when being viewed by others as a deviant person.

I was a pioneer in the gay movement back in the 80’s when I chose to have children through artificial insemination and to be out, knowing to not do so would place my daughters in the position of having shame about the family they came from. But as I was traversing this unknown world I carried abashment within me. My inner world was still not a place of self-acceptance and tranquility. I look back on those times now with admiration for my courage, but I would rather have realized my inner strength at the time. I was still away from home. I was looking at a young lesbian the other day and admiring her hair cut with one half of her head shaved and the other side cascading across her head like a waterfall. I would not have had the courage to wear my hair like that when I was young. But then I kind of chuckled inwardly as I realized I now sometimes wear my hair in an equally brazen fashion.

As long as I remind myself where home is, I can get there. It reminds me of the last time I parked at the Pikes Peak parking lot out at DIA. I dutifully told myself to remember I had parked in the F section. That was all good and fine until I exited the shuttle bus at FF after only 3 hours of sleep the night before. I reminded myself of this lack of sleep as I fought off the notion that someone had stolen my car, after all no one else had my keys. Wandering back and forth several times along rows EE, FF, and GG …dragging my luggage, I knew I had to develop a strategy to find it. I then thought okay, I’ll just go up to section A and walk up and down every lane until I’m successful. As I reached section YY it occurred to me I had parked in F, but I had been searching in FF. I found my car where I had parked it. Of course it was there all along just waiting to be found, which is true for my inner sense of home as well. My serenity was always available to be, I just had to find the correct strategy to get to it. I get there with less angst now, especially when I remember to delete the old tapes which play within my head about the perversion of being gay.

About the Author

I grew up in Pueblo, CO with my two brothers and parents. Upon completion of high school I attended Colorado State University majoring in Physical Education. My first teaching job was at a high school in Madison, Wisconsin. After three years of teaching I moved to North Carolina to attend graduate school at UNC-Greensboro. After obtaining my MSPE I coached basketball, volleyball, and softball at the college level starting with Wake Forest University and moving on to Springfield College, Brown University, and Colorado School of Mines.
While coaching at Mines my long term partner and I had two daughters through artificial insemination. Due to the time away from home required by coaching I resigned from this position and got my elementary education certification. I taught in the gifted/talented program in Jefferson County Schools for ten years. As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my granddaughter, playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the storytelling group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT organizations.

As a retiree I enjoy helping take care of my granddaughter, playing senior basketball, writing/listening to stories in the storytelling group, gardening, reading, and attending OLOC and other GLBT organizations.