Tag: LGBTQA

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A Circle of Loving Companions by Pat Gourley

Harry Hay is best known for founding the Mattachine Society in 1950 an organization certainly seminal as far as the modern gay movement is concerned. He is also fairly well known for helping create the Radical Fairies in an attempt to redirect what he felt was the disheartening slide of the Queer movement into dreary assimilation. Hmm, I wonder how that worked out?

The Radical Fairies had a definite spiritual bent and cultivated a rejection of straight culture. As I have written here on other occasions I feel it was the devastation of AIDS and the resulting preoccupation with survival and death for so many and in so many insidious ways that took the gas out of the Radical Fairie movement. That though is not to deny that Radical Fairies are not still vibrantly around today here and there.

Another less well-known effort of Harry’s was the formation in 1965 of a queer collective that he called a “Circle of Loving Companions” an entity lasting for decades. I’ll quote a brief description of this group from Stuart Timmon’s biography of Hay called The Trouble with Harry Hay (1990): “ The Circle was often politically active, and Harry stressed the name symbolized how all gay relationships could be conducted on the Whitmanesque ideal of the inclusive love of comrades. The Circle’s membership specifications were based on affinity…”

I first became aware of the name by way of written correspondence I had with Harry and his loving companion John Burnside in the late 1970’s. The phrase “Circle of Loving Companions” was frequently the letterhead on his written correspondence to me in those days and was also stamped on the outside of envelopes as part of the return address. I still do prefer “loving companion” as a descriptor of intimate queer relationships that sits with me much better than partner, lover, significant other or the current rage “husband”.

If I didn’t at the time I should have realized that I was a part of a genuine Circle of Loving Companions that was formed here in Denver out of the intoxicating crucible that was gay liberation the 1970’s. Viable remnants of this Circle remain in my life today but significantly depleted over the years, primarily by AIDS.

I met the most significant loving companion I have ever had in the fall of 1980 shortly after the second Radical Fairie Gathering here in Colorado in August of that year and a few short weeks after returning from my father’s funeral back in Illinois. David was at the time the Methodist minister in Aspen Colorado and was a close friend with one of the roommates I had in our house up in Five Points. He was visiting this friend and staying at our house when we were first introduced. We actually had a bit of a courtship consisting of a couple of dates before we fucked, something extremely rare in the gay male world of 1980. Over the ensuing months though I realized that I did have a deep affinity for this person and he soon left his church in Aspen and moved into the house on north Downing

Street that was sort of the Radical Fairie vortex for Denver at the time. He must have felt a real affinity for me to make such a bold change.

In hindsight I think it best to have a primary loving companion when one is part of a Circle of Loving Companions and David certainly filled that role for me. Our affinity only deepened over the next fifteen years until his death from AIDS in 1995. The nineteenth anniversary of his death is this week on Wednesday the 17th, 2014.

Since his death I have been involved in one other long-term relationship. I guess you can call 11 years a long-term relationship and though it had its moments there didn’t seem to have the same sustained ‘affinity’ in so many ways I had with David. This second long term partner did not seem to fit as well into my circle of friends and this to me is something that any current partner I might fall in love with would need to accommodate. Something to keep in mind is introducing any prospective partner to your circle of companions sort of like straight folks do with each other’s biological families.

So I guess any new partner would need to be a bit of a collectivist and tolerate the coming and goings of my circle and I would certainly need to be accommodating of his companions. I also would insist on dependability. You need to always be there for me and me for you. Sex at this stage of the dance is quite peripheral to the whole enchilada and though mutual orgasms occasionally that involve seeing Jesus would be nice they are definitely not required.

As mentioned above my circle of loving companions is much depleted from what it was 35 years ago but still limping along. It has though it seems gotten much more difficult to add new members. If anyone is feeling an ‘affinity’ and is interested in interviewing for a position in the Circle we could meet over coffee.

© September 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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Long Ago, Far Away by Phillip Hoyle

Many years ago (at least fifty) and far away in the galaxy (at places like Kansas, Texas, Missouri, New Mexico, and Oklahoma) I lived a rational life. Reason guided my decisions, took precedence over desires or fears, led me in ways that served cultural, educational, career, and personal ideals. I followed this rational trajectory, not uncritically, but still in a somewhat ordinary fashion. I lived a good life yet one that signaled caution whenever feelings were on the rise—either mine or those of others around me. Were I to look for a metaphor, I’d certainly have to entertain the notion that I lived a rather Dr. Spockian life, if you know what I mean.

It wasn’t that I failed to experience emotion; I had plenty of feelings. After all, I was reared the only boy with four sisters. As a child I sometimes became so frustrated and angry that I stomped through the house slamming doors and throwing myself on the bed where I either screamed or cried. But before too long I gave up such childish ways and assumed a rational exterior. Then if I were still angry or felt frustrated, I’d go out to the garage and talk to Tippy my beagle. She was a great counselor with unlimited acceptance and constant warmth in my presence. She’d lick away my wounds and allow me to go on with my rational life. So, I grew up pulling in my emotions, always ruled by good manners. When I observed others throwing fits or getting too emotional, I’d evaluate their effectiveness and eventually distance myself.

As a working adult I served as a study of self-control in order to facilitate a group’s process. My work was effective! I watched how someone’s emotions would cloud issues impeding a program’s movement towards some goal, and then, setting aside my own emotional needs, would offer rational and workable solutions. I got along well.

Eventually I was done with all that. My memories of childhood served as my mentors in this change—not just my fits of pique, but my involvement in many childhood activities of play, dance, unstoppable laughter, and running around with my friends. My observations of artists further encouraged me to change. For instance, in a collage workshop, the teacher asked me about what I was doing. I described the “why” of my design. “But I can’t read your piece,” she observed. I wasn’t quite sure what she meant, but her comment pushed me right where I need pushing! I turned to the piece and angrily added the two essential figures that were missing, an older man adoring a younger man. When she came by my table about an hour later, she said, “Now that I can really read.” I was thrilled. I had something to say in my art! Furthermore, this terminal experience opened me to a new level of communication with my wife.

As healthy as that may sound, I realized that my artistic and personal self-indulgences would have the effect of focusing my life away from the groups that had so enriched my first fifty years. Away from my old life focused on church and family I moved to Denver and hoped thereby to learn how trust my feelings and let them lead me into helpful decisions.

I need to clarify. My half-century of life had not gone by without emotional outlets. I was a musician; such an artistic and emotion-filled pursuit allowed me to tolerate all the self-control demanded by the rest of my work. From about age thirty, I also lived with an increasing focus on visual arts and on writing. Finally I sensed I had things to express in both. So essentially at age fifty-one I replaced the loss of music making and self-discipline with wild dancing at Charlie’s of Denver, the Denver Wrangler, TRAX, and Denver BASIX. I employed recorded music of many varieties as a background in my new massage practice. I created collage after collage, painting after painting, works that helped move me along a road of emotional expression. Still, I am in touch with that Dr. Spock part of myself, that careful monitor of feelings and their possible misdirection.

But a few weeks ago, just after recording a Colorado Public Broadcast radio interview of an older and a younger gay man, the journalist/producer asked us if there were revelations in the taping we’d not want to hear in the eventual show. The twenty three-year-old guy said, “No, I’m always careful with what I say.” Then I, the sixty-six-year-old man, said, “Not at all. I’ve spent the past fifteen years learning to say what I am feeling. Use anything you want.”

Denver, 2013

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

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Anger by Pat Gourley

It was often noted in my teens and twenties in particular that I had quite the Irish temper. This seems to have greatly diminished over the years and now is an emotion I rarely indulge in. Much of the anger I have expressed over the years has really been not much more that self-indulgent bravado. Often the sort of flash in the pan display that passes quickly usually followed by regret and at times an appropriate apology.

There have however been at least two instances in my life where my anger was sustained and in one of those seems at times to persist to this day. Both of these involve the suicides of two people close to me, one professionally and the other a dear friend of many decades. Today I will address the suicide of a co-worker from over twenty years ago. The other death will be the focus of an upcoming piece.

Even this anger, at a tragic death, certainly seems to have a quality of indignant rage – ‘how could you do this to me’ which in some respects seems quite silly since they are the ones who are dead, but then so much of my life has always really been about me.

This first suicide involved a psychiatric nurse who worked in the AIDS Clinic at Denver Health in the early 1990’s. She was a lesbian woman who on the surface seemed very strong and as put together as anyone I knew. Unbeknownst to me, but not to several others in her life, she purchased a handgun I believe in late 1992, saying she feared for her safety around the passage by referendum of Amendment Two by the voters of Colorado which read as follows:

Neither the State of Colorado, through any of its branches or departments, nor any of its agencies, political subdivisions, municipalities or school districts, shall enact, adopt or enforce any statute, regulation, ordinance or policy whereby homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships shall constitute or otherwise be the basis of or entitle any person or class of persons to have or claim any minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of discrimination. This Section of the Constitution shall be in all respects self-executing.

I thought after the fact that if I had known about her gun purchase and the stated reason for it I would certainly have confronted it for the bullshit it turned out to be. Even back then I was sort of the resident out radical queer in an AIDS Clinic no less a place full of ACT Up members in 1992 and I would have said “oh honey all they are doing is finally being honest about how they hate us”. The statewide vote on the referendum was something like 53% in favor of literally codifying discrimination across the board based solely on sexual preference and 47% opposed. We were simply being put on notice to a fact that had always been the reality. This was of course challenged in court and overturned eventually by the United States Supreme Court in the case Evans vs. Romer in 1996.

I would in hindsight have been right to call her on this purchase since she used the gun along with some alcohol and prescribed medications as lubrication to drive up to St. Mary’s Glacier in early January of 1993 and blow her brains out. I would hope I would have insisted on a better reason, than homophobes run amok, for buying a lethal weapon by a person who was in many instances a very out and proud queer woman.

You must remember this was in 1993 and the peak of the AIDS nightmare. So many of our clients were valiantly struggling to often just stay alive for one more day and this crazy-ass women who I loved and admired, in excellent physical health as far as we knew, goes and kills herself. It was a great blow to many of my staff and her clinic patients to whom she provided psychotherapy. It was difficult for me to even speak her name for many months but we did finally put up a plaque in her memory when our own unbelievably raw feelings subsided and perhaps I personally better appreciated whatever the mental anguish she was suffering from. There were apparently major relationship issues in her life and perhaps these involved anger on her part or maybe it was simply an overwhelming depression made worse by well intentioned use of psychiatric medicines that unfortunately proved to be disinhibiting in the long run and maybe even direct facilitators in pulling the trigger. Suicides seem to often to be impulsively facilitated in our society by the criminally easy access to guns along with alcohol and certain psychotropic medications most often legally prescribed.

My feelings around suicides of people in my life are not however universal and do not always involve anger. In those days in particular end of life decisions to speed the dying process along by many suffering terribly from the ravages of AIDS were not uncommon. For those unfamiliar with this time and its nearly unbearable realities I would encourage you to see the current HBO movie version of Larry Kramer’s The Normal Heart, visually at least it is much more riveting and intensely in your face than the play ever was.

The best suicides as I recall from those days were well thought out and often involved much support from lovers, family and friends. The act was rarely impulsive, rarely to my knowledge involved a gun and rarely if ever done in isolation. News of these passing when they would reach the clinic often invoked great sadness and sometimes a sense of relief but no anger.

If this is to be an act with integrity it seems to me it should never occur as a result of subterfuge and certainly not as an expression of anger toward others or one’s self. That itself seems to be a very angry last dance that certainly does not affect in any positive fashion others in your life, many of who may care deeply about you. It strikes me as not only very angry but selfish. I appreciate that deep depression can often set the stage but a common caveat about suicide is that it is mostly the choice when one is coming out of depression.

As mentioned above I will again explore suicide in a future piece, one by a dear friend of many decades and my own personal feelings about it. Most days I tend to take a Buddhist approach that suicide will only result in another reincarnation something to be avoided and continued samsara on the wheel of death and rebirth, which could go very wrong with one perhaps returning as a banana slug.


June, 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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Falling among Forbidden Fruit by Gillian

Oh, Adam and Eve have a lot to answer for! Things have gone downhill ever since she gave him that damn apple. Much of humankind seem to consider themselves sufficiently righteous to sit in judgment of others; not to say that applies to all of the people all of the time, but sadly it’s probably true for most of the people most of the time. Equally sadly, it’s not confined to those who proclaim themselves to be Christians, either, so we cannot hold Adam and Eve completely responsible.

We judge others to be different and therefore inferior, but worse than that we fear and hate them. Why, I have never understood. I’m sure I have my parents to thank for that, as they never understood it either. It may also be, at least partly, in our case, that we simply did not encounter these ‘others.’ I grew up in a very homogeneous area, as perhaps many of us of our generation did, and so was really not challenged in acceptance until I left home for college. One would like to believe that a university is not the place where one learns prejudices, so all in all I think I was fairly well sheltered from bigotry until a later stage of maturity by which time I was pretty well protected against acquiring it.

The bigots of this world make ‘them’ the forbidden fruit. In this country, as in many others, it was anyone of a different national origin, ethnicity, language, religion, and especially race. And now, of course, the big battle over same-sex relationships. Multiple prejudices been writ large throughout the history of this ‘melting pot’ of which we are so proud. I observed the horror of it in amazement. I have no more comprehension of it now than I have ever had. I simply cannot get inside the head of prejudiced hate-mongers and so have little hope of gaining any understanding. The very beast inclusivity we can hope for from most people seems to be the old joke,

“Oh yeah I guess they,” whichever particular ‘they’ you may be discussing, “are OK. But you wouldn’t want your sister to marry one!”

So it was with further amazement that I suddenly found myself to have fallen among forbidden fruit.

When I came out, I suddenly realized; I am now one of the Undesirables. I intuited that I should not talk about what I did at the weekend; people might not want to hear it. I had become that person who wouldn’t be coming to dinner; at least not unless I could be trusted to keep my mouth shut and ‘act normal.’ As forbidden fruit I could lie on the orchard floor and rot. Quickly understanding that I was allowing myself to be victimized by the judgment of others, I ceased to modify my reality for their comfort and relaxed.

Then, in 1992, along came Amendment 2. I cried, as I’m sure many of us did, waking in the morning following Election Day and finding myself to be, and really feel to be, someone who could be discriminated against. Legally. It hit me like a ton of bricks that I was one of God knows how many throughout the world and over the ages. I had sympathized with them, but until that moment never actually empathized. And my problems were essentially non-existent compared with those of so many others. I was not immediately threatened with death, imprisonment, or deportation. I would not lose my home nor would I lose my job. Practically, I had no fear that the passage of Amendment 2 would effect my life in any way. Yet I felt insulted and violated. Also, luckily, I was very, very, angry.

That was the final point, I think, in my total ‘outing’ process. I will not let these ignorant bigots make me feel like this. I will not be their victim. I will not let the attitude of others make me feel bad about myself. I will not apologize, even to myself, no, above all not to myself, for who I am. I know I have done nothing wrong and that is all that matters.

And if I have become forbidden fruit to others, it is their problem and not mine.

I will not lie silently, invisibly, under the tree and rot, while the wasps buzz hungrily, angrily, around me.

I will pick myself up and dust myself off, and mix with pride with the rest of the beautiful shiny forbidden fruit, enclosed in that strongly woven basket of understanding, support, and caring that fills me with pure joy at what and who I am, without one single ounce of regret.

April, 2014

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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Drifting by Will Stanton

This presentation is going to be very short and un-sweet. I’ll be succinct and not belabor what I have to say. Saying too much would be, as the old adage goes, “like beating a dead horse.”

Our parents often have high expectations of us. Our society has certain expectations, too. To be supposedly a worthy member of society and (quote) “successful,” we should know very early on what we want to do in our lives and what we want to be. In our society, apparently that means making a lot of money and being envied, like a Wall-Street banker, football quarterback, TV star, rock singer – – or perhaps being a professional, whatever that is – – doctor, lawyer, Indian chief.

Much of what determines how we turn out is what we have learned in childhood. If a child has a good parental roll model, that’s helpful. Maximum opportunity to learn, to experiment, to gain experience are good, too. Having a strong sense of identity is essential. Without it, we may end up drifting. Sometimes, as in my case, I did not have a good parental roll model, a father or even a mother I could identify with, to wish to be like, to wish to do the same job. I was pretty much on my own in that department.

What we have inherited from our genes has a strong influence upon our personalities, too. Significantly in those relatively unenlightened times of my childhood, too little was understood about children’s personalities and what difficulties there might be. The early version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory had been around since 1943, but researchers and school-counselors seemed to be more focused upon how rapidly individuals could learn. They seemed to regard comparative points and percentiles as as the tell-all, the end-all, like how much money one had in the bank.

I attended a university-run elementary school, and I seemed to be able to answer questions quickly. As a result, a pair of university researchers singled me out for an extended interview. They said that they just want to know “what made me tick.” They concluded the session by stating (and I’ll never forget this) that (quote) “I could be anything I want to be.” I suppose that meant “doctor, lawyer, Indian chief.”

Apparently, they did not consider “self-actualized and happy” as being essential to a good life. What they did not take into account was my confusion and preoccupation with who I might be that interfered, yes, even stymied, my focusing upon choosing a career path that would result in my becoming a (quote) “universally admired, well-healed professional, happily married as expected, and a contented family man.” They did not take into account my orientation. Even if they had, they would not have understood the impact such confusion and preoccupation would have upon my thinking and actions. My uniformed and Puritanical parents would not have understood, either, let alone accepted my orientation.

As a consequence, I have spent most of my life drifting. Yes, I did manage to sporadically concentrate upon making a life of sorts, but it was likely not what it might have been had I not been incumbered with the endless searching and emotional confusion that dominated my life. Like a leaf floating upon a stream, I have drifted wherever circumstances have taken me. I never was a powerboat, capable of going in any direction I wished to go.

About the Author

I have had a life-long fascination with people and their life
stories.  I also realize that, although my own life has not brought me
particular fame or fortune, I too have had some noteworthy experiences and, at
times, unusual ones.  Since I joined this Story Time group, I have derived
pleasure and satisfaction participating in the group.  I do put some
thought and effort into my stories, and I hope that you find them interesting.

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Stories of GLBT Organizations

My thirty-year career at Ford Motor Company reached its culmination at the end of the last century, coincident with the last of my 26 years of being in a straight marriage and the birth of the GLBT organization that has played the largest part in my personal journey toward wholeness. That organization is Ford GLOBE.

GLOBE is an acronym for Gay, Lesbian, Or Bisexual Employees. It was hatched in the minds of two Ford employees, a woman and a man, in Dearborn, MI, in July of 1994. By September, they had composed a letter to the Vice President of Employee Relations–with a copy to Ford CEO, Alex Trotman–expressing a desire to begin a dialogue with top management on workplace issues of concern to Ford’s gay, lesbian and bisexual employees. They were invited to meet with the VP of Employee Relations in November.

In 1995, the group, now flying in full view of corporate radar and growing, elected a five-member board, adopted its formal name of Ford GLOBE; designed their logo; adopted mission, vision, and objective statements; and adopted bylaws. The fresh-faced Board was invited to meet with the staff of the newly-created corporate Diversity Office. Soon after, “sexual orientation” was incorporated into Ford’s Global Diversity Initiative. Members of Ford GLOBE participated in the filming of two company videos on workplace diversity. Also that year, Ford was a sponsor of the world-premier on NBC of Serving in Silence, starring Glenn Close as Army Reserve Colonel Margarethe Cammermeyer. By September of 1996, Ford GLOBE chapters were forming in Great Britain and Germany.

In March of 1996, Ford GLOBE submitted to upper management the coming-out stories of 23 members in hope of putting a human face on what had been an invisible minority. Along with the stories came a formal request for Ford’s non-discrimination policy to be rewritten to include sexual orientation. At the time, only Ford of Britain had such a policy.

Ford GLOBE was beginning to network with similar interest groups at General Motors and Chrysler, including sharing a table at the 1996 Pridefest and walking together in the Michigan Pride Parade in Lansing. After two years of discussion between Ford GLOBE and top management, on November 14, 1996, Ford CEO, Alex Trotman, issued Revised Corporate Policy Letter # 2, adding “sexual orientation” to the company’s official non-discrimination policy. To this day, some of our largest and most profitable corporations, including Exxon Mobile, have refused to do the same.

My involvement with Ford GLOBE began sometime in 1997. For that reason and the fact that I have scrapped many of my records of this period, I have relied heavily on Ford GLOBE’s website for the dates and particulars of these events.

In February of 1998, I attended a “Gay Issues in the Workplace” Workshop, led by Brian McNaught, at Ford World Headquarters, jointed sponsored by GLOBE and the Ford Diversity Office. I remember a Ford Vice President taking the podium at that event. He was a white man of considerable social cachet and I assumed that the privilege that normally goes with that status would have shielded him from any brushes with discrimination. In fact, he told a story of riding a public transit bus with his mother at the height of World War II. His family was German. His mother had warned him sternly not to speak German while riding the bus. Thus, he, too, had known the fear of being outed because of who he was. The experience had made him into an unlikely ally of GLOBE members over 50 years later.

In 1999, Ford GLOBE amended its by-laws to make it their mission to include transgendered employees in Ford’s non-discrimination policy and gender identity in Ford’s diversity training. Ford Motor Company was the first and only U.S. automotive company listed on the 1999 Gay and Lesbian Values Index of top 100 companies working on gay issues, an achievement noted by Ford CEO Jac Nasser. It was about this time that retired Ford Vice Chairman and Chief Financial Officer Alan Gilmore came out as gay. The Advocate named Ford Motor Company to its list of 25 companies that provide good environments for gay employees in its Oct. 26 edition.

Having earlier written the contract bargaining teams for Ford Motor Company, United Auto Workers, and Canadian Auto Workers requesting specific changes in the upcoming union contracts, Ford GLOBE was pleased to see that the resulting Ford/CAW union contract included provision for same-sex domestic partners to be treated as common law spouses in Canada, for sexual orientation to be added to the nondiscrimination statement of the Ford/UAW contract, and that Ford and the UAW agreed to investigate implementation of same-sex domestic partner benefits during the current four-year union contract.

The year 2000 was not only the year that I became Board Chair of Ford GLOBE but also the year that marked a momentous event in automotive history as Ford, General Motors, and the Chrysler Division of DaimlerChrysler issued a joint press release with the United Auto Workers announcing same-sex health care benefits for the Big Three auto companies’ salaried and hourly employees in the U.S. As the first-ever industry-wide joint announcement of domestic partner benefits and largest ever workforce of 465,000 U.S. employees eligible in one stroke, the historic announcement made headlines across the nation. It was truly a proud moment for all of us in the Ford GLOBE organization.

On January 1 of 2001, my last year with the company, Ford expanded its benefits program for the spouses of gay employees to include financial planning, legal services, the personal protection plan, vehicle programs, and the vision plan.

Since my departure from the company, Ford and GLOBE have continued to advance the cause of GLBT equality and fairness both within the corporation and without. I am fortunate to have been supported in my own coming out process by my associates within the company, both gay and straight, and to Ford GLOBE in particular for the bonds of friendship honed in the common struggle toward a better and freer world.

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 Gillian

George Strait’s rendition of this hit was at the top of the Country charts in the summer of 1987. It seems like last week that I danced many a night away to that song, but it doesn’t take higher math to figure out that it was actually over twenty-five years ago. It was also the year I came out, at the age of forty-five, and began dancing with women, and one woman in particular, which is doubtless the main reason I remember this particular track with such fondness. It was the year I met my beautiful Betsy. All in all, 1987 was just a bloody good year!

I was living alone in Lyons then, working at IBM in Boulder. I was prompted to come out to the world in a letter to the Boulder Camera newspaper on the subject of the upcoming referendum to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation. The referendum passed that November, the first one in this country and quite a trail-blazer. It was only the year before, after all, that our trusty U.S. Supreme Court had declared that the right to privacy did not extend to homosexuals. How far we have come in the last quarter century.

In 1987, Charlie’s was further East on Colfax than it is now. That location became Ms C’s when Charlie’s moved, but before that there were few places for lesbians to dance, so every Thursday night Charlie’s was turned over to the women.

Oh how I loved those wonderful Thursday nights!

I had to practice up for them, though. I mean, if you plan to indulge in same-sex dancing, you need to be at ease either leading or following. So I practiced, leading an imaginary, very sexy, partner around my basement and, yes, often to the accompaniment of “All My Exes …. ”

I carpooled with a Lyons/Estes Park group. Katie, the leader of the pack, had a passenger van and in piled five or six of us every Thursday night, come rain or shine, come gale or snow. Women came from all over Colorado. I danced with lesbians from Grand Junction to Pueblo to Julesburg, and at least once during any Thursday night, we would two-step with much gusto to “All My Exes Live in Texas.”

Many were boycotting Coors at the time for their anti-gay bigotry, and Katie had a unique way of introducing herself to Coors-supping strangers. She bought another beer brand, took it over to the Coors-drinker, and wordlessly replaced the Coors with her preferred brand. Needless to say that engendered many interesting conversations!

When Charlie’s closed at two in the morning, the carpool group went to the White Spot for breakfast, accompanied by endless cups of caffeine stimulant, and an analysis of the night’s events. Then it was back to Lyons, a quick shower and change, and off to work.

Just the thought of it exhausts me, now! But how I enjoy those memories.

The beautiful, energetic, funny, Katie, now nearing ninety and lost to dementia, can no longer enjoy hers. The only other remaining member of our car-pool group lost her home to last year’s Estes Park fire. Yes, a lot has changed over twenty-five years; not all good.

And the moral of that story is; make your memories while you can, and enjoy them while you may, for who knows what the future may bring?

Sometime in ’87, a new women’s dance-bar called Divine Madness opened up, so the carpool extended to two nights a week, but thankfully we could go to DM on the weekend without work the next day looming over us, while of course we kept up our Thursdays at Charlie’s. And so we doubled the frequency of trying to pick up a good woman while dancing to “All My Exes Live in Texas.”

One Friday night in November 1987, I spotted Betsy across the floor at Divine Madness and asked her for a dance. This is where, obviously, I should say that the tune we danced to was “All My Exes Live in Texas,” but it was not, it was Ann Murray singing, “Could I Have This Dance,” a beautiful waltz. I returned to my car-pool group after that dance and announced, “I’m going to marry that woman!”

Of course I didn’t dream, at that time, that some day I would be able to make that statement literally become true. Oh, yes, a lot has changed since then; and some things have stayed the same. With sincere apologies to a great dance tune, I cannot say that “All My Exes … ” offers much in the way of romance: rather the opposite! But for me, “Could I Have This Dance,” is every bit as meaningful today as it was that November night in 1987.

I’ll always remember,
the song they were playing,
The first time we danced and I knew
As we swayed to the music,
and held to each other,
I fell in love with you.

Could I have this dance
for the rest of my life,
Could you be my partner
every night,
when we’re together
it feels so right,
Could I have this dance
for the rest of my life?

January, 2014

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have now been with my wonderful partner Betsy for 25 years.

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A Revolution of Priorities by Carlos

Decades ago, it was probably apparent to the patrons at the Diamond Lil Bar, the only gay bar in El Paso at the time, that it was my first time crossing the threshold into a gay bar. Because it was in a basement of a 1920’s-vintage building that had seen better days, I had to descend down the stairs into the bar. It took me a moment to get my bearings in the darkness, but the aroma of stale beer and acrid cigarette smoke immediately validated what I had heard about gay bars, that they were dens of gratuitous, sensory depravity. I pondered whether this was the venue for me, since it seemed like such an alien world. Nevertheless, I hungered to be around my own in spite of the fact that they terrified me. After all, the only images of gay men I had ever encountered were the eerily unsettling gay stereotypes depicted in films like Boys in the Band or Cabaret. I had been weaned on rumors of men who frequented public restrooms at Greyhound terminals or lurked in parks in search of quick encounters. If only I had had positive role models, but my potential mentors were generally closeted men living unobtrusive, invisible lives. For years, I realized that I wanted to be with a man, but I failed to act on my inclinations, cloistering myself in a monastery of self-denial. The only man I had ever touched, in fact, was when I worked briefly as a dishwasher following my freshman year in high school. At the end of the second day, when the cook and I were alone, he approached me and guided my hand toward his erect self. Though I touched him with anticipation, momentarily I panicked and stormed out of the restaurant. I walked for hours tormented by my sin, asking God for forgiveness. The next morning, the cook fired me and because I was ashamed, I cataloged the experience neatly in my repertoire of painful memories, always conflicted by my desire to touch him, yet repulsed by the act. Now, I found myself walking down into a dark dungeon at the Diamond Lil, devoured by ambivalent confusion. On the one hand, all my senses were heightened and repulsed by sensory overload. On the other hand, I recognized that what I longed for might be waiting for me just on the other side of the shadows to which I was descending. I walked around nervously. Once my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I was horrified. The men I saw were effeminate men who laughed too loud and flittered around the bar like damselflies strutting atop a mirrored lake. The women, on the other hand, wore black leather, sported short-cropped hair and glared like birds of prey in search of victims. In retrospect, I wonder how much of what I remember was a fabrication of my own fears, a sepia cinematic scene from my reel of expectations. I thundered out of the bar in a state of stupor. If this is what awaited me as a gay man, I wanted no part of it. I had sore knees from kneeling before the crucified statue of a moribund Christ at church as I prayed that my curse be lifted. I had always believed that Spirit always answers all prayers with a “Yes, a Not Yet, or an I-have-something-better-in-mind-for-you” response. I walked home from the Diamond Lil conflicted by personal and theological implications. I didn’t want to be a husk of my former self, like the pod people who are possessed by alien-prodding, no pun intended, in Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Based on the propaganda I had heard all my life, I nevertheless feared becoming a depressed, angry, lost soul lurking in the dark shadows like the roaches that proliferated on the steamy streets and dark alleyways. I feared a life of hurried sex acts behind greasy dumpsters and anonymous glory holes reeking of pungent ammonia. I longed to be held tenderly in the arms of one who would cradle me in his arms and assure me he would love me, yes love me, in spite of my fears that as a gay man I was undeserving. I hated that world where like Shakespeare’s Ophelia, God gave me one face and I made myself another. I lived a life in quiet desperation resulting from the insidious indoctrination from misguided propaganda. Although I wanted to be a good boy, with a relationship modeled after an unrealistic hetero romance movie-of-the-week fantasy, I also wanted dirty sex, and the dirtier, the better. And there lay my quandary. After all, while my inclinations dominated me, I was conflicted by my labeled offenses against nature, against family and community, and against God. I concluded that since I was unable to change the situation, I had to confront the challenge to change myself.

I decided that like Lucifer, I would have to rebel against the status quo and take the plunge into a new realm, hoping I would find myself not in pandemonium, but in some gay kingdom where I could eat my bread in gladness and where I could finally realize Spirit’s I-have-something-better-in-mind-for-you agenda. Only later did I realize that my act of rebellion, in fact, would materialize into my act of redemption. In years to come, I would embrace my gay and lesbian kin, as well as myself, as masterworks of creation. I would realize that although we are disparaged by the world, when we embrace our own core and honor our mystic journey, we reclaim our perfect selves.

Making changes is never easy. It took time and courage to know what I wanted and to give myself permission to direct myself toward those goals. There was a time when I felt I was not entitled to be happy because I preferred a man’s touch, a man’s affection, a man’s love. There was a time when like so many in our community, I felt that I was destined never to celebrate a healthy adult relationship, one in which he loved me regardless of my frailties, my fears, my challenges, and vice versa. More importantly, I acknowledged that I could be whole, whether in a relationship with another or not, as long as I honored the relationship with myself. When I walked into the Diamond Lil, it became a rewarding and life-altering experience. I walked in a frightened, vulnerable, defensive child, but I walked out a frightened, vulnerable, defensive adult. That evening, I discovered that I am lovable, and as such, I deserve a life in which I remove my armor and discover gratefulness and joy.

Demanding our rightful place in this world can be challenging and at times even dangerous. In spite of the many triumphs our community has won in the last few years, right-wing Republican bureaucrats and hate-mongering evangelical theocrats continue to advocate policies of hate, insisting being gay can never be affirmed or affirming. I, we, don’t need permission or approval to celebrate the milestones in our lives. For too much of my life, I was a victim of distorted, misguided lies leveled against me. It took me a lifetime to recognize that when I finally let go of the past, something better comes along. Spirit may not have changed me as I attempted to storm the gates of heaven, but before I called, Spirit did, in fact, answer.

© Denver, August 2014

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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Right Now by Betsy

If there is nothing else that I have learned over the years, I have learned this: be present and focus on the moment, the RIGHT NOW, because it really is all there is. It is all that we have in reality. The past is made up of memories, and memories are, after all, a product of one’s mind. As for the future: it is unknown and thoughts of the future are also a product of the mind.

We have a whole lot of ”right nows” happening all the time in succession. By the time I read this, what I am doing right now will be a memory; that is, a vision I create in my mind.

Right now is the most important time of my life. When I contemplate this I realize that right now IS all that is real. So why not make the most of it.

In a recent Monday afternoon story called My Favorite Place I wrote: my favorite place is wherever I am at the moment. Right now my favorite place is here, trying to sort out my thoughts and put them down on paper so you all can get some understanding of what I am trying to say.

Have you ever been in a place where you wanted desperately to capture the moment and make it last forever, such as a place of indescribable beauty and awe such as the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls. Today’s cameras help to do that and make it possible to take home a reminder of that place. But what I cannot take home with me is how it FELT to experience the incredible beauty of the canyon and that awesome power of the falls. The memory is not the same as the experience itself. EkhartTolle speaks of being at one with the universe. Surrounded by incredible natural beauty and power and really taking in the feeling and the peace that it engenders is perhaps the closest I will ever be in my current human form to that connection. This can only happen in the right now.

How many of us have ever completely tormented ourselves over something that happened in the past–a few minutes ago or long ago. Or something bad happens a few minutes ago or long ago and we cannot let go of it. We go over and over and over it in our minds. Both past and future are constructs of the mind, says Tolle. Only the now is real. I like the concept. But yet being human I am flawed. My fragile ego was injured, for example, when I was inadvertently left off a groups’ luncheon e-mail list. A group of which I am a long time member. Did someone deliberately forget me. So I started in with the tapes going round and round in my head. “Why was I ignored? Who did it? Does someone hate me? Why does she hate me? Oh! For Heaven’s sake, Betsy, let it go. It was a simple mistake.” Focusing on the right now has helped me to better manage my vulnerability in such situations. Keeps me grounded in reality.

We all have known people who “live” in the past or “live”” in the future. I can understand how a person could fall into this behavior. When I retired from my job, for an instant I panicked. “ Who will I be? Maybe I will no longer have an identity. I’ll be a nothing,” etc. etc. Fortunately that thought was only fleeting. I immediately shifted gears, found other activities and interests, and established a new identity as an active retired person–a sports enthusiast, a community volunteer, etc. So for me, adjustment to retirement took only a week or so.

Coming out of the closet I had many moments of doubt about what I was doing at the time. I had left a very comfortable marriage and entered a world of insecurities and unfamiliar territory. I had never really lived alone. At the time it was not easy to find, much less join, a community of which I knew little; and on occasion finding members of that community with whom I could hardly relate. This produced moments of anxiety when I longed for my old familiar, comfortable situation I had left–my old, familiar past. But right now, I then said to myself, I know that past was intolerable and that is why I am doing this. I struggled but coached myself to stay grounded in the present.

During the months and years when I was in that marriage but starting to question whether I should be there, I started living in the future. Talk about having your head in the clouds–imagining what it would be like to be in a relationship with a woman and envisioning life as a lesbian. It seems clear that we all need to plan and to dream at times in our lives. But living one’s life and identifying with the future all the time can be dangerous. Would it not be terrifying to wake up one day and realize you’ve missed out on all the right nows and there are none left.

We do get ourselves into trouble, and we do ourselves a disservice when we anticipate not only that a certain something will happen in the future, but also we envision how we will feel about it. We may be setting ourselves up for disappointment or disillusionment.

When I first came out I had much to learn about life and about people. And that is not because I was young. Well, compared to now I was young. But I was not a youngster. I was in my late forties. Yet I had lots to learn. So I experienced a couple of stormy years and stormy relationships and had many moments of doubt about the steps I had taken to change my life. Yes, I was a lesbian, but was this the life I wanted? At first I had many moments of disillusionment with my new life.

The future is not right now. What we think about the future is a contrivance of our thinking mind and not a reality. Does the future therefore deserve any of our energy in the form of anxiety, concern, worry, trepidation. Or on the positive side does it deserve premature visions of happiness, joy, calm, peace, etc. I do believe it does to some extent. Half the fun of a trip, or a party is the planning of it, right? For me it is. And planning for the future is a necessity, no doubt about it. But planning is a useful action done, when? In the right now. What does not deserve our time and energy is wasted worry and anxiety about the future.

In my dotage I am learning that life requires adjustments, sometimes just fine tuning, other times big changes all along the way. I have recently learned that I am having to cut back on many activities that I don’t want to cut back on. Some fine tuning is necessary. If I stick to the right nows, I should be able to make that adjustment easily and positively. I’m finding that being and staying in the right now helps me to do that. No doubt about it. The NOW is a good place to be.
So, what am I doing right now? I am getting ready for another right now.

December 16, 2013

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver women’s chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change). She has been retired from the Human Services field for about 15 years. Since her retirement, her major activities include tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with National Sports Center for the Disabled, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and enjoys spending time with her four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 25 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Feeling Different by Phillip Hoyle


As a young adult in seminary discussions I realized that sometimes students and professors alike didn’t know what I was going on about. A professor would listen to my ideas and respond, “Very interesting, Mr. Hoyle.” I took it he had no clear understanding of my perspective. That was okay, something I had encountered most of my life. I was talking about one of these seminary “interesting” instances with my mentor Katherine Williams. “They must think I’m strange,” I concluded.

“You are strange, Phillip,” she replied without hesitation.
Strange was not new to me. Although I didn’t feel particularly unaccepted or unacceptable as a teenager, I was aware that my sexual yearnings were unusual enough that they could get me into a lot of trouble or at least make my life a problem to other folk. Besides that, I was mildly nerdy but found my niche in music. If any musician fits in, I fit in easily enough singing in church, school and community. I was a reluctant leader in a couple of school organizations. I felt different; I was different: for instance, I didn’t know any other kids my age who organized music groups; I didn’t know very many guys who studied as attentively as I did although I admit I didn’t over-do it; I was physically rather uncoordinated, but not so much as to be made into a fool; I had good humor; I was independent and happy to be so. My feeling different didn’t make me feel particularly bad since I was easily entertained, easy going, and tolerant of groups and different kinds of people. By that time in my life I was reconciled to the fact that I was quite different and that the difference was acceptable to me if not to anyone else.

In college, I felt attracted to three guys: Todd, Dirk, and Chad. Todd and Chad seemed straight. I assumed Dirk was but now wonder if he was bisexual. He seemed somehow attracted to me as if he knew I was do-able. We never went beyond touching disguised as wrestling. Straight Chad was rather needy, and I fell for him. He was the first person I ever lost sleep over. But I was on an earnest straight road toward marriage. After seven years of marriage, I had a one-night stand with a gay friend. Our friendship continued. After nine years of marriage, I fell in love with a man and forged a friendship that after five years added a sexual element. The sex was sporadic, yet the love and interest remained constant.

While living in Albuquerque, a mid-life crisis led me into two homosexual affairs. I conducted these contacts with less care than before as I explored an increasingly gay world. The feelings had changed; my feelings.

Around that time a gay friend said to me, “No one can grow up gay in America without developing some neurosis.” His assertion would mean all gays need psychiatric help. I objected to the notion but then recalled hearing a lecture by a psychiatrist who reckoned ninety per cent of his patients didn’t really need his help. He judged they needed trusted friends to talk with. He laughed at himself saying he was a highly paid substitute friend. The neurosis, if that is the accurate term, subsides when one is accepted in love.

My Albuquerque affairs seemed that to me: the friendships that could sustain me and my sanity. They also were sexual. The first one would never be more than sex play, play I found exciting and that helped me understand so much about my own needs. It afforded the sexual contrast, the complement I desired. The second affair had an emotionally complicated excitement the first did not proffer yet it was sexually boring: the techniques my partner initiated were always the same. I realized sex in my marriage had measures of all these experiences, but the feelings of the homosex offered an amazing contrast. I discovered needs and joys that thrilled me when with these two men. (No, there was never a three-way. Oh well.)


Much of my life I have felt different. I continue to feel different. I’m sure it’s not just because I am gay or that I was always homosexual. It’s the whole package of my life, my different and strange life. I love it. I love myself. I love life.


© Denver, 2011

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.” 

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot