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My Pride Throughout the Years - 2007 Gay Pride w/oMay 30 '07 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line I think Pride is all about living your life honestly and fully, no matter where you are in your life
As I have gotten older, my ideas about exactly what Gay Pride is have changed. In High School, I was so afraid that someone might think I was gay, Gay Pride was something alien to me and scared me to death. After I came out following my High School graduation and went to college, my Pride was what was probably considered by some to be militant. I led both personal battles and public battles against discrimination, bias and hate crimes. Nowadays that militant Pride has mellowed and changed into something else which is just as important to me, but is something that reflects the way I have grown and how my life experiences have changed me. My very first experience of displaying my Pride in the face of adversity was within a few months of first arriving at my College. At the time there was no gay support group (it had folded a year or two before I arrived) and I was more or less the only sort of ‘out’ person on campus. One of my suitemates approached me one night and asked that I move out because he didn’t want to live with a gay guy. That quickly led into a screaming match and was never resolved. I continued to live there and he continued to wish I didn’t, but I didn’t give in and I made sure I didn’t change or move just to appease his homophobia. That led me to restart the gay support group with my Residence Hall Director and a few other brave students. Throughout my four years the group became bigger, more powerful and more influential on campus and with that, we became more vocal about our Pride and about our reactions to discrimination and bias. We intervened with the Residential Life Department and created policies for dealing with gay and lesbian students living in the dormitories, we created the Safe Person/Safe Space Ally program where lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) students could find a space place to be who they were, we raised awareness by chalking up the campus the day before parents weekend with various gay pride slogans and we rallied against hate by holding a vigil after Matthew Shepard’s death. Not only that, there were numerous workshops, programs, dances (we became famous for our annual Drag Ball), and conferences where we worked with LGB groups from surrounding colleges. I was basically as out as one could be I suppose. I was the President of the Gay-Straight Alliance and I was an outspoken Student Senator. Not only that, I was a member of the Residential Life staff for a year and I basically became the unofficial LGB liaison for the school during the time that I was there. It was also at school that I met my Partner. He and I met through a mutual friend in the beginning of my Sophomore year (his Freshman year). We started out as friends and quickly moved to being boyfriends and ever since, we have been together. If anything has colored my sense of Pride since college, it has been my relationship. Now over 10 years long, this relationship has shown me what true love really is and has led us to create our own home, nurture our relationship and begin to build a family. Following my graduation I spent a couple of years working in Maine while my partner continued to attend school and then start working here in Massachusetts. My Pride at that time was fairly low-key, living alone and being in rural Maine didn’t exactly lend itself to taking part in Pride parades or being a radical. I was out at my job and to my friends though and I made sure that I ‘led by example,’ I guess. I didn’t want anyone to assume anything about me and while I was never in anyone’s face, everyone knew I was going to Vermont (and eventually Massachusetts) to visit my partner (or he was coming to visit me) and everyone knew him when I would bring him to the office. I eventually found a job and moved down here so that we could finally start ‘living together’ after years of either living in dorms or living apart by several hundred miles and this once again changed my feelings of Pride since I was finally living with my partner and we were really getting to start our lives together. Pride became the realization of our lives together. Our families love us both (my Mom refers to my partner as the “son she’s never had”), our friends couldn’t be more supportive and overall my Pride became part of living my life. Just by showing that two gay men could have a long-lasting, supportive and loving relationship, I was showing the world something important about being gay. I started a new job and at our first company function, I made sure that my partner came with me. I wanted to make sure I was out from the start and so we arrived and I went from person to person introducing my partner and having them introduce their spouse to us. I’ll admit, it was a bit intimidating at first (since it’s sort of like – ‘oh…here we go’) but it was liberating and in the end, everyone at my office couldn’t have been more supportive. Now when we talk in the office, everyone knows who my partner is and when talking about stuff, he’s just as much a part of the conversation as other employees spouses and significant others. Following that, we were able to buy a home and start putting down even more roots. Even the home buying process became an exercise in coming out. We had to explain to our mortgage broker who we were, we had to explain it to our lawyer (luckily we found a lesbian lawyer who helped out a lot) and throughout the process we were the ‘two guys buying a house together.’ At times it was a bit intimidating, but we came out better for it and I think we did our part showing others our life together. After purchasing the home, our lives became that much more intertwined and while they aren’t children, we took home two kittens who are appropriately named Will and Grace. They have helped us to create a home and a family. The house, the cats, my partner, everything has helped me realize what Pride is to me right now. It’s not being ashamed of who I am, it’s having a relationship filled with love that helps educate and inspire others and it’s being part of a loving family and having loving and supportive friends. Not only that, my life today has shown me how important it is to continue fighting for our rights and showing our Pride. Here in Massachusetts gay marriage is legal but there is a constitutional amendment working its way through our State Legislature that could take away that right. The legislature has to vote to approve the amendment once more before it goes to a public vote and while I’m fairly certain that the citizens of Massachusetts would not pass the amendment, I don’t think its fair to write discrimination into our state constitution and to vote on the civil rights of a group of people. I have been calling my representatives on their votes and I have been supporting the groups in Massachusetts working to fight this amendment. I want to make sure that my partner and I can get married and I want to secure that right for future gay couples at the same time. So even though my partner and I are going to get married one way or another this fall, there is a chance that for gay couples who want to get married after November of 2008, that right might not be there for them and that is something that really scares me. My Pride helps me fight to maintain and secure the rights we have earned. I’ll be at the Boston Pride parade this June showing my support, but even more importantly I will know what Pride means to me. My life, my love and my pursuits are all part of my Pride and make me who I am. While I may not be leading campus protests anymore, my Pride today is no less important as I am doing my part to live my life honestly and fully, which is exactly what I think Pride is all about. This is part of the 2007 Gay Pride Month Write-Off here on Epinions. If you want to read more entries or want to submit your own, visit the Write-Off Details Page.  |
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