Resilience

Resilience
Stories, Poems, Essays, Words for LGBT Teens About Growing Up, Surviving, Living and Thriving

edited by Eric Nguyen

 2012. Eric Nguyen.

A Letter To LGBTQ Young People (previously published in LGBTPOV.com) Keiko Lane. Rebel Yell Dan Stone. A Walk Through the Neighborhood (previously published in The Q Review) Samuel Autman. Billy Michaels Sarah McConnaughey. You Don't Know What It's Like (previously published in Sojourn Volume 19) Christopher Stephen Soden. Angry as Regret (previously published in Danse Macabre: Stonewall Edition) Colin Gilbert. Eleven Jarrett Neal. Sculptor of Skin Amy Gerstin Coombs. Letters to a Young Aberration Carolyn Agee. Where the Children Play (previously published in BlazeVOX Online Journal) Emma Eden Ramos. When the Bully Apologizes J.J. Sheen. You Are A Runner Bill Elenbark. Memories of Coming Out (previously published in EurOut.org in a slightly different form) Natascha de Hoog. Every Mother Should Have a Gay Son Elizabeth Brahy. Whatever Happened to Mona Shalesky? James R. Silvestri. Family Letters Jen Sammons and Ames Hawkins. Origins Stories Kathleen Jercich. Braids Anne E. Johnson. The Straight Boys Kiss Rene Cardona. The Dykeutante Allison Fradkin. Letter to Myself as a Child Keiko Lane. To A Young Person Who Has Not Yet Realized She is Embarking on a Fairy Tale Rebecca Lynne Fullan. Born Again Dan Stone. Only I Saw How Benjamin Klas. Apples and Oranges (previously published in Smart Tart #1) Liz Green. After I Told Her Benjamin Klas. Cover images Istockphoto.com

To Tyler Clementi, Seth Walsh, Justin Aaberg, Raymond Chase, Asher Brown, Billy Lucas, Zach Harrington, Aiyisha Hassa, Jamey Rodemeyer and everyone else who had to live in such a cruel world.

Table of Contents
9 |A Letter To LGBTQ Young People |Keiko Lane A 15 |Rebel Yell |Dan Stone Rebel 17 |A Walk Through the Neighborhood |Samuel Autman A 20 |Billy Michaels |Sarah McConnaughey Billy 23 |You Don't Know What It's Like |Christopher Stephen You Soden 31 |Angry As Regret |Colin Gilbert Angry 32 |Eleven |Jarrett Neal Eleven 34 |Sculptor of Skin |Amy Gerstin Coombs Sculptor 43 |Letters to a Young Aberration |Carolyn Agee Letters 45 |Where the Children Play |Emma Eden Ramos Where 78|When 78 When the Bully Apologizes |J.J. Sheen 84 |You Are A Runner |Bill Elenbark You 97 |Memories of Coming Out |Natascha de Hoog Memories 99 |Every Mother Should Have A Gay Son |Elizabeth Every Brahy 102 |What Happened to Mona Shalesky |James R. Silvestri What 112 |Family Letters |Jen Sammons and Ames Hawkins Family

122 |Origin Stories |Kathleen Jercich Origin 127 |Braids |Anne E. Johnson Braids 136 |The Straight Boys Kiss |Rene Cardona The 137 |The Dykeutante The Dykeutante|Allison Fradkin 144 |Letter To Myself As A Child |Keiko Lane Letter 146 |To A Young Person Who Has Not Yet Realized To She is Embarking on a Fairy Tale |Rebecca Lynne Fullan 151 |Born Again |Dan Stone Born 153 |Only I Saw How |Benjamin Klas Only 154 |Apples and Oranges |Liz Green Apples 157 |After I Told Her |Benjamin Klas After

158 |About the Authors

Resilience

A Letter to LGBTQ Young People: An Apology and a Promise

Keiko Lane

LET ME TELL YOU a story.

I met them when we were in high school, on Dia de los Muertos. I was sitting on the grassy patch of the small slope in the middle of our urban Los Angeles, locked campus reviewing notes for an afternoon chemistry class. I zipped up my leather jacket against the fall breeze and untangled my hair from the ACT UP Silence = Death stickers plastered to its back. Cool jacket, I heard, as two bodies moved to face me. Thanks, I said, looking up to see who was talking. Both were Chicana: The petite one had short curly hair, marigolds pinned behind her ear, and wore bright red lipstick. The other, heavier and muscular, wore her long hair pulled back in a low ponytail. Her hand rested on the femmes lower back. A couple. A butch/femme couple in my high school. I hadnt seen them in any of my classesnot uncommon on our campus of more than 3,000. We smiled at one another, and they sat down. The next few weeks we got to know one another, sharing stories over lunch. Emma (the femme) and Carla (the butch) had grown up together, their families attending the same church. Their mothers were friends. They had been a couple since middle school, since Emma seduced Carla. (She only thinks thats how it went down, says Carla. Whatever you need to believe, honey, laughs Emma.) But their families didnt know. They thought the Emma was a good influence on Carla, and that story made everyone happy. Well, she is a good influence on me, Carla had said to me,

Resilience
cradling Emmas cheek in her hand. Emma wanted to be a doctor. And though she was quiet and a little shy, she laughed easily at the jokes and teasing of her girlfriend. Carla was fierce, smart, and not very interested in a public education system that didnt reflect her. Emma had made her promise to stay in school, promising in return that they would get out together after graduation. Thats a long time from now, Carla would sigh and shake her head. I just want to be with you. Emma would smile back, We will, I promise. Well get away as soon as we graduate. Youll go to college, Carla always told her. Ill support you, dont worry. Some days they brought their friend Angel. The three had had grown up together keeping one anothers secretslike hiding Angels dresses in Emmas closet. He got to wear them, along with Emmas bright red lipstick, when her parents were at work. Angel knew he was trans but was afraid of what would happen if he came out. All of their parents thought that he and Emma were dating, that Carla was their awkward friend. I asked Angel if he wanted me to use female pronouns when I talked to him. He smiled, somewhat sadly. No, he sighed. I dont want to get used to it yet. I dont want anyone to slip in front of anyone who knows my family. When I graduate and leave home, then yeah. But not now. That fall, the first Gulf War was brewing, and I was spending weekends and evenings at anti-war demonstrations with my ACT UP and Queer Nation friends. Very long days and nights of meetings, demonstrations, parties, and hospital bedside vigils. Emma, Carla, and Angel wanted to know all about it, but didnt dare join meafraid their families would find out, afraid their picture would end up in the LA Times, the way mine had. After telling them about an especially long ACT UP Womens Caucus meeting the night before, Emma peppered me with questions about the politics of healthcare access for HIV-infected women and children.

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Maybe thats what I want to do if I become a doctor. You will become a doctor. Ill make sure of it, said Carla. Can we come to a meeting? Emma asked. Oh, I dont know, said Carla, looking uneasy. Theres no media at committee meetingsnothing that exciting happens, I reassured her. No, it isnt that. I dont know. The Womens Caucus? Carla shifted from side to side, nervous. I just dontyou know, always feel like a woman. Well I do! Angel was emphatic. Can I come, too? Its so simple for you, said Carla. You always knew, didnt you that youre really a girl? Of course, he said, shrugging. Not of course, said Carla. I just dont know. Emma took her hand. A week later, Emma found Angel and me at lunch. She was trembling. A thick, raw welt scarred her cheek. Her mother had come home from work early the day before and caught her in bed with Carla. Her mother had screamed, kicked Carla out of the house, and then called her mother. Emma had fought with her mother, and her mother had slapped her, leaving the welt. Emma, forbidden to leave the house or use the phone, had spent the sleepless night worrying about Carla, frantic and afraid for her. As Emma told us the story, Carla arrived. Her right eye was black and blue, her lips swollen and cut, and her neck was ringed with deep purple bruises. Her father had beaten and repeatedly choked her when he found out. She fought her way out of the house. Angel was shaking. Did they call my parents? I dont know, said Emma, looking at him. I think so. Im so sorry. Lets leave now, Carla pleaded with her. Right now. I never saw them again. I kept returning to our old spot during lunch, hoping to see them. And then I just got busy: A friend from ACT UP died, someone else was sick. I dont remember when I stopped thinking about the three of them.

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That year we were fighting against HIV immigration laws that 20 years later were still fighting. And 20 years later, my queer friends are still dying. Why am I telling you this? Because it does get better, but not the better youre expected to believe. For those of us not born into the privilege of money or white skin, normative gender presentation, or other signifiers of passing and affluence, what are the possibilities of better? The social and political movement that you see waiting for you may not reflect you, may not reflect what you dream of. The movement talks about marriage, raising families, and serving your countrywhile youre trying to make it through another day alive. Maybe youve never been able to hold a dates hand or go on a date. Or maybe you live your life out loud and fabulous making art, dating, fighting for public space, and propelling your proud and visible self through your world alone or with the help of well-chosen or surprising allies. The visible movement says you should fight for the right to join the military because soon there will be no funded public education, and youll be able to travel overseas to kill people who look like you. The most visible representatives of the movement are usually the most socially normative and acceptable of us. It was always that way. 20 years ago the visible movement didnt reflect us eitherthe trannies, sex workers, HIV+, poor, queers of color, or radicals. But we were visible to each other. This letter is an apology to themmy lost high school friends. And a promise to you. This week in my psychotherapy practice, I sat with a young transperson who did get out, who told me about the bullying that they had suffered during high school. Pushed into lockers, shoved, and tripped during track training, anonymous threats of sexual violence left in their locker. Also this week I sat with a mother of a toddler talking about the bullying that toddler experienced on the playground from another toddler who didnt want to share toys. Maybe when we talk about the experiences of LGBTQ young people, bullying is the wrong word. Do we infantilize you by using the

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same terminology we use when we talk about toddlers not sharing toys? Would people pay closer attention if we used the same language we use for adults having these experiences outside school walls? Hate crimes, hate speech, sexual harassment, and sexual assault in the context of a cultural climate that disavows your humanity. Our humanity. I felt like I had barely escaped from my high school; I was so happy to get out that I didnt look back. Thats the danger now, isnt it what I must atone for. We get so excited when we see our path to escape that we forget we do not survive alone, that our survival is tied to the rest of the tribe. What happened to the couple I went to high school with? What happened to our trans friend? I like to think that they, too, escaped. That they finished school, that Emma is somewhere a doctor, and Carla a genderqueer revolutionary. That Angel is living somewhere as the woman she wanted to grow up to be. I know better than to believe this, but Id like to. Better may not look like the American Dream. You may not want it to. Better is complicated. Better looks like this: My friends from ACT UP and Queer Nation who modeled honorable, just, and loving queer livelihood are my community now, and we try to take care of one another still. Weve lost many of our chosen family to AIDS, cancer, and addiction. Weve nursed one another through police brutality, illness, and overwhelm. We build altars. We pick marigolds on Dia de los Muertos, take the streets on Transgender Day of Remembrance, and light candles on World AIDS Day. We fight for the living. Some of us are married, and some of us refuse all signifiers that would have us blend in with the normative cultural center. We build urban gardens, make art, and believe that revolutionary change is both internal and external. Every year, students in my queer psychology classes remind me that whatever I think I can know or guess about them, Im only partially correct because the context of their lives and the histories of their bodies moving through this world are never what I expect or imagine. They remind me to ask. When I am lucky, they tell me. Last month a press release was issued from Equality California that a noose was left on the organizations office door and that the police

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officer they tried to report it to said, Sometimes you just have to live with being a victim. And yes, the slightly lowered numbers of hate crimes reported in 2009 from 2008 most likely represents not a drop in actual hate crimes, but a decrease in the capacity of organizations to respond to and document them. But finally, legislation has recently passed in California allowing minors 12 and older to seek mental health treatment without parental consent. My colleagues and I will finally be able to hold space in our agencies and private practices to provide support and mentorship to LGBTQ and other youth at risk of abandonment by the current political and social systems of power. And, though some people I know still argue that we cant reach into all of the corners of the country where you might be isolated and seeking, videos take flight over the Web with images of you fighting back, standing up for your own fierce selves, and the rights of other LGBTQ community members to whom you lend your voice. You teach us what it means to live out loud now. We are trying to listen. Better looks like this: We keep fighting. We find each other still. There is a revolution rumbling in your name. We are looking for you.

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