Tomorrow Is Coming Out Day!

Whether you're lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or a straight ally, be proud of who you are and your support for LGBT equality this Coming Out Day!

In the Beginning, There Was a March

On Oct. 11, 1987, half a million people participated in the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. It was the second such demonstration in our nation’s capital and resulted in the founding of a number of LGBT organizations, including the National Latino/a Gay & Lesbian Organization (LLEGÓ) and AT&T’s LGBT employee group, LEAGUE. The momentum continued four months after this extraordinary march as more than 100 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activists from around the country gathered in Manassas, Va., about 25 miles outside Washington, D.C. Recognizing that the LGBT community often reacted defensively to anti-gay actions, they came up with the idea of a national day to celebrate coming out and chose the anniversary of that second march on Washington to mark it. The originators of the idea were Rob Eichberg, a founder of the personal growth workshop, The Experience, and Jean O'Leary, then head of National Gay Rights Advocates. From this idea the National Coming Out Day was born.

To this day National Coming Out Day (NCOD) continues to promote a safe world for LGBT individuals to live truthfully and openly.

The People of NCOD

The success of NCOD, which from inception quickly expanded to include participation from all 50 states and foreign countries, is because of the hard work of celebrities, volunteers and activists.

• Rob Eichberg and Jean O'Leary were the originators of the idea of NCOD
• Sean Strub and Keith Haring- In 1987, Activist Sean Strub got Haring to donate his now-famous image of a person fairly dancing out of a closet
• Lynn Shepodd - In 1990, Shepodd, who later became a member of HRC’s Board of Governors, was hired as executive director and obtained tax-exempt status for the organization
• Geraldo Rivera- In 1991, Geraldo Rivera hosted a coming out day TV program that featured Dick Sargent, a gay actor famous for playing Darren on Bewitched, openly gay California Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl and Eichberg.
• Wes Combs in 1994 was named HRCF's project director for National Coming Out Day
• Candace Gingrich, half-sister of then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, became a National Coming Out Project spokesperson and full-time activist in 1995
• Dan Butler, who played the character Bulldog on NBC-TV's Frasier, was NCOD spokeperson in 1995
• Rock musician Melissa Etheridge did a radio public service announcement, reminding people that "Labels belong on records, not on people."
• Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., spoke at the "Come Out Voting" rally in Washington, D.C., Oct. 11, 1996.
• Fashion photographer Don Flood in 1996 shot past spokespeople Bearse, Butler and Gingrich, along with Olympic diver Greg Louganis, actor Mitchell Anderson, newly minted gay activist Chastity Bono and Sean Sasser, who had appeared in MTV's The Real World.
• In 1996, actress Judith Light, pro golfer Muffin Spencer-Devlin and, in her first appearance at a gay rights event, Cher spoke at a Come Out Voting rally in Washington, DC
• In September 1997 the project brought in its first straight spokesperson, Betty DeGeneres, mother of actress/comedian Ellen DeGeneres.
• Patrick Bristow (formerly of the Ellen TV show), Dan Butler, San Francisco Supervisor Mark Leno, longtime activist Donna Red Wing, Betty DeGeneres, Gingrich and SF Mayor Willie Brown were featured in a 1998 NCOD event in San Francisco’s Delores Park
• Chicago-native and founding member of the rock group Styx Chuck Panozzo celebrated a special homecoming in 2001 when he came out at the Human Rights Campaign annual Chicago dinner.
• On National Coming Out Day, Oct. 11, 2002, a benefit CD featuring the songs of openly LGBT musicians and straight allies was released. Cyndi Lauper, Queen, k.d. lang, Jade Esteban Estrada and Sarah McLachlan are among the artists who donated songs to the album.
• Etheridge's name appears on a poster celebrating the 2002 theme along with 18 other openly LGBT artists, including Ani DiFranco, Michael Stipe, the Indigo Girls, RuPaul, Rufus Wainwright and The Butchies

Living Openly

However you identify, HRC and its Coming Out Project hope these guides help you meet the challenges and opportunities that living openly offers to each of us:

Find coming out guides and other resources

Are You a Straight Ally?

Check out A Straight Guide to LGBT Americans to learn about the emotional spectrum that people typically feel after someone comes out to them and find easy ways to learn more and demonstrate your support for LGBT Americans and equality.

Download the guide

What I Wanted To Do Today...

I'd love to have laid in bed all day today with a good book, and if someone happened to be lying beside me while I read, all the better. However, instead, I have been running around helping family members with a little bit of this and a little bit of that.  Sometimes, there is no rest for the weary.  What would have been your ideal day today?

Moment of Zen: Coffee

LGBT History Month Icons Oct. 5th - 7th

Icons for Wednesday, Oct. 5th - Friday, Oct. 7th

Dustin Lance Black - October 5th
“I heard the story of Harvey Milk and it gave me hope that I could live my life openly as who I am.”

Dustin Lance Black is a screenwriter, director and producer. He received an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for “Milk. More

Keith Boykin - October 6th
“I'm not on a show with a pink triangle or rainbow flag, which means that being gay is just a part of who I am.”

Keith Boykin is a political commentator, best-selling author, editor of The Daily Voice, and veteran of two presidential campaigns. More

Rita Mae Brown - October 7th
“Don't ask to live in tranquil times. Literature doesn't grow there."

Rita Mae Brown is a novelist and screenwriter best known for her semi-autobiographical lesbian-themed book "Rubyfruit Jungle." More

Undergraduate Majors in LGBT Studies

San Diego State University announced this week that it had received approval to offer an undergraduate major in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender studies, and would begin accepting students into the multidisciplinary program next spring.

Esther Rothblum, a professor of women’s studies and the LGBT-studies academic adviser at San Diego State, said in a news release that the four-year major would be the first in California and the second in the United States. The other institution offering such a major is Hobart and William Smith Colleges, in New York, The San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Ms. Rothblum said the degree would be applicable to a variety of careers, and an asset for students applying to professional programs in areas like business, law, or medicine.

Graduates of a Bachelor's degree program will have an excellent foundation for careers in social work, family planning, counseling, medicine, law, the ministry/rabbinate, human resources, and K-12 teaching (where people are allowed to teach about LGBT issues) in various subjects, as well as for advanced academic study in disciplines such as literature, history, sociology, the arts, or theology, just to name some of the obvious ones. There are more than 1500 non-profit organizations related to LGBT issues across the country that would benefit from educated people on this topic. There are colleges running multicultural student centers and student clubs that need advisors, research roles in private and government organizations, and I can think of many other places where an education in LGBT studies could be useful.

I wish I had been out at the time I was in undergrad and would have been able to be a double major in history and LGBT studies. Most of my knowledge of LGBT issues and history has come largely from my own personal research and yearning for knowledge on the subject. Many schools are now offering minors in LGBT studies or minors in Human Rights. There have already been gender studies programs which focus on a wide range of gender issues including LGBT issues, but I think this is wonderful that there are programs now for a four year degree in LGBT studies.

Phallus Impudicus: The Shameless Phallus

With Gay American History, Jonathan Ned Katz published the first book of documents relating to homosexuality in American history. This fascinating and compendious source ranges from the sixteenth century up to present times; its texts include everything from denunciations of sodomy in colonial America to modern protests against homosexual persecution.  By demonstrating the important presence of same-sex desires, friendships, and sexual practices throughout Western history, this book was crucial in opening up new fields for investigation.

Jonathan Katz's Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the U.S.A. uses this illustration drawn by Henry David Thoreau of "Phallus impudicus" (the shameless phallus), among excerpts from Thoreau's letters about his reaction after reading Whitman's Leaves of Grass: "It is as if the beasts spoke. I think that men have not been ashamed of themselves without reason."

I would love to be able to see this document myself and analyze it's content; however, this picture of the "Phallus impudicus" drawing is not clear enough to tell much about it. This same drawing does appear in Thoreau's Garden by H. Peter Loewer. In this volume, we can learn more about ferns and berries, goldenrods and grasses. More relevant to this post, readers can even get a glimpse of the "disgusting ... yet very suggestive" fungus (Phallus impudicus) that Thoreau railed about in October 1856, pondering "Pray, what was Nature thinking of when she made this? She almost puts herself on a level with those who draw in privies." Loewer used as his reference the index in the Dover two-volume reprint of Thoreau's Journals, which is somewhat incomplete.

The question I pose is this:  Is Thoreau chronicling the plants in his garden, or is he presenting a critique of Whitman's Leaves of Grass?  It is a question I would love to ponder further along with the relevant documents.

Ode to Walt Whitman

Eakins was profoundly influenced by the ideas of Walt Whitman, with whom he became close friends, after painting his portrait in 1887-1888. Eakins' carefully composed images of naked youths in arcadian landscape settings (such as The Swimming Hole, 1893-1895) constitute visual equivalents of Whitman's poems, celebrating male beauty and comradeship. Eakins often painted scenes of all-male athletic activities, such as rowing (for example, The Biglin Brothers Turning the Stake, 1873) and boxing (for example, Counting Out, 1888).

Ode to Walt Whitman

by Federico Garcia Lorca

By the East River and the Bronx
boys were singing, exposing their waists
with the wheel, with oil, leather, and the hammer.
Ninety thousand miners taking silver from the rocks
and children drawing stairs and perspectives.

But none of them could sleep,
none of them wanted to be the river,
none of them loved the huge leaves
or the shoreline's blue tongue.

By the East River and the Queensboro
boys were battling with industry
and the Jews sold to the river faun
the rose of circumcision,
and over bridges and rooftops, the mouth of the sky emptied
herds of bison driven by the wind.

But none of them paused,
none of them wanted to be a cloud,
none of them looked for ferns
or the yellow wheel of a tambourine.

As soon as the moon rises
the pulleys will spin to alter the sky;
a border of needles will besiege memory
and the coffins will bear away those who don't work.

New York, mire,
New York, mire and death.
What angel is hidden in your cheek?
Whose perfect voice will sing the truths of wheat?
Who, the terrible dream of your stained anemones?

Not for a moment, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,
have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies,
nor your corduroy shoulders frayed by the moon,
nor your thighs pure as Apollo's,
nor your voice like a column of ash,
old man, beautiful as the mist,
you moaned like a bird
with its sex pierced by a needle.
Enemy of the satyr,
enemy of the vine,
and lover of bodies beneath rough cloth...

Not for a moment, virile beauty,
who among mountains of coal, billboards, and railroads,
dreamed of becoming a river and sleeping like a river
with that comrade who would place in your breast
the small ache of an ignorant leopard.

Not for a moment, Adam of blood, Macho,
man alone at sea, Walt Whitman, lovely old man,
because on penthouse roofs,
gathered at bars,
emerging in bunches from the sewers,
trembling between the legs of chauffeurs,
or spinning on dance floors wet with absinthe,
the faggots, Walt Whitman, point you out.

He's one, too! That's right! And they land
on your luminous chaste beard,
blonds from the north, blacks from the sands,
crowds of howls and gestures,
like cats or like snakes,
the faggots, Walt Whitman, the faggots,
clouded with tears, flesh for the whip,
the boot, or the teeth of the lion tamers.

He's one, too! That's right! Stained fingers
point to the shore of your dream
when a friend eats your apple
with a slight taste of gasoline
and the sun sings in the navels
of boys who play under bridges.

But you didn't look for scratched eyes,
nor the darkest swamp where someone submerges children,
nor frozen saliva,
nor the curves slit open like a toad's belly
that the faggots wear in cars and on terraces
while the moon lashes them on the street corners of terror.

You looked for a naked body like a river.
Bull and dream who would join wheel with seaweed,
father of your agony, camellia of your death,
who would groan in the blaze of your hidden equator.

Because it's all right if a man doesn't look for his delight
in tomorrow morning's jungle of blood.
The sky has shores where life is avoided
and there are bodies that shouldn't repeat themselves in the dawn.

Agony, agony, dream, ferment, and dream.
This is the world, my friend, agony, agony.
Bodies decompose beneath the city clocks,
war passes by in tears, followed by a million gray rats,
the rich give their mistresses
small illuminated dying things,
and life is neither noble, nor good, nor sacred.

Man is able, if he wishes, to guide his desire
through a vein of coral or a heavenly naked body.
Tomorrow, loves will become stones, and Time
a breeze that drowses in the branches.

That's why I don't raise my voice, old Walt Whitman,
against the little boy who writes
the name of a girl on his pillow,
nor against the boy who dresses as a bride
in the darkness of the wardrobe,
nor against the solitary men in casinos
who drink prostitution's water with revulsion,
nor against the men with that green look in their eyes
who love other men and burn their lips in silence.

But yes against you, urban faggots,
tumescent flesh and unclean thoughts.
Mothers of mud. Harpies. Sleepless enemies
of the love that bestows crowns of joy.

Always against you, who give boys
drops of foul death with bitter poison.
Always against you,
Fairies of North America,
Pájaros of Havana,
Jotos of Mexico,
Sarasas of Cádiz,
Apios of Seville,
Cancos of Madrid,
Floras of Alicante,
Adelaidas of Portugal.

Faggots of the world, murderers of doves!
Slaves of women. Their bedroom bitches.
Opening in public squares like feverish fans
or ambushed in rigid hemlock landscapes.

No quarter given! Death
spills from your eyes
and gathers gray flowers at the mire's edge.
No quarter given! Attention!
Let the confused, the pure,
the classical, the celebrated, the supplicants
close the doors of the bacchanal to you.

And you, lovely Walt Whitman, stay asleep on the Hudson's banks
with your beard toward the pole, openhanded.
Soft clay or snow, your tongue calls for
comrades to keep watch over your unbodied gazelle.

Sleep on, nothing remains.
Dancing walls stir the prairies
and America drowns itself in machinery and lament.
I want the powerful air from the deepest night
to blow away flowers and inscriptions from the arch where you sleep,
and a black child to inform the gold-craving whites
that the kingdom of grain has arrived.

For more information and analysis of this poem, take a look at "Lorca's Homographic Poetics of Nationalism" by Frederick Luis Aldama

Also see:

• Federico García Lorca
• Si Mis Manos Pudieran Deshojar

I would not consider this one of my favorite poems, but it is interesting in its own way. John K. Walsh speculates in his essay "Lorca's Ode to Walt Whitman" that Lorca's Cuban hiatus marked his "open passage into a homosexual mien, and the acknowledgment of his proclivities."  As with most poetic coming outs, this is bold and expressive.

LGBT Icons for Saturday, Oct. 1st - Tuesday, Oct. 4th

Kye Allums - October 1st

“I had to come out because it was too hard not being myself”

Kye Allums is the first openly transgender athlete to play NCAA Division 1 basketball. More

___________________________________

John Ashbery - October 2nd

“My poetry is disjunct, but then so is life.”

John Ashbery is one of the most successful American poets - winning almost every major literary award, including the Pulitzer Prize. More

___________________________________

Alison Bechdel - October 3rd

“The comic strip is about all kinds of things, not just gay and lesbian issues."

Alison Bechdel is a celebrated cartoonist and author of the long running comic strip Dykes To Watch Out For. More

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John Berry - October 4th

“Each time we act against discrimination, we add a ring of life to the American tree of liberty.”

John Berry is the highest-ranking openly gay federal employee in U.S. history. More

Fruit Fly

I have been teaching at a small private school for over a year now and have successfully kept closeted, especially since I was told when I first started that I was effeminate but that the school's board members decided that I couldn't be gay since they knew I was a good Christian. (See this post.)  What bullshit!  Anyway, I am still the same person, but I keep my sexuality quiet.  Some of the students probably suspect, and I don't allow for them to use derogatory language for gay people or anyone else in my class nor do I allow them to bully anyone, especially for their sexuality.  None of the kids at my school are out, but there are some that will come out one day.  When a community is as small as ours is, everyone knows everyone else's business.  I know that these kids will do much better when they go away for college.  They need that opening and accepting experience so that they can come into their own and make those first steps out of the closet.

The point of this post, however, is that I finally found a good friend at school who is about my age.  She is our new art teacher.  Most of the teachers are much older than us, but we have been hanging out together lately when I don't have night classes.  It's great to have a new friend.  I haven't had many since I moved back to my hometown two years ago.  When I first met her, I knew that if we did become good friends that I could tell her that I was gay.  She, being an art major in college, had already figured it out and was just waiting for me to tell her.  We have a blast together.  I can really be myself around her, and even around her husband.  This weekend, her husband was gone to visit his daughter in college, and we had our big homecoming game at school, so we basically were hanging out together all weekend.  Friday night after the homecoming game seemed like a perfect time to tell her.  Of course, much as I suspected, everything went great.  She was so happy that I finally told her.  Subject that we had been beating around the bush and talking about, we could now really talk about them openly.  It has been a wonderful experience.

I finally have a new fruit fly.  I have always despised the term "fag hag" but I love the term fruit fly.  Besides, a fruit fly, though most often a heterosexual woman, can be a heterosexual man as well, who hangs around with gay people.  It's really nice to have someone that I can be open and honest with and not have to worry about whether or not I will lose my job for being myself.

By the way, remember that National Coming Out Day is October 11.  I just jumped the gun by doing so a little early.

Moment of Zen: LGBT History Month

Today, October 1, 2011, begins LGBT History Month. LGBT History Month is a month-long annual observance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender history, and the history of the gay rights and related civil rights movements. It is observed during October in the United States, to include National Coming Out Day on October 11.  This blog will, of course, be having a month long celebration of something that is near and dear to my own heart.

Background
In 1994, Rodney Wilson, a Missouri high school teacher, believed a month should be dedicated to the celebration and teaching of gay and lesbian history, and gathered other teachers and community leaders. They selected October because public schools are in session and existing traditions, such as Coming Out Day (October 11), occur that month.
Gay and Lesbian History Month was endorsed by GLAAD, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the National Education Association, and other national organizations. In 2006, Equality Forum assumed responsibility for providing content, promotion and resources for LGBT History Month.

Celebrate Our Heritage
The LGBT community is the only community worldwide that is not taught its history at home, in public schools or in religious institutions. LGBT History Month provides role models, builds community and makes the civil rights statement of our extraordinary national and international contributions.