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When the colors refuse to run
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Some 36 years after Stonewall, queers are finding plenty of reasons to celebrate — and to keep fighting the good fight. ALSO: Send us your photos from Pride Month-related events! |
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By Laura Nathan / Brooklyn, New York
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Monday, June 6, 2005 |
June always brings many reasons for celebrations. Summer vacation. Weddings galore. The advent of summer — and the barbeques and sandal-wearing this implies.
But only in the past three decades have we found another reason to celebrate: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride month.
As we celebrate LGBTQ Pride Month in this special issue of InTheFray, we share a breadth of perspectives and stories reflecting the accomplishments and struggles of sexual minorities across the United States. We begin at Michigan State University, where Lindsey K. Anderson details how this once-anti-gay campus, in spite of lingering homophobia, enabled her to come to terms with her sexuality, in The perfect couple. Meanwhile, in neighboring Chicago, Queer Latino youth dance the night away in a prom all their own. Watch for Emily Alpert's observations of the night, coming on June 13.
Speaking of perfect couples, ITF columnist Keely Savoie shares her recipe for an unusually subversive marriage in Finding defiance in a sparkly rock. Later this month, guest columnist S. Wright offers up her own subversive perspective, when she suggests that the battle for gay marriage may only hurt queers — particularly those of color — in the long-run.
Describing a different sort of love, Sam J. Miller recalls his infatuation with the guys in a lefty punk-rock band and the reality check — er, homophobia — he grappled with when he got a closer look at Kevin’s basement. Rebecca Beyer, meanwhile, revisits the stereotypes she faced as a female soccer player and the role that these stereotypes played in keeping her in the closet for an additional four years.
From the East Coast we journey with photographer Jeffrey W. Thompson to the home of the Huddlestonsmith family in Columbia, Missouri. There a young girl named Katie basks in being her Daddies’ little girl while struggling with the discrimination and battles of being raised by two men in the Midwest. And in Chad Gurley’s short story, The stoning of Andrew, one sixth grader must bear the double-burden of enduring the “birds and bees talk” and confronting his own sexual differences on the playground. Back in the classroom, Brian Michael Weaver will reveal later this month just how difficult it can be for a primary school teacher to use language sensitive to children with LGBTQ parents — even when that teacher is a single, gay dad himself.
And thousands of miles from an American classroom, Penny Newbury returns to Fuerte Olimpo, Paraguay — a place she discovers she still doesn’t really know or understand, even after living there for three years in Ña Manu.
But neither the celebrations nor the stories end there. As part of our LGBTQ celebration this month, InTheFray is showcasing photographs of LGBT celebrations and events happening around the United States and the world. Readers can submit original photographs to our Media Gallery, where they will be posted daily. InTheFray asks that you provide a brief caption to be published with the photograph, telling us the who, what, when, and where of your photo(s). Please also include your first name and location.
(One final note: If you haven’t done so already, please complete our 2005 Reader Survey. Your anonymous answers will help us to improve the magazine.)
Thank you for sharing your stories — and reading ours!
Laura Nathan
Editor
Brooklyn, New York
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