A whole month dedicated to the celebration of all things LGBTQ+.
So by default, a month to celebrate me.
For you innocent bystanders it’s in June because of the infamous Stonewall Riots, that took place on the last weekend in June, in 1969. It was a few days after the death of Judy Garland, and a large number of queer folks had gathered at The Stonewall Inn to mourn. In the early morning hours, the police raided the bar, because two men dancing was illegal, and men dressed as women, was even more illegal.
What resulted was a pushback from the LGBTQ community. Bricks were thrown. Police cars overturned. The riots went on for several days, escalating again each night.
This is often considered the beginning of the gay right’s movement. Which is a OVER simplification as both men and women had been pushing for the overturn of anti-gay laws.
However, this was a big turning point, resulting in public marches and men and women openly fighting back. This is why June is Pride Month.
Not every city holds their pride march in June. They are spread throughout the year, so that people from all over can attend. NYC’s pride march is always the last Sunday in June. Maine’s celebration is the weekend prior.
This Saturday Portland held it’s annual Pride Parade. The weather was beautiful. For the first time in 17 weeks, it didn’t rain on Saturday. I always say it’s because God likes the Gays. The turn out was insane, the parade was a lot of fun, and I got to hang out with my friend all afternoon.
On Sunday, Adam and I went to the Peak’s Island Tea Dance. It’s the first time I’ve even gone, but it will not be my last. It’s a great opportunity to hang out with all the gays in southern Maine, day drink and see amazing entertainment by the drag community.
This year’s headliner was Detox, from Rupaul’s Drag Race, who really was not more stellar than our local queens.
Long story short, it was fucking fun weekend, and it was fun to spend it with my people, watching great live entertainment, and celebrate while we can the fact that we are free to live our lives out of the closet, openly.
I hope all of you have celebrated Pride Month this June in your own way. And remember, things are fucked up right now, so it’s important to make a lot of noise. Demand to be seen. And remember, if you are not part of the LGBTQ community, your kids are watching. They are deciding if it’s safe to share with you their own story. If they tell someone before you, you now know why.
The summer of 1984, I worked at Wendy’s in North Park. It was an awesome job, making $3.35 an hour, that I saved,to pay for college each semester. Yes, it paid for college, with the bare minimum of loans.
We were open late, and often got a crazy late crowd.
One night a car drives thru, I’m working the drive thru. It pulls up to the window, and I tell them the charge will be 9.76. The driver pays me cash, and we chat while he waits for his order to be ready.
The chatting becomes flirting, and then he forwardly asks me what time I’ll be off work. I tell him around 1:00. He says, he’ll come back then.
And he did.
And we dated for about 6 minutes. Yes, minutes.
And I use the term dating loosely.
I would drive to Lexington to meet him at closing time at the Video Village that he worked at on New Circle Road. Fun fact, turns out my friend Todd Lacy, also worked at that store, with this guy. I found this out about 8 years later.
I also saw him long enough for me to meet his drag queen roommate, who was very funny, very gregarious, and very sweet. I’m pretty sure she was the first drag queen I ever met.
After about 6 minutes, he told me that he didn’t think it would work out.
I was very hurt. For about 3 days.
Then I moved on with my summer.
Fast forward to the fall of 1984.
I pledge a fraternity at my very conservative, liberal arts college.
And why did I pledge a fraternity.
Because living in the dorms, meant always watching your back to see if someone saw you drinking. Or someone saw you out late. Or someone saw you doing anything that the Bible deemed sinful.
I pledged the Phi Kappa Tau fraternity.
And thus started the pledges life.
Just before Christmas break, the windows of the house were covered with newspaper. We brought ou mattresses from our dorms.
And hell week started.
What happens in hell week is super top secret, so if I told you, I’d have to kill you.
One thing we did, was have a scavenger hunt. Get a menu from here. Get a ticket stub from there.
Get the autograph of a bartender at Johnny Rockets, the gay bar in Lexington.
Fun fact, the big gay bar in Lexington has been in this location for decades. Its right next door to the police station. And the city has tried for years to buy the building, but the owner has never budged.
So there we were, driving all over Lexington collecting our souvenirs.
And it’s time to go into the bar.
I volunteered along with one of my pledge brothers, but I don’t remember who.
We walk in, and approach the bar.
I go up to the bar and wait for the bartender.
I look to my left and I see my friend’s drag queen roommate.
She smiles.
I smile, while saying a prayer that she doesn’t acknowledge knowing me.
She’s not dumb, and plays a long. She says something sassy, and winks at me.
About six weeks ago, I stumbled across this Facebook page, called Gay New York 1970’s and 80’s.
Actually, Facebook pages have a been a great addition to my life. If you haven’t checked it out yet, the Dull Men and Women’s pages are the most brilliant thing to be on social media in years.
It’s posts about the dull things we do in our lives, like watching paint dry.
Seriously, a guy posted a week or so ago about working in a paint factory and his job was to make sure the paint matched the sample.
Brilliant.
However, the Gay New York in the 1970’s and 80’s is a very, very, very close second.
The page is a walk down memory lane for anyone who lived in NYC during the heyday of the 70’s and 80’s.
For some people, that might be considered the heyday of crime, prostitution, and drugs in Times Square.
For a lot of people who lived there, especially for gay men and women, it was a time of awakening.
Sexual freedom. Gay liberation. Life before AIDS.
The Stonewall Riots had occurred in 1969. Although, the gay rights movement had been around for decades prior, it WAS a turning point.
In the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, the gay bar Stonewall Inn was raided.
It was mafia owned, and therefore usually considered untouchable. They were typically warned of coming raids and appropriate steps were taken.
On June 28th that didn’t occur, the police arrived unannounced and started arresting folks.
Because of a breakdown in communication, the paddy wagons were slow to arrive, and a crowd began to gather outside. Soon, there were more than 500 people gathered on the street in front of the bar, the police were outnumbered 10 to 1.
The crowd was unruly from the get go.
Folklore has it, that a lot of the tension came from gay men, who’d attended the funeral and memorial of Judy Garland, who’d died only days before.
Some say it was the trans women and drag queens that started the fight.
Other say, it was years of mistreatment that started the push.
No matter who is right, the truth is, the crowd began to taunt the police.
The police were used to being paid off, so the crowd threw coins at them. Then a lesbian, was manhandled out of the bar. Stories of trans women being accosted inside the bar spread.
One thing led to another and the crowd became disruptive.
And violent.
Bricks were thrown.
Then, Garbage cans, garbage, bottles, rocks, and bricks were hurled at the building, breaking the windows. Witnesses attest that “flame queens”, hustlers, and gay “street kids”—the most outcast people in the gay community—were responsible for the first volley of projectiles, as well as the uprooting of a parking meter used as a battering ramon ton the doors of the Stonewall Inn.
The police barricaded themselves in the bar.
Then back up arrived.
“I had been in enough riots to know the fun was over … The cops were totally humiliated. This never, ever happened. They were angrier than I guess they had ever been because no one else had rioted … but the fairies were not supposed to riot … no group had ever forced cops to retreat before, so the anger was just enormous. I mean, they wanted to kill.”
The riot police formed a line to push the rioters back.
The rioters formed a kick-line and began to dance and sing further humiliating the cops.
The police became violet and began to beat the dancers with night sticks.
The riots continued for several days. With the crowds growing more each day.
When all was said and done. Things had changed.
The following year there was a gay rights march on the anniversary of the riots. Within two years of the Stonewall riots, there were gay rights groups in every major American city, as well as in Canada, Australia, and Western Europe
Many years later, on the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots the president of the United President Barack Obama declared June 2009 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month, citing the riots as a reason to “commit to achieving equal justice under law for LGBT America.”
This brings me to the gay flag. It was first flown after the creator Gilbert Baker met Harvey Milk. The original flags were flown first in 1978.
After the assassination of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay person to hold political office in California, the demand for the flags grew.
The flag has been flown during the month of pride for decades. It has also gone through transformations as it now includes the trans community making room for the entire queer population.
This is a long post about us hanging a gay pride flag outside of our home.
In 2020, in South Portland, a number of homes, displaying the flag got hate mail. The letters were insulting, threatening, and totally uncalled for. There were enough of these letters sent, that it made the local news.
I saw the report, and told Adam that we needed a flag.
Here’s the thing, I had a sticker on my car back in 1995, but that’s a whole other story.
But for the most part, we aren’t really rainbow people.
But suddenly the community is under attached.
And I wanted to be supportive.
So, Adam ordered a flag and we hung it on our home.
And we’ve flown it each summer for the past four seasons.
Then, last fall we had work done on our garage. And we had to take down the flag.
And we debated all winter about whether to put the flag back up.
Adam had been pushing back, as it doesn’t work in the old location, and we didn’t want it on the front of the house as it didn’t work with the aesthetic.
The gays are more about aesthetic than pride.
For me, it’s about the kids in the neighborhood.
To my knowledge we are the only gay couple in the area.
Statistically, I know that’s probably not true, but in our area, it’s all families, with two straight parents.
I want the 15 year-old that rides their bike by our house to know that queer people exist. We are proud. We live out loud. And they have nothing to fear.
So today, Adam was talking to our neighbor across the street about their American flag which they hung to push back from the coopting of the American flag by conservatives.
And he realized we need to fight back with our own flag.
When I got home today, our pride flag was flying proudly.
I'd Like to Speak to the Manager!!! 