This New Gay World

Andy (right) and me marching in the NYC Pride Parade in 2014

March 11, 2015
Day 315

No, heterosexual friends, we're not taking over your world, we promise!  But stick with me here, because this is very important to me.

In the fall of 1997, I made the first of several trips to a gay bookstore in New York's Chelsea neighborhood called A Different Light.  That bookstore was all I knew of the so-called gay community.  I'd take a train into Manhattan, then a subway downtown, and I'd take a deep breath as I made my final walk to the bookstore. 

I'd always have a backpack with me, so any purchases could be quickly hidden away, and at 22 years old, I genuinely thought this was what the entirety of my gay life would ever be.  I'd recently been thrown out of the religious life, had finished college as well, but it would still be another year and a half before I was able to get my own computer. 

As I walked the aisles of A Different Light, I'd occasionally be brave enough to check guys out, but since 99% of them were older than me, I spent more energy worrying I was being checked out (and looking back at photos of myself from that time, I'm sure I was).  On one occasion, I attended a book reading by author J. D. McClatchy, who was introduced by fellow author Edmund White.  I didn't know at the time that these two figures were so important in the world of gay literature, but I knew I felt extremely safe and happy in the building that evening.

1997 was the year, wasn't it?  I really feel it was one of those amazingly important years in the history of civilization, looking back on it now.  We had Ellen coming out on her TV show and in real life, we had the release of the movie In & Out that summer, we lost Princess Diana on August 31st, and right afterward, Mother Teresa on September 5th.  It was even the year Titanic came out in theaters, on December 19th.  What is the common theme in all of those events?  Each and every one of them shifted us from a world in which the powerful mainstream ran things to a world in which the minorities started taking prominence. 

The internet too had gained steam that year, and in the year that followed, more and more people were finding each other online.  They were seeing that the world was not such a lonely place after all, that you could literally find anyone to talk to about any rare or off-color topic that interested you.  Most importantly, more and more sad, lonely gay and lesbian kids were finding each other now once and for all.  (Incidentally, ahead of its time, the magazine XY began in 1996.)

Everything was changing, improving, and progressing...or so we thought.  On October 7th, 1998, we all woke to the news that a University of Wyoming student named Matthew Shepard had been attacked because he was gay.  He was left for dead hanging on a fence post in Laramie, Wyoming.  A few days later, on October 12th, Matthew died.  It was a stark reminder to all of us that the world had not yet changed...but perhaps more than ever before, it was now time for a revolution. 

I was 23 when Matt, just 7 weeks shy of his own 22nd birthday, lost his life.  I finally got online with my own computer the following May, and my own gay dating life finally began after I turned 24.  Already though by 1999, there was a clear sense that things were finally changing, that there was a new hope, a different light shining on the planet.  Civil unions began in Vermont in 2000, and now 15 years later, we may finally have a country-wide law to celebrate soon. 

This new gay world is still so new!  I really hope those growing up right now in their teens and twenties understand just how new this all is, and how many of us are still so incredibly grateful for this amazing new world!  Even as I write these words, I can't keep back the tears of joy from streaming down my face.  We have, as a civilization, come so far now in just these past 18 years, but we're not there yet.  Beyond the fight continuing here in the United States, the challenges still wait all around the world.  And even then, there will always be the battle of hearts, the fight to help people see this new world with new eyes. 

A different light is shining down upon the planet, and it's challenging each and every one of us to see now with all new eyes capable of feeling and doing so much more to seek full equality in every which way for all the citizens of this one, amazing new world!