Pride: In the Dream House
Dorothy Allison, an award-winning editor for Quest, Conditions, and Outlook—early feminist and Lesbian & Gay journalist. https://www.dorothyallison.com writes:
“Two or three things I know for sure and one of them is that telling the story all the way through is an act of love.”
Marie: Is it possible that some of us don’t really know how important Pride month is? Sure. Were we there, in the riots? Maybe we did not witness the beatings and brutal treatment of our queer and questioning fellow humans that was common in the 1960’s. It was literally against the law to be actively exploring your sexual identity. It was against the law to serve a drink to a homosexual: raids in bars became routine, and some police felt righteous in using their fists to break up what they saw as criminal activity.
Janet: As we agreed to promote our support of Pride Month, I thought about how I related to the LGBTQ community. It’s one on one. David, Justin, Gaddy, Steve, Joy, and Chelsea a few of the individuals with whom I’ve worked, with whom I’ve gone to school with, or taken a writing class. It never occurred to me to talk about how they felt or if they’ve been traumatized. I participated in marches and raised my arm in solidarity, but I didn’t think to ask.
Until now.
Stand With Us
We, Our Silent Voice, celebrate Pride Month to add our voice for the rights that are so hard won. And we, along with many, mourn the losses.
Marie: One of our contributors, E.A. Hines, an author in his own right, will donate proceeds from his debut poetry collection, Any Dumb Animal, to the Trevor Project which is focused on suicide prevention efforts among lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning youth. Through a toll-free telephone number, it operates The Trevor Lifeline, a confidential service of LGBTQ-competent suicide prevention that offers trained counselors. It is of vital importance that when someone contemplates suicide and reaches out, they can speak to someone who understands and does not question or judge. https://www.thetrevorproject.org/
Janet: The Truth. We’ve talked about truth in our Blog, “Truth or Dare: What Truth, Which Fact.”
“I didn’t dare tell my truth. I was afraid of being blamed, sending my mother into a spiral of failure, or setting my father off in a murderous outrage with one of his rifles. No, I didn’t dare.” JPfeifer
As Marie points out, most of us weren’t there to witness the beatings and humiliation. I can’t imagine the backlash suffered by a Trans human, or Queer-Gay-Bi-Poly humans, but what I can imagine is ‘human.’ As individuals, humans suffer abuse and assault from the ones who hate, have power, and think “we” are the source of their problems and must be eliminated or taught a lesson. Our truth, when we dare to finally tell it, is loud. It’s fierce and it’s brave.
How hard do we have to be pushed to activate it?
“I enter into the archive that domestic abuse between partners who share a gender identity is both possible and not uncommon, and that it can look something like this. I speak into the silence …” Carmen Maria Machado
Marie: There is much violence and brutality within the LGBTQ community, but this goes largely unreported. As pointed out by Machado in her memoir “In The Dream House”, when history documents the story of a queer past, it is usually through a straight lens. Since laws around domestic violence once defined this abuse as between married couples, and gays could not marry, there is a gap in the history of reporting what is now known as domestic partner violence.
We in the human community of Our Silent Voice and our stories should be written, read, and celebrated as a voice that is no longer silent.
We stand with pride.
Submit your story to Our Silent Voice: Fierce, Brave, and Loud