Pride?

I was kind of forced to have an internal dialogue with myself recently about whether or not my support of Pride is hypocritical. As anyone who has followed me on any social platform for a while undoubtedly already knows, hypocrisy is a huge pet peeve for me. I mean, lets face it, at some point or another every human is forced by circumstance to be a hypocrite. The trick is to learn from it and not to let it become the norm for you. That said, I would never want to be a hypocrite about something so personally important to me. My followers will also be aware that I am a huge proponent of pride, LGBTI rights, and equality. Though I've had huge issues with self esteem and personal pride, never ever in my life have I not been proud to be gay. I was afraid to tell people as a lot of us are. But in my heart I was always certain that this was a beautiful and unique and amazing thing to call my own. For many years I was the only queer in my family, at least that I was aware of. Only recently did my mother explain that her cousin had passed away and that she was survived by her partner of several decades. I'd met the woman maybe once or twice when I was little and not yet aware of my own sexuality. I felt sad that there was a queer connection right there in my own family that had been kept so hush hush that it took the woman's death for me to be made aware of it. But then she was probably thirty years older than me at least. It was a different generation. Those were different times. I constantly find myself saying things like "Jeez this is 2014 why the fuck is this still an issue?" and I know a lot of us feel that way. Things have changed so much for the better recently. Countless celebrities have come out, queers can openly serve in the military, in some Churches, in government. Many states are starting to balance out the rule of law for queers, whether it be about marriage or job discrimination. I always think back to 1 thing very clearly that reminds me just how far we've come in my lifetime. Fittingly, its music since music has been and always will be an extremely important part of my life. When I was little Boy George was a huge star. You would think that queer visibility would be at an all time high then. The guy was a dude with long hair wearing makeup who wrote songs about being in love with the hot guy who stood behind him on stage for chrissakes! And yet, looks wise he was pushing it as far as he could but it wasn't like he was announcing in every interview "Yes I'm gay and I'm in love with Jon". Far from it. At this very same time Elton John was marrying a woman! And I remember 2 of my classmates having a discussion about George Michael that went something along these lines: "I like that song." "Dude, that guy is gay fuck that song." "He's not gay!" "He's got earrings in BOTH ears, of course he's gay!" (This was long b4 emos and scene dudes remember lol).

So the movement has come a long way and so have I. Yet still I have moments of hypocrisy. And they trouble me. I've never come out to my Dad. Not because I am ashamed to tell him. More because we've never had a close emotional relationship and I don't want to share that part of my life with him. But this weekend when I saw him and his side of the family for a Father's Day get together, the word "faggot" was bandied about at least once about some actor or another as it always is. They've always been racist. Its a part of my family that I abhor and try to be better than every day of my life. So I shouldn't have been surprised or disappointed anew. But I did feel a twinge of disappointment in myself. How can I be all excited about going to NYC Pride at the end of the month in good consicence when I don't defend my and every other LGBTI'ers honor in my own family? The same goes for where I work. I've never actively hid who I am from anyone. But I don't talk openly about who I'm dating. I guess I've always kept it to myself because years earlier I knew it would make people uncomfortable. It probably still would. But fuck them. Why shouldn't I talk about something so important in my life? This came to a head recently when trying to get off of work the day of Pride. The question was bound to come up "What do you need off for?" and I replied "A family thing." though mostly because I was afraid the person in charge of giving me off would not think Pride was an adequate reason to take off. Of course I'm overlooking the simplest explanation. Maybe the shyness that affects every facet of my life affects this part as well. Certainly if you read my Twitter you know that in words I am VERY outgoing. But in person I've always been painfully shy. I can be loud and humorous, but that humor is masking lots and lots of trepidation. I think for now I have to conclude that though it might make me a hypocrite at times it in no way means I am not proud to be who I am. As I said, being gay is 1 of the few things I love about myself without question. In the case of my father, perhaps 1 day I will share that part of myself with him but for now I'd like to avoid any embarrassing and awkward conversations. As for work, I am resolving to be more open about my life with those who are open to it. We should all have Pride not just this month but every day of every year and be honored to stand as one. Let's face it: we wouldn't have gotten nearly this far if the previous generations hadn't done that.