GREAT LAKES WOMAN Great Stories About Great Women Living on the Great Lakes Celebrating Pride Month

I was in high school, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, in 1978 when a friend first came out as being gay to my circle of friends. He was open about his attraction to other boys.

To be fair, he also had girlfriends, and more often than “gay,” I think we referred to him as “bi-sexual.” Maybe it was easier for all of us to wrap our 15-year-old heads around that word in 1978.

But most of all, we just called him Freddie. He was our friend.

The honest truth was, to me, in my very naïve 15-year-old mind, someone sharing their sexual identity with his circle of friends was all just part of what you did when you got to the age where people started playing spin the bottle (is that still a thing?) and kissing and dating. I didn’t care if Freddie liked boys or girls.

He was just fun to be around.

I’m not sure when it occurred to me that Freddie and his boyfriends might not be completely safe in the cold, cruel world outside of Marquette Senior High School.

But, by the time we got to college, I was fully aware that being labeled as anything other than a straight, white, heterosexual male was something to be handled with great care.

Bad things sometimes happened to men (and women) who came out in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and beyond.

And beyond.

Two of my oldest and dearest long-time friends are members of the LGBTQIA+ community. I knew or strongly suspected both were in the community long before they felt safe coming out to me.

Back in those days, in the early 1980s and 1990s, they kept their sexual identity to themselves unless there was a reason to share.

Sharing such a secret with the wrong person could devastate someone’s life, or worse: it could k*ll them.

K*ll them.

Over the years, my friends have shared with me horrific stories about their life experiences as members of the LGBTQ+ community.

They have been bullied and much, much worse. I cannot imagine walking through life feeling like I needed to hide my real and authentic self.

Every. Single. Day.

For this reason, I celebrate Pride Month. I stand, side by side, embraced in a huge hug, with two of my oldest and dearest friends (and even with Freddie, who is still a friend), and with everyone in their community, during this month-long celebration and acknowledgement that everyone – and I mean EVERYONE – should forever be allowed to come out, to love whomever they choose, and to be free to be their authentic selves.

Their authentic selves.

For this reason, I celebrate Pride Month. I stand, side by side, embraced in a huge hug, with two of my oldest and dearest friends (and even with Freddie, who is still a friend), and with everyone in their community, during this month-long celebration and acknowledgement that everyone – and I mean EVERYONE – should forever be allowed to come out, to love whomever they choose, and to be free to be their authentic selves.

I am allowed to be my authentic self every single day. Some people might think I’m weird or strange, or too loud or outspoken about subjects that make them uncomfortable. Quite frankly, I don’t give a sh–.

But I also do not worry, as I move about my day, that someone will try and hurt me or worse.

That is because, on the outside, as I walk about the community, I present as a white, blonde, 62-year-old woman of Eastern European descent.

For some reason, there are people in the world, in our nation, in our state and, sadly, right here in our community, who apparently do not have the inclination to learn about actual science and the fact that members of the LGBTQIA+ community are absolutely, without a doubt – it has been proven by science in actual research labs in Great Big Famous Public Universities – born the way they are.

Their authentic self, the pistons that fire in their brains, are different than those of someone like me, your run-of-the-mill, generic (and quite frankly boring) 62-year-old heterosexual female.

Their gender identity and their sexuality is all 100 percent natural, a part of good old Mother Nature doing her thing, painting, in them, colorful, creative strokes that, frankly, too many of the rest of us boring old heterosexual people were not lucky enough to receive.

And here’s the thing: if you are among the religious right who believe the LGBTQIA+ community is “grooming” children or is full of pedophiles, please leave this page right now. Your small minded ignorance will not be tolerated here. The one thing I do not tolerate is intolerance.

And, while you’re at it, take a good hard look at the number of religious-right pastors in the community where I live who have been arrested and convicted of pedophilic acts and/or child sexual abuse over the past 34 years I’ve lived here. It takes two hands or more for me to count them.

To my knowledge, in that same time period, absolutely zero drag queens have been arrested for such heinous acts in our community.

Zero.

Just last week, a member of the LGBTQIA+ community spoke at the Port Huron City Council meeting. They spoke during public comment and raised concerns about pedestrian crosswalks, the housing crisis and public transportation.

I saw, on a community Facebook page, a snippet of this individual’s comments. The purpose of the post was to criticize the speaker’s appearance and there were clear digs at the fact that they identify as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Why would anyone do that? This person is a resident of our city and has a right, just like I do, to speak during public comment at the city council meeting and bring up issues of concern. Why should anyone’s appearance or gender identity have anything to do with what they are saying?

This individual came to the meeting with prepared comments and spoke carefully and sincerely about their concerns.

Their appearance, which, in my opinion, was fabulous, should not be an issue.

And wasn’t it Jesus who said: “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgement.” (John 7:24).

And Martin Luther King, Jr. famously stated, in his “I Have a Dream Speech”: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

And it was Feminist Icon Gloria Steinem who said: “The problem for all women is we’re identified by how we look instead of by our heads and our hearts.”

Though race issues and women’s issues and LGBTQIA+ issues are not identical, there are some parallels.

Let us judge all people by the content of their character and not by their appearance.

Or by whom they love.

I do hope, that all of you who follow Jesus or any higher faith, and all of my fellow heathen friends, can join with me in celebrating Pride Month and the members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Theirs is a rich, deeply moving, creative and welcoming community that weave important and colorful threads into the fabric of our community.

They are among the bravest people I know and love.

Happy Pride Month, indeed.