queer stuff

I grew up hating the word queer. When I first started coming out of closet in 1974 or so, the only other word I knew for people like me was “gay,” and I liked the word. As I started to encounter more gay women, learning to embrace the word “lesbian” was a much greater challenge. To be honest, I hated the word, but eventually accepted that was the identity gay women wanted for themselves and who am I to disagree? The community newspaper I worked for (mostly male) changed its name from The Gay News-Telegraph to The Lesbian and Gay News-Telegraph and as additional identities emerged, finally chose to become simply The News-Telegraph.

As this community I found myself a part of grew to emcompass more and more identities, we started acronymizing our name. LGBT. LGBTQ. LGBTQA. It seemed there would be no end, so finally someone decided to use LGBTQ+, which I simply cannot abide. Not because it is too long (it is), or difficult to explain (it is), but because we may as well write LGBTQ,etc. and who wants to be swept into the dust bin of “etc.”?

All this time, we were being targeted for exclusion, ostracism, hatred, violence and even death by those who identified as, or were perceived to be straight and normal. The words most commonly hurled at all of us during these beatings were faggot, dyke and queer.

I choose to reclaim the epithet. It’s short and inclusive. It has a certain spiciness to it. Just the letter Q stands out as unique icon for all who are outside the majority and the so-called “norm” of gender and sexual identity.

As a self-proclaimed gay elder, I am loving the feel of new terms as they cross my tongue and my lips: gender fluidity; non-binary; and gender nonconforming. Such soft, gentle and loving words that I intend to use whenever possible, but when I’m in a hurry, or just want to make a quick point, expect to see, simply, queer.

  • Retreat and Adventure — Midwest Men’s Festival

    When I received my HIV diagnosis in 1998, I withdrew from my community of gay men. I “went to ground”, thinking that isolation was the only safe place to avoid being criticized for seroconverting at such a late date, when we were all supposed to know better.

    This past week has been yet another bifurcation point in my life. I returned to a community I have known about, if not been a steady part of, for more than 30 years. A community of men whom I could touch and hug. Men whose tears might wet my face and whose body heat and life forces I could feel in ways that can only happen in person. It really did feel like coming home.

  • The truth about Truvada: PrEP won’t stop AIDS

    I’m willing to grant that gay men are entitled to use PrEP… provided they have access to all the information they need to make an informed decision. Informed consent has been a hallmark of the HIV and AIDS research and prevention efforts for three decades, and that shouldn’t be waived for the campaign favoring PrEP.

    Gay men deserve to know that all the claims for Truvada reducing the risk of acquiring HIV-positivity  are based on trials—funded by Gilead—that emphasized the importance of using condoms…

  • Pharmaceutical solutions to AIDS are not enough

    A recent phone conversation with a friend is helping me to continue to refine what I want to focus on as an AIDS dissident activist. In a passionate outburst that revealed a new side of his character, he blurted out his dismay that our society in general and our gay community in particular seems to be willing to settle for a solution to AIDS that relies exclusively on drugs from the pharmaceutical industry.

  • Four years on — Gilead gets its way

    What troubles me is the apparent willingness of an entire community to consider embracing Truvada as some sort of symbol of sexual freedom… evidenced by charges that those of us who are skeptical are guilty of being sex-negative and “slut-shaming”.

    All of this on the basis of research that has been manipulated and twisted by Gilead to create a false reality of safety.

    I’m resigned to the fact that Truvada as PrEP is here, regardless of what I or others fear. Now it’s mostly a question of time to see it PrEP meets the expectations of sexually active gay men…. and Gilead shareholders. The former is yet to be proven; the latter is a foregone conclusion.

  • Video podcast with John McNair

    John McNair, a musician and a philosopher from Perth, Australia, is something of a counter-cultural role model. McNair has created a very wide-ranging collection of podcast interviews with people who might get overlooked in the larger, mainstream media. I met John on Facebook a few years ago and we quickly established a rapport with each other. Last…

  • I really, really, don’t care what causes AIDS — Carl Stryg

    Frankly, in the end, I really, really don’t care what causes AIDS. I just want people to stop suffering and dying from whatever it is. It appalls me deeply that after all the hundreds of billions of dollars in research — possibly more than that spent on researching all other microbes combined — HIV research has ‘succeeded’ only in giving patients the horrifying choice between either dying slowly of Opportunistic Infections associated with a damaged immune system, or dying slowly of Liver Failure or having your skin peel off or maybe a Heart Attack caused by HIV drugs themselves. All the while ignoring the patients who do just fine for rather a long time when left to pursue their lives unmolested. So pick your death.
    -Carl Stryg

  • Just another tease

    Here’s another short outtake from the pre-show walkthrough that John Grosso and I had in a G+ Hangout On Air (HOA) earlier this week for tomorrow evening’s Rainbow Show. Live stream begins at 7 pm CST.     Please drop in to view the show live, and ask questions via the comment stream on YouTube or Google+….