(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 5/7/2012)

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be a hero lately, spawned mostly by my recent involvement in a project called Queer Heroes NW, created in partnership with Q Center (Portland’s LGBTQ Community Center) and GLAPN (the Gay & Lesbian Archives of the Pacific Northwest). The idea behind the endeavor was to focus in on individuals who have helped shape the local LGBT movement here in Oregon and southwest Washington, honor them for making our community safer over the years, and teach a new generation about how we got here from there.

Often, when I think of the history of the gay rights movement, only of a few select big-name activists come to mind. It’s easy to forget about all the people who didn’t make the papers or have a movie made about their impact, and in so doing, we skip over the people who have put their neck on the line for our local communities, with little or no recognition in return. Part of the goal in creating Queer Heroes NW was to secure these brave souls a permanent spot in our queer history, and also to thank them for the work they have done to make us free and keep us free.

Over the years I have had many people touch my life in heroic ways. I was always picked on for being perceived as “girly” or “gay” growing up, and by the time I reached high school, the bullying was unbearable (like it is for many gay kids). I had one teacher who stepped into the role of queer hero #1 on the first day of my freshman year. His classroom instantly became a safe haven for me, and I knew that I could always count on him to stand up for me, shut down the meanness, and help cultivate allies with the other kids in my class through his teachings of acceptance around diversity. He was not gay himself, and I’m sure this was not a popular role for him to take on with other teachers or the administration, but he never backed down. Every day from the time I arrived in his classroom to the time I left, he was in my court. There were times when he would watch to make sure I was safe during lunch, and there was a whole year when he walked behind me as I went from his classroom to the next one. We made a deal that he would walk far enough back that none of the other kids would know, but close enough that people would be on their best behavior, thus creating a hedge of protection of sorts around me. This was a brave move on the part of this kind man. The safety and support he provided me was enough to keep me in school and earn him the title of “queer hero” then, and still to this day.

Years later, as I was struggling to make it in the music industry, another kind man named Perry Turcotte reached out to me and offered to place my music videos in a new show he was producing for MTV, called NewNowNext, which would air on a brand-new network experiment aimed toward the LGBT community, called Logo. I of course jumped at the chance. From there, he basically took me under his MTV-artist-development wing, flying me out to New York City to be interviewed, airing my videos in heavy rotation on the channel, and eventually having me host the show and appear in commercial spots for the network. Read the rest of this entry »

Those of you who live in Portland have probably already caught wind of the media blitz I have, once again, found myself in with regard to my ongoing small group dialogue project between members of the queer community and members of the Mars Hill Church. After this past week’s vandalism and threats (video below) Pastor Tim and I decided to go on OPB’s “Think Out Loud” today and talk about our experience together thusfar. It first aired this morning live at 9:00am and will air once more again this evening at 9:00pm, so tune in!

You can download the MP3 HERE.

If you care to catch up on everything that happened to get us here this week, follow the links and watch the video below:

Q Center’s Executive Director Speaks Out Against Threats of Violence
KGW News (NBC)
Fox 12 News
PQ Monthly (Article 1)
The Christian Post
PQ Monthly (Article 2)
The Oregonian
The Portland Mercury
KOIN 6 (CBS)
Rev. Chuck Currie

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 3/14/2012)

This past weekend my partner and I went to see a performance of A Lesson Before Dying, Romulus Linney‘s play set in a small Louisiana bayou town in 1948. It was based on the 1993 novel of the same name by Ernest J. Gaines and is about a young black man who has been wrongfully accused, convicted of murder, and awaits his death in the parish courthouse. While in court the convicted man’s life is compared to that of a hog, and this becomes his truth. His godmother enlists the unwilling aid of the town’s young plantation teacher to carry out her mission of teaching her godson to walk to the electric chair like an innocent man rather than the animal the white man has made him out to be throughout his life. Questions of racism and morality are confronted in visits between the two men for the duration of the piece and, in the end, the lessons shared and learned transform them both — along with the entire town.

After the very moving, emotional performance ended, founders of the August Wilson Red Door Project (an organization that “uses the arts as a catalyst for creating lasting, positive change in the racial ecology of Portland”) took the stage for a dialogue about the experience we had just collectively emerged from. Their organization posits that “all people, regardless of personal, cultural, and social history, internalize values and beliefs of the world they have been raised in. While some of these values and beliefs enable creative achievement and success, others create a sense of profound limitation and self-doubt. This doubt can be described as internalized oppression — a process by which people come to accept and internalize the inaccurate myths and stereotypes they have been exposed to.” The idea is that “no one is immune from having to wrestle with a sense that something is holding them back, regardless of background or privilege”, and they founded their organization on the belief that “with the right education, exposure, and support, everyone is capable of growing their capacity to create, to achieve, and to thrive.”

At one point during the very emotional post-performance chat, while illustrating how this particular story speaks to a universal human rights issue and making a correlation between the civil rights movement in the United States and some current world affairs and battles being fought in the name of race and religion in other lands, someone in the audience said the following four words about Americans: “We are past racism.” The room fell silent, aside from a few gasps. I could feel the sting in the air and could see the pain that one sentence had caused in the faces of many others in the room. Read the rest of this entry »

Hey folks! I was the guest on Out Loud Radio this week chatting about life, love, music, activism, the church, and a whole bunch of other really gay stuff.

Have a listen HERE or download the MP3 of the show HERE.

xo
LL