by itabix | Oct 16, 2019 | Anger, Being gay, Channing Smith, Coming to terms with the past, Courage, Earthrise, Freeing yourself of it, gay community, Gay kid, Marriage cases, Queer, Reparations, Sexuality, suicide, Teenage Suicides, Words and their meanings, Writing
I wrote this a week ago: It is a truth that LGBTQ+IA persons do not have a literature that reflects us. We have a literature that reflects some of us, and we have a literature that reflects many of us partially. We don’t have a literature that reflects how varied the...
by itabix | Nov 6, 2016 | A single man, APA, Charles Howard, Coming to terms with the past, Gay literature, Generational Divide, Middlebrow Queer, Publishing, Sexuality, The Gay Revolution, Writing
Even though I didn’t have many extended, free-wheeling conversations with friends about the military’s rules against my serving (I served anyway), still the fact that what I was doing sexually was a crime occupied me deeply. A novel about me during the sixties in...
by itabix | Oct 1, 2016 | Anger, Coming to terms with the past, Gay kid, Gay literature, Generational Divide, Middlebrow Queer, Sexuality
In 1957, when we were students at a school in Tennessee (I was eighteen), students understood that it was against the law to engage in same-sex sex. You could be arrested, tried, and convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for a felony. What I think we were more...
by itabix | Sep 22, 2016 | AIDS, Anger, Courage, Fighting Back, Memory, Queer, Sexuality
Rachel Maddow, last night: “Are the demonstrators free to leave [the area of confrontation]?” The NBC News reporter in Charlotte, NC, Tammy Leitner, “Absolutely. They are free to leave. They are choosing to stay here and engage with the riot police.” Well, no. If you...
by itabix | Jul 26, 2016 | Gay Pride, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Marriage, Queer, Sexuality, Stonewall Riots, The future, The Gay Revolution, Transgender
Chris Hayes is said to have said, “Great political theatre,” just after Bernie Sanders proposed that the nomination of Hillary Rodham Clinton be accepted by the convention and just after the roll call of states was concluded. But it was much more than that. As Andrea...
by itabix | Jun 11, 2016 | AIDS, Celebration, Ceremonies, Charles Howard, Courage, Freedom, Gay literature, Sexuality, Stonewall Riots
Derek is an actor, in Maine for summer stock in the summer of 1984, when a young gay man named Bernie Mallett was murdered by three homophobic teenagers. Bernie’s murder changes the lives of LGBTQ people in Maine—the town is called Cardiff—and makes just about...
by itabix | Jun 10, 2016 | Assimilation, Barack Obama, Celebration, Coming out, Coming to terms with the past, Fighting Back, Freeing yourself of it, Queer, SCOTUS, Sexuality, The future, The Gay Revolution, Transgender
Last night, Rachel Maddow interviewed Elizabeth Warren. Warren endorsed Hillary Clinton for the Presidency and, toward the end of her comments, spoke of Clinton’s character and what she has shown through the long primary fight. (counter 8:00) She won because she’s a...
by itabix | Jan 12, 2016 | Adam in the Morning, Barack Obama, Being gay, Ceremonies, Coming to terms with the past, Freedom, Freeing yourself of it, Race Point Light, Sexuality, Words and their meanings, Writing
Fair Shaw and his partner Chris and their friend David, and a younger man, Julio, had been at the Tea Dance at the Boatslip late in the last day of Race Point Light. Then, instead of going to a restaurant, the four of them decide to get food at the grocery store and...
by itabix | Dec 30, 2015 | AIDS, Coming to terms with the past, Compulsion of time, Courage, eBooks, Fighting Back, Gay literature, Generational Divide, Race Point Light, Sexuality, Stonewall Riots, The future
This excerpt is from late in Race Point Light. The narrator is Fair Shaw. He is just arriving at the Boatslip, a hotel on the water in Provincetown that hosts a tea dance every afternoon during the summer. It is June, 2004. Shaw is with his partner, Chris, and their...
by itabix | Dec 11, 2015 | Coming to terms with the past, Courage, Courage, Freedom, Sexuality, Teenage Suicides
C and I were in Provincetown this past weekend—cloudless sky, temperature in the sixties— and occasionally men and women were seen wearing red Santa Claus caps in anticipation of the season. It’s a good place to go at any time—the bars, the restaurants, the...
by itabix | Nov 29, 2015 | Alan Turing, APA, bisexuality, Coming out, Compulsion of time, Freedom, language, Sexuality, Straight marriage, Words and their meanings
The man’s name is Nyle DiMarco, and he describes himself as “sexually fluid.” His picture and the article about him—he’s worth reading about—appeared in Towleroad this week. What is interesting about him is the idea of someone being sexually fluid. What does...
by itabix | Sep 7, 2015 | Fighting Back, Marriage, Marriage cases, SCOTUS, Sexuality, the South
I was in the Back Bay Thursday, on the second floor of the Library, when I saw the headline, US Clerk jailed for gay marriage defiance; dispute goes on. I was on the subway coming back to Somerville, ruminating on the headline. It made people think of the sixties. I...
by itabix | Aug 30, 2015 | AIDS, APA, Fighting Back, Frank Kameny, Sexuality
Lately, we’ve been reading about Black Lives Matter and their disruptive tactics on the campaign trail. BLM have disrupted Hillary’s events twice, here and here, and Bernie Sanders, here, the mayor of Washington here, and they may have disrupted a Republican or two....
by itabix | Apr 6, 2014 | Sexuality
The only person who can tell what sexuality a person is, is the person involved. Everybody else is clueless. I was searching for something yesterday on the web when I stumbled on an interview with Kirstie Alley, from a couple of years ago. She was talking about...
by itabix | Jul 26, 2013 | Sexuality
I had the TV on to MSNBC, listening to the progressive cable channel chew over Anthony Weiner. Chris Matthews was sputtering with (I suppose) astonishment and dismay, talking to two psychologists, trying to understand why Weiner did what he did. In a very brief...
