Month: May 2014

Lavender is celebrating our second Lav.fash™ issue as well as providing pages full of summer getaways for you to consider. How they fit together is open for interpretation, but when you ponder what you’d like to wear around town or on your getaways look to the Lav.fash™ pages for inspiration thanks to Justin Jones and Brandon McCray who are pictured on our cover.

Occasionally we get letters here at Lavender. When we do and it’s reasonable feedback, I like to give it some attention. Rather than write a piece myself, I’d rather highlight two topics that are very germane to this Summer Getaways Issue.

First, this Letter to the Editor was sent just after our Spring 2014 Wedding Issue. It has been edited for length and the visual aids were removed:

We are writing in response to an ad in the Lavender Spring 2014 Wedding Issue on page 58:

 “Africa is…LOVE. Naturally. 

For an EXTRAORDINARY journey of romance.” 

It is with such shock and dismay that we write! It is shocking that Lavender staff would place this ad at a time when atrocious infringements on GLBT rights in many African countries have been recently covered in mainstream news. Dozens of gay and lesbian African citizens are behind bars in Africa, awaiting trial on sodomy charges or already convicted under anti-gay legislation that, according to Amnesty International, exists in 38 African countries! 

In Nigeria, the president’s move prompted a flurry of arrests, as well as riots outside a court where Africa’s GLBT community face trial for engaging in gay sex. In Uganda, activists worry that the law, and the president’s accompanying speech branding homosexuality “disgusting,” will incite homophobic attacks! 

What this means for any same sex couple who travel to Africa, is that, depending to which country they travel, a gay couple caught kissing can be locked up for life, or more likely, beaten to death! So can someone found to have touched another person “with the intention of committing the act of homosexuality.” Rights groups found guilty of supporting homosexuality can be shut down and their directors jailed for up to seven years, or even worse, beaten or killed by people in the African community who are homophobic! 

To post an ad like this one, proposing that Africa is a “romantic getaway” for a same sex couples is an endangerment to the GLBT community that you claim to service! 

As a lesbian couple planning to marry next year we would never consider Africa as a place to celebrate our LOVE in a romantic fashion nor recommend Africa as a place for any same sex married couple to travel to for a romantic getaway! We would warn them not to go! Considering the intense hatred being advocated by the political leaders of Africa, and the laws they are enacting to support this hatred, homosexuality, in Africa, is viewed as one of the greatest supposed threats facing the continent: a root of all social, economic, and political ills! 

Considering the well-publicized news on anti-homosexuality climate that currently exists in Africa, why would a well known gay magazine, such as Lavender, publish an ad recommending Africa as a safe place for a same sex couple to celebrate their love and romance? 

We hope never to see this ad in future issues of Lavender magazine. 

Sincerely, 

Angela Curtis and Sharon Mandel 

I want to thank Angela and Sharon for writing this letter. It’s valid and worth everyone’s time to consider. It was thoughtful and courteous and shows that there is a great need for the community to be critical of its choices. To the point of allowing an ad in an issue, it was a good ad, attractive and truthful, as argumentative as any of them, really. From an editorial standpoint, Lavender gives the readers information and power to make decisions. We present various ideas in various ways, and ultimately leave the decisions to each reader. John Townsend has written about problems in Uganda in the magazine for years. If you follow us online, especially via Big Gay News, we regularly report atrocities happening in different countries in Africa. But, as a counterpoint, we also know that Africa’s a large continent, and that GLBT people travel there with relative ease and safety. As with anywhere, we all need to enter a territory knowing what we might expect. And that is why we need to call travel agencies such as the one that placed this ad, to talk about circumstances in other countries and safety options. I’m sure those agencies would not recommend that anyone visit the nations where it would be unsafe to do so. But that, ultimately, is up to each person. You’ve made your choice and I don’t disagree with it. But, there are places in the United States that aren’t comfortable for travel, either, for some of us, and where same-sex couples probably shouldn’t kiss in public, either. (Not to the point of being arrested, but still not safe.) Sad but true.

What we do with our travel articles in this magazine is tell you our stories as we try to objectively experience different regions and countries. We vouch for a locale when we include it in our pieces, with the understanding that everyone experiences things differently. But, if we are credible to you, our stories can be good references for your own travel.

I’m pleased to announce that our primary travel writer, Carla Waldemar, has been recognized with two writing awards for pieces published in Lavender. The Midwest Travel Writers Association, a talent pool of breadth and depth, gave 2nd Place honors to two of Carla’s articles, one about Norway (in the international category) and one about Kansas City (in the Midwest sites category). Congratulations and thanks go to Carla for continuing to write for Lavender as well as a number of other outlets. We are fortunate to have someone of her caliber informing us about travel locales near and far.

Thank you for reading…and thank you for being critical of what is presented to you. How we all learn and develop is often through each other.

With thanks and wanderlust,

Andy

My first job after high school was working in group homes with developmentally disabled men. It was my summer job through college and I also picked up shifts during the holidays when the regular staff wanted time off. Usually in my home town (but also including a few stints in St. Paul), the position was called Residential Counselor, or something like that, and I was one of a number of staff people who helped men with a variety of abilities and disabilities live their lives. If I had the morning shift, I’d help them wake up, get ready for work, take their meds, eat breakfast, and get them on their vans to go to a sheltered workshop in town where they earned money doing piece work. In the afternoons and evenings, I’d welcome them home, take them on errands like banking or grocery shopping, make dinner, do recreational things like go to movies or out to eat, pass meds, and assist with personal tasks like bathing, all to be done again the next day. And the next. Day after day. Week after week. Year after year.

I usually just called them “the guys,” in a pointed way, to make them more cool and mature than how people in town usually referred to them, as “the boys.” The town embraced these group homes and the people who lived in them as a part of our protective, somewhat insular small-town society. It was—and is—something that can make a small town so comfortable, the probability that nobody is anonymous, particularly the men of these homes. Waves and hugs were common while walking around town or the grocery store. Topics of conversation often had to do with going to “camp,” which was a resort in Wisconsin where the guys would go each summer for a week; going home, which would happen with varying frequency depending on how involved the families were with the guys; and going for “pop,” which was a common currency as a relished treat, especially during the summer.

Our activities and therapies were usually scripted and prescribed by someone with a degree in the field; but there was also plenty of free time. My formal training included First Aid, CPR, med passing, and physical restraints. We were informally trained in things like how to cook for a large number of people, how to assist men with taking baths and dressing, how to take a number of men to stores and what to do if there were problems. We certainly ran into snags at times, but the snags were usually predictable. It was a predictable pattern of life for a somewhat unpredictable group of people. They were as unpredictable as any of us are, more or less, but definitely had less personal ability or agency to live their lives on their own terms, which could also be a source of tension. Their terms were largely dictated for them and we were the gatekeepers to their lives, for the most part. It was a good system, a safe system. But, like all systems, it’s only as strong as the people making it work. Its limits were because of our limits, whether personal or institutional.

This writing is a contrast to the piece I wrote in our last issue about the limitlessness of this community in terms of graduates looking toward their futures and couples looking toward having children in Minnesota’s post-marriage society. This piece is all about being limited. And, I’m not talking about a euphemism for being developmentally disabled (“He’s limited, you know, a little slow”), but in terms of the limits placed on people who are developmentally disabled, both formally and casually.

Looking at the routines of each day, week, month, and year, what’s missing? Love. In the daily schedules of each man in each home, there were few opportunities for things like love. Every month or so, there was a dance or mixer with other people from other homes and towns but, generally, the guys in the group homes socialized with each other. A few of them had girlfriends they’d see every once in a while, when it was scripted into the schedule by the staff of the two homes where each resident lived, and worked into the schedule. Such a date might be going to the Dairy Queen for some ice cream, and it would include one of the staff members being nearby as a chaperone, unless the resident was more independent.

What we didn’t have was training about relationships and love between the residents. We weren’t given official ways of dealing with one of them having a crush—same-sex or otherwise—other than relying on our own senses or those of our manager. We certainly didn’t have a Rainbow Support Group for any of the guys like Wingspan does (pages 54-55), despite the fact that, statistically speaking, a number of them were—and are—likely gay (one of whom routinely and genuinely said that he loves guys [in more than an “I love everyone” kind of way]). Furthermore, in a conservative hometown like mine, such a training could not have happened back in 1995. It might not be “able” to happen now.

What I’ve described isn’t the experience of every developmentally disabled person, but it’s likely the life of many. Some may not live in group homes, but live independently. Others might still live with family, accessing their social opportunities through that family system or through programs such as those provided by places like Wingspan, but be subject to limits beyond their control.

I treasure these men—and my time with these men—so much; I learned so much from them, both specifically and as a cultural group of their own. I am hopeful that they are now allowed to seek or have relationships on their own terms, rather than the terms of their programs or Residential Counselors. I still see them when I go home; I get waves and hugs and talk about camp and pop. A couple still call me what sounds like “Underwear” because that’s what “Andrea” turned into way back then, thanks to enunciation styles and rich senses of humor. I love them and I hope they get to love. And I hope that they get to define what their love looks like, rather than have it programmed into their schedules or encouraged or discouraged by staff who have their own limitations. I hope that there is a Rainbow Support Group in their area, or one in their future.

As one of the guys always said when he was explaining his developmental disability (whether with pride or remorse), he was “born this way.” He was years before Lady Gaga, who touted the same sentiment in support of rights for the GLBT community, and he was just as entitled to the sentiment for his own rights to exist, to love, and to be loved.

With love,

Andy

This is an issue full of optimism. I don’t know if I’ve ever looked at one of our magazines as it’s gone to press and seen such a remarkably cogent and consistently affirming body of work. Not everything is sunshine and daisies, but even the negatives spin toward survival. It’s a testimony to potential. There aren’t as many limits on the people of this community and it’s beginning to show in lives being lived openly and without reservation. It’s not just that “It Gets Better,” it’s full of the spirit of “We Can Do It!” that reminds me of Rosie the Riveter in her iconic poster.

It was no mistake that we paired up our annual School’s OUT Issue with a Children & Family Quarterly, since it casts a wide net across a certain segment of our community. But, it’s also a nice piece to read for those of us who don’t have kids, aren’t kids, and maybe aren’t planning to have kids, simply due to the fact that we can read about what all of these people are doing and find what applies to us in terms of courage, tolerance, hardship, and limitlessness.

That’s what this optimism is, it’s limitlessness.

This is an era in our history that will be defined by limitlessness. Minnesota, more than a number of other states, has evolved into a place where the members of this community can dream of lives that might be lived, now that so many limits have been removed. No, it’s not a utopia for anyone, but it’s got a framework and is moving toward having an infrastructure that will support the people of this community in more aspects than ever, including marriage, having families, playing in sports, not being bullied at school, in addition everything and everyone covered by the Minnesota Human Rights Act which was amended in 1993 to cover sexual orientation, including protecting transgender individuals from discrimination. Of course, limitlessness isn’t always just handed over, unchallenged, but the infrastructure and the people who have, are, and will be trained to enable and encourage this limitlessness are increasing in number and reach.

And where better for this encouragement of limitlessness to happen than in our schools and in our reproductive freedom? Have you noticed how reproductive freedom is about choice, not just for terminating or continuing pregnancies, but also the freedom to do what Chris and Anders (on the cover) did in figuring out a way to have baby Hugo? Reproductive freedom, by definition, includes the enabling and encouragement of limitlessness in reproduction. Though I can’t find any pairings of reproductive freedom with same-sex rights, the activists would be prudent to get on that wave as this is how inclusion should expand the topic. Reproductive freedom means that we are free to give our gametes (sperm and eggs) to others to enable them to have children; we are free to lend our wombs to people as gestational carriers. This is an exciting time as we embark on this journey of legal same-sex marriage and the baby carriages that can follow, now in more of a—dare I say—traditional sense than ever.

Inseminations, surrogacies, and adoptions will become more matter of course as we progress through these next years. I predict a great jump in service providers who will make it their business to ease the legal and medical processes for same-sex couples to have children, however it’s done, including artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilization, surrogacy, and adoption. Having looked into taking my own reproductive future into my own hands at age 37, I know for a fact that setting myself up to try to have a baby on my own can be as simple as doing some research and putting items in an online shopping cart prior to making an appointment at a reproductive clinic not even 5 miles away from me. Limitlessness with a credit card number and a few clicks of a mouse.

Of course, all of this takes plenty of time and thought. Parenthood is not a flippant choice to be made, but, then again, it’s not like there is a high chance of accidental pregnancies in this community. These choices take deliberation and intention. And, after all the thought and consideration, it’s still a choice. We can do it. Or, we don’t have to do it. How very empowering.

Then, if the choice is to have a family, we can look to a great number of examples in this issue for kids to be able to grow up in an increasingly tolerant and safe society. Yes, there are the negative examples—the current and grandfathered coping mechanisms that we will hope to see transitioning out of our society—that are responses to negative circumstances. Estranging ourselves from hateful family members, such as Nathan Phelps did, or shutting down our feelings, such as Cody W. did, are valid and they have been survival tactics for many, that will hopefully be needed less and less as we continue to evolve. And, as a testament to the changing times in Minnesota, there is an overwhelming majority of positive examples of kids and adults who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, gender non-conforming, and straight allies in the issue, both as contributors and as subjects. The diversity doesn’t end with those distinctions, but continues to include People of Color, athletes, older students, ROTC, first generation students, students from a variety of economic backgrounds, and students who organize to continue fighting for the rights of the people of this community and beyond.

We find ourselves facing a future of opportunities to teach and learn, no matter what our age is or who we are surrounded by: kids, adults, family members, coworkers, legislators, health care providers, friends, faith leaders, to name a few. Let’s find the examples of teaching and learning that we want to emulate and strive to become good examples, ourselves.

With you and without limits,

Andy