Chapter 25: Queer in the South: My Story, Part 2 | My Southern Gothic Life

New post up on my other blog.

Here is an excerpt and a link to the full post:

Let me start the second part of sharing this journey by pointing out that the story has a happy ending. I like to think I ended up a fairly well-adjusted, happily partnered Gay man. But it’s not something that just happened on its own.

Let me also say, I think my journey would have been easier if I had not been stuck in Danville, Virginia during the early years of my coming out and coming to terms with who I really was.

There is a monologue by  Little Edie, in “Grey Gardens” that always makes me think of Danville.  She might have been talking about Long Island and other circumstances, but it always reminds me of Danville:

Honestly, they can get you…for wearing red shoes on a Thursday – and all that sort of thing…They can get you for almost anything – it’s a mean, nasty, Republican town.”

I was also working in banking there and believe me, bankers are the most self-important creatures ever to walk the earth. They had very firm ideas of how one was supposed to conduct themselves both at and out of the office. That was another role I couldn’t play…

But getting back to the Gay thing. I don’t think people realize how tough it apparently still is for gay kids and adults in places like Danville and Mississippi. People think all gay people live in San Francisco or New York or Greensboro or Richmond or Charlottesville. Not in small towns and cities that aren’t as progressive as some of the areas mentioned above.

via Chapter 25: Queer in the South: My Story, Part 2 | My Southern Gothic Life.