Gay Pride Day, has come and gone and so has Pride month but this
year, 2019, the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion, Pride celebration
continues all year, all over the world. Vashon
Heritage Museum joins this worldwide celebration with their current LGBTQ
exhibit entitled, “In and Out, Being LGBTQ on Vashon.” The exhibit plans events throughout the year celebrating
Vashon’s LGBTQ’s community.
As part of this yearlong celebration the exhibit, Vashon Heritage
Museum and the Senior Center is sponsoring a film series at the Vashon Theater
and Senior Center. The first film, After
Stonewall, was shown June 24th.
As a member of the Advisory Committee for the LGBTQ exhibit I was asked to
introduce the film. Being a conciseness
person, I reviewed the movie which I hadn’t seen in years. Watching the film, I
was struck by how much the movie moved me even today, not only about my past
but about my community’s past. The movie
tells the story of the LGBTQ community’s coming out echoing the coming out
stories in the “In and Out” exhibit and the stories I’ve heard over the years,
not only from people, but communities and organizations too.
These memories were sparked during my work on the “In and
Out” exhibit. Oral histories of LGBTQ
members in our Vashon community are part of this exhibit and are on display for
all the community to hear. Listening to them I learned stories about people I
have known for years. Stories that have gotten buried with years of
living. The “In and Out” exhibit mined
so much history for all us to hear, see and enjoy. History, that seemed
forgotten or lost, shines through
The exhibit and the film After Stonewall makes the point that
coming out is a life time endeavor. Thinking
about my recent walk on the Camino de Santiago in this context I realize that every
time I talked about my “spouse” and people assumed she was a he I had to make
the choice of coming out or not coming out.
I did come out to the close group of friends that I consistently walked
with for the 486 miles but not everyone I met.
I’ve been out for over 40 years and still I make this choice almost
every time I meet some one for the first time.
Seeing After Stonewall brought up memories of some of
the significant coming out moments in my live time. At Green Peace as the
bookkeeper letting my follow coworkers know that my partner was a woman, or the
time when I got pregnant through alternative insemination and had a woman
partner answering the question over and over again of how I got pregnant. Or the time after 16 years of being with my
partner having asked my family ask how long we’d been together as if we had just
gotten together. Somehow, they didn’t remember her from all those times I
brought “My Friend,” to family gatherings.
Then my I brought “My Partner” to family gatherings. All these identities my partner and I took on
over the years depending on what we perceived as acceptable were stages in our
coming out process.
Even our children go through these processes of coming
out. My daughter when she starts to date
a new person asks if they have a problem with her having gay parents. As she put it, “This is a deal breaker if
they have a problem with it.” Actually, when I think about it, my whole family
goes through a coming out process. Years
ago, my sister gave a chunk of change to the Pride Foundation. I found out about it because she had a postcard
on her refrigerator from the Pride Foundation and to my surprise it had my
faster daughter’s photograph on the front.
I asked her where she got the postcard and that’s when she told me about
her contribution. To me having this
postcard on her refrigerator was a message to all my her friends that she
accepts her gay sister and identifies as a “Gay Ali.”
These stories of members of my community and my family are
ripples in the years of my community’s coming out story that extends way beyond
any closet I ever dreamed of when I first told the first person that I was a
lesbian. These stories continue today
and I am reminded coming out is a life time endeavor. And as the LGBTQ community continues to
spread love as a good thing, I think of the words from the poem, “The River
Gold.” written by a Vashon gay man, Don Paulson where he refers to the strength
of our community as a lovely stream, “Who would think a lovely stream could
sweeten a bitter sea.” Thank you, Vashon
Heritage Museum, for coming out as an Ali of the Vashon Gay Community.
For events celebrating the LGBTQ community look on the
Vashon Heritage Museum’s website at; https://vashonheritagemuseum.org/
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