We Are Here

 This was my speech at the opening ceremony of the first LGBTQIA+ Pride in Bonners Ferry, Idaho on June 21st, 2024

We Are Here

By McCallum J. Morgan

Here we are. We are here.

Sometimes it feels a little like survival, but we’re still here, we’ve been here, and we will continue to be here.

For just a second, I want to acknowledge the resistance we’ve faced. The haters out there—right out there in Bonners Ferry, Idaho.

When this event was announced, it felt like tensions exploded. We had horrible comments referring to this as a “movement" being imported into this town. I found a letter, left at the door, asking why we wanted to bring “those people” here.

They see us as a shadowy contagion, creeping across the land. Something new and fearful. But we’ve always been here.

This is the stigma I want to break. The idea that we are “other.” We are not. We’re all human. We are their sisters, brothers, siblings, parents, cousins, friends, neighbors. We’re already here. And that’s all we want. To be here. Fully.

Pride is about removing the veil. The lepers bells. We’re not the monsters in the closets, the boogeymen outside the windows. We should’t have to lie about who we are.

We belong to the light, not the shadows. They’ve pretended we don’t exist and ignored us, chased us back into the gloom when we tried to make ourselves known. There’s nothing to be afraid of—not for them.

We’ve been afraid, though, haven’t we?

Afraid of ourselves for what they made us believe we are. Afraid of them, when their own fear hardened into violence. Afraid that we would lose our friends and families. Afraid we would always be the leper, the pariah, hiding on the outskirts.

And we found each other there.

Pride is community. It’s holding each other up because no one else will. Its telling each other: You’re not alone. And then we tell the world, we’re here.

We claim our place in the sunlight. Alongside them. They think we’re trying to take a higher place than them. There are centuries of inequality still clinging like cobwebs, holding us back, even as they push us down. But we found each other. And we’re not so easy to push away now.

Pride is love in the face of hate. Love in the face of fear.

We’re their siblings and they, are ours.

I grew up here in this town. It was a matrix of homophobia. I internalized so much of it that it took me until my early twenties to even come out to myself. How many of us grew up alone like that? Here, and in every town across America—across the world. No one should have to grow up like that.

They’re afraid of change. But we are change. 

And we are already here.

Notes:

I would like to welcome you all here to Bonners Ferry’s first Pride. We couldn’t have done this without the wonderful volunteers who put this together: Bobby Wire-Roberson, Alan Tozier, Jessica Tingley (without whom there would be no Pearl Theater to even host this), everyone who donated money to put this on: the Boundary County Human Rights Task Force, Lani, and more. I want to thank Crystll Blu for being our guest of honor, and Matthew Danielson—our Dj, and all the musicians, poets, and drag queens who will be performing tomorrow.

And I especially want to thank each and every one of you who showed up tonight.

Happy Pride and Free Palestine.

Video here 

To the Me Who Was

To the Me who Was.

You’re fucking insane. In a good way.

You never believed in yourself, but you went for it anyway. You thought you had to prove that you were something. You couldn’t accept that you were enough, because you thought you were too quiet and shy, forgettable, invisible, not man enough. You were ashamed of being delicate. You were ashamed that you couldn’t be like the athletic, handsome boys. You wanted them to accept you. And you knew you couldn’t get that from being like them.

So you took the things you loved—the artistic things—the borderline girly things—and you said, I will excel at these. I will excel so hard, that I will be enough, using the things I can. And imagination. Creation. They were ways to build worlds. Worlds where you could be enough. Worlds that abided by your rules. Worlds you could live through. Where, for a little while, you could be that handsome boy. You could love him.

But you never quite believed your own fantasy.

And you tried so hard. And it hurt so much. It hurt that you couldn’t be what you wanted to be. Or what you thought you wanted to be. But you were.

You were amazing. Fucking mental. But amazing. Religion had a chokehold on your pride. Not allowed, pride. Not allowed, ambition. But I can see, looking back, how great you really were. You worked five days a week for most of the year, and you went to church on Sunday, and Friday night volleyball games with the youth. And yet somehow, you wrote, edited, formatted, and.published six books in as many years. With a seventh rough draft. So many short stories, so much extra time and effort dedicated to marketing those books. Those works of art. You worked so damn fucking hard. And no one noticed. And that killed you. Because you wanted to be amazing. And you were. But only a few people noticed, and none of those people were you.

But fuck off, man. Seven books in seven years. At least a 100,000 words each. And the book signing events—though disheartening at times because no one came—the conventions and excessive extra projects. Who else hand creates costumes based on their books to wear to conventions and signings? Who else has a catalogue of their own drawings and paintings to flesh out their book worlds? Who the fuck else does all of this amazing shit?

Very few, if anyone. Besides you.

You made video projects, drawings, paintings, so many things.

Now you’re tired. You’re not dead. You’re sleeping.

And maybe one day, you’ll wake up again, and you’ll know how great you are. Maybe that’s all you really needed: a little love. From yourself. So here: I love you. I love everything you did. And I’m sorry I didn’t love you then.

When you’re ready to awaken, when you’re ready to come back, I’ll be here, ready to love you at last. For all you did, but more importantly, just for who you are.

Maybe, all along, you were really the muse.

And its a little fucked up that I have to disassociate from myself to love me. I can love another me. I can be proud of someone else. I can embrace another person and enshrine them as a muse. But not myself. Another me. That person. Who I was. What I can be. But not this, right here.

We’re taught to be afraid of ourselves. We’re taught that pride and vanity are the worst sins. We’re scared to death to love ourselves, because what if we are narcissists? We’re taught that loving ourselves is bad. But maybe we’re missing the point of the myth of Narcissus? What if we’re holding ourselves back.

Why don’t we want to become flowers?

I want to become a flower—no—stop it—I am a flower.

I always was and I am and I will be.

I am that I am: god in man as a flower.

Deus ex flore

Be

Happy Pride

 I didn't start doing theater until after I came out.

Part of it was because I was going to a church that believes performance art is prideful. That church also didn't really encourage fiction writing. All the things that make me, me, were held back to some degree.

But I didn't give up on that church for a long time because I had come to believe they had the truth of God. And if I turned my back on that, I would not ever truly be right with God. And eventually, you know, that means dying and not going to heaven. I.e. eternal damnation. And I'm also gay. So that was a big thing I was afraid of that I thought the church could maybe save me from.

I was successfully indoctrinated.

So even though I continued to enjoy music and wrote fantasy novels, I clung to my religion and held back from really truly diving into my passions.

I stopped going to church in 2020 when the burden became too much. My gayness wasn't going away. I finally accepted myself for who I am. And my sexuality is part of me. My denial of it was also holding me back. I was deathly afraid of doing things that might expose me for a homosexual.

In 2021, I finally auditioned for a local play, something I had always wanted to do, deep down inside. I love theater. I wish I had gotten into it sooner.

It's a place where my interests and talents are actually appreciated. Singing, dancing, making costumes. These things matter to theater. And no one else really gives a damn.

It feels so right to finally be doing theater.

And also drag. I took a dance class for contemporary dance--a class that was all women besides me. I would have felt too singled out before...too weird for being the guy who wants to dance. And that's society's fault for gendering activities and emotions.

So it's a weird side effect of coming out and not caring that you're gay. Suddenly you're free to express yourself. And I love that society is heading in the direction where everyone can do that. Kids today don't give a shit if they're wearing pink or painting their nails. Dancing. Theater. Aspersions aren't as easily cast about sexuality for showing emotion.

Part of coming out is learning to let go. It's coming to terms with insecurities and deciding to disregard other people's disapproval. It's a process, especially for a people pleaser like me. 

I grew up in a place that entirely disapproved of gay people.

And the atmosphere is still a little oppressive, but I don't care as much anymore. And now I can be proud.

Instead of secretly ashamed all the time. And I can shrug my shoulders and wear the weird stuff I always wanted to, and not be ashamed of my high pitched laugh, and I can walk without worrying about how much my hips are moving. And I can embrace being an artist. And I can make dresses and write fiction and perform on stage.

I don't have to be afraid of pride. I don't have to be afraid of doing the things I'm good at, just in case I love them more than God.

The Bible says God is a jealous God. Well, that's not a healthy relationship then.

And I'm glad I'm out of it.

I think the true God or universe or essence of art is more loving than that and would want us to be happy and free and proud. Not unnecessarily, but proud as in the absence of shame and insecurity. Proud as in loving yourself as you are and not thinking you have to change.

Proud as in acceptance.

And a little proud you made it this far. Proud you are living fully. Authentically. And without fear. Proud to know you're fighting for things that matter.

The line from Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz (spoilers quote ahead):

"I'm so ashamed."

"Ashamed? Of loving Dante?"

I'm not ashamed anymore. I'm proud to love my boyfriend. And more importantly, I'm proud to love myself at last.

The Beauty In Me

I was told from early on that men in love with men was disgusting. 

When I first learned that it was even a thing, the knowledge was imparted by those around me with condemnation. I was very young. Eight maybe. When adults or older kids tell you anything, you believe it. No questions.

I learned it was disgusting and wrong the minute I learned it existed. That's a taught hatred. And it takes a long time to unlearn. Especially when reinforced and inflated by religion. The religious shame surrounding sexuality is already so damaging. It teaches us that a natural part of us is evil, and this leads to a very unhealthy relationship with our sexuality, which is something we can't escape. Whether gay, straight, asexual, or otherwise. It's part of us, and religion trains us to be ashamed of it.

Add the extra layer of having a sexuality that is considered unnatural by religion. Abomination: somehow even worse than simple sin. So, even as a sexual awakening tried to occur, I clamped the lid down on it. I ignored it. I turned a blind eye. Because I liked things I wasn't supposed to like. It's impossible to consider at ten years old that you like Anakin Skywalker. Like that. 

Eventually the truth sets in. And the shame grows ever stronger. 

But I want to talk about after that. After the shame. 

I want to talk about healing. I want to talk about the things that made me see that men loving men could be beautiful. That it wasn't just carnality and a slippery slope to deep depravity. I want to talk about Lady Gaga and Björk and serpentwithfeet and Perfume Genius. I want to talk about putting a broken image of love back together. 

Even when I still thought that gay was gross, Gaga said gays were ok. And I loved Gaga. I listened to her constantly from the moment she hit the airwaves with Just Dance in 2008. I was Thirteen. So even as I resisted her message that we are Born this Way in 2011, I tolerated it. 

And then Björk. I found her back catalogue in 2015 or 16. Weird, wonderful, and wild. Two robots in her likeness make sapphic love in the music video for All Is Full of Love. It was art--and hard to dismiss as "vile homosexuality." She featured trans artist Anohni in two songs. She worked with producer Arca, who was gay and later came out as trans. Arca's own music--full of dark brooding chaos--spoke to the pain shut up inside me. And through Björk I also found serpentwithfeet, whose undulating choral and brass love songs were too beautiful to be dismissed simply because they were gay. I listened to them anyway. So what if he was singing hymns to another man? Guiltily, I let it sweep me away.

And Perfume Genius. I'd had brief contact with his song Queen, but revisited him because of my Björk obsession. Several of Björk's most glorious music videos were directed by Andrew Thomas Huang (who is also gay) and he directed a new music video for Slip Away by Perfume Genius. The visuals were rife with nods to my favorite 80s fantasy movies.

I only listened to that one Perfume Genius album at first. The others had songs with titles like "Gay Angels" and I couldn't ignore the themes. But slowly, I got over that and dove into his haunting discography that talked about his personal experiences as a gay man.

And Music saved me. Music taught me that being gay could be lovely. 

The year I finally started to relinquish my fear and forgive myself--2020--Perfume Genius released a new album: Set My Heart on Fire Immediately. What a thunderous rupture and a healing balm. A damning and an absolution. It was the soundtrack of my coming out. Songs that spoke of conflicted desire but also of joy and letting go. Of forgiveness. I could finally embrace the beauty of same-sex love. Of my love. 

I also bought a book that summer. "Loving: a Photographic History of Men in Love 1850s-1950s" A collection of old photos, showing men in love going back through history. Proof we've always been here and always been beautiful and pure. I paged through it the other day and cried again because of how long it took me to see gayness as lovely. That I am lovely. And it still hurts to think about how long I was in pain, thinking this was disgusting. But I can see now. I can love and let love and admire the gorgeousness of men loving men.

I wish we could collectively stop seeing differences as negatives. I wish we would stop teaching that "differences" exist. If we didn't bat an eye at gay relationships then they would just be--If they were just normal--we wouldn't be teaching children about gays, either positive or negative. Because whatever you think--we are teaching them about gays all the time. Some people complain 'why do children have to learn about this?' but they already are. They're learning it's 'different' and 'wrong.' They pick up on the unspoken--the hushed. The silence teaches them that these things are unspeakable. The 'different' things become jokes and subjects for ridicule. Kids hear things they don't understand and internalize the tone and the implications of the silence. And they learn about gays.

Those people who don't want to 'teach kids about gays' don't want it to be normal. They want to teach their kids that gay is wrong. And that's an entire conversation on its own.

I want it to be normal.

Because there's nothing wrong or sinful about it. It doesn't hurt anyone. And I don't want to hear another word about Hell. Because it was Hell on earth when I drove home listening to Prayer of the Heart and praying for God to make me better. I'm sorry but Heaven isn't worth that pain. How can God hate gays for the way He made them? How can God hate the beautiful art that gays bring into the world? How can the transcendental sounds that Björk makes be worthless because they are 'secular?' There's too much beauty in humans for human nature to be base and sinful.

We're normal. Or rather, there is no one normal among us, not one.

And only a cruel, imagination-less god would demand we change to become so bland.

So I mourn the years I spent in dark abhorrence and wish that they could have been filled rather with brightness and self acceptance and appreciation of beauty. But I celebrate it now. And hold up the beauty in me and in others.

Amen

It Gets Better

 I'd heard the phrase, 'it gets better,' and I'd heard it specifically in regards to being gay and coming out.

It didn't mean a lot. It was a vague projection with little comfort.

It gets better, eh? That's nice, because it's really really awful right now. It hurts. All the time. And I'm scared.

And that can be said for many things besides being in the closet.

Its hard to imagine a better.

It's impossible to see a future without the fear. When you still believe you are abhorrent and sinful, you can't envision a future where you don't believe that. That in itself is terrifying. Because it means you lost the way, accepted your sin, and began to embrace evil. You can't envision a future in that that isn't even worse than where you are now.

I recently talked about my coming out in an interview for a friend's YouTube. And I kind of forgot a detail.

The first person I came out to was accepting. She's one of my dearest friends. But coming out to her made me actually face the reality. 

Until then, I had swathed myself in a cocoon of denial. The truth still stabbed through and cut me every now and then, but I did my best to hide from it. Telling my friend had ripped the cocoon away entirely. I couldn't hide from myself anymore. The secret had been spoken aloud and it took on a solid form: I was a homosexual. I was attracted to men. And this disgusted me. Terrified me. I had grown up steeped in casual and blatant homophobia. I went to a church that said it was sinful. It's a heavy thing to grapple with: being the monster you've always heard about in hushed tones of derision.

My friend tried to tell me I was ok. And I wasn't ready to hear it. I didn't believe her. And I struggled, unwilling to really listen to her or discuss my internal battles with her--because she didn't believe like I did--she might lead me to lose the battle if I listened to her and believed it was ok to be gay. I thought I needed to tell someone who would help me fight this.*

So, months later, I talked to one of the ministers at the church I went to. I confessed my darkest secret to a man who had recently, over the pulpit, expressed his horror at being accidentally trapped in a pride parade in Spokane.

He asked if I wanted my "unnatural" desires to go away, and to have "natural" ones restored. I said yes. It's what I had been praying for for so long. Without result. So, he prayed with me. For God's healing. 

But as he prayed, I realized that I didn't want that.

It suddenly didn't make sense. Why would I trade one kind of lust for another?

It felt really weird to pray for lust. To "restore" normal desires. I had never really wanted to be attracted to women. I had never felt that. I didn't know what it was. I certainly never wanted to be like the men who, amongst themselves, made crass remarks about women and sex. I just didn't want the feelings of attraction I experienced for shirtless men in films or magazines, or the deep admiration for some of the real men in my life.**

What was the difference between struggling with a desire for men and struggling with a desire for women? Aren't both lust? And aren't both bad?

I realized during that prayer that it was a silly thing to ask for. I realized that God wasn't going to change me. Why would he now, after all this time, just because a preacher was praying with me? I had wanted it for so long, but now...it didn't seem like it mattered.

But I was still so far from accepting myself. So far from it gets better. But it was another step in the right direction. As painful as that experience was, it was an important step forward. I left that prayer feeling let down. And I still didn't want to let myself be gay. It took another year to let go of that. All the times I thought I needed to "let go and let God,"--as they say--I thought I needed to let go of my dreams of writing and costuming, but really, I needed to let go of my fear of being me.

These things were agonizing. Facing myself. Facing God. It felt like things would never be better.

How can you see that agony is part of the healing when you're in it?

You can't. But it does get better. As trite as that sounds.

You just have to let go. There's a Bible verse about trials burning away the dross and leaving the gold pure. I guess that's actually true. But the fire fucking hurts. And it's not always coming from the furnace you think it is. But I guess God works in mysterious ways.

* I was in a weird place where I couldn't condemn other gay people anymore. But I condemned myself for it. Which is still shitty at large, let me be clear. Saying 'I don't condemn you, but I have to be better' is still more or less a condemnation. "We're all sinners, but I have Jesus" still means you're better. You have something they don't. Even though Christianity says that you don't earn your salvation, the fact that you have to accept Jesus--humble yourself--etc. implies that you did something that others didn't--you were humble, when they weren't. You let him in and they didn't. They need to subdue their pride, which you have already done. By the grace of God alone you are saved. But why won't these other people give up their wickedness and accept that gift? There is great pride in such humility.

** This footnote got too long and will have to be a separate post about arousal and attraction. For the purposes of this footnote: ask yourself how arousal plays into attraction? Are they always hand in hand? Or does arousal follow attraction at a distance, waiting for an invitation?  Men frequently joke about having to hide boners...this wasn't an issue for me. I could go to a beach full of shirtless men, and even if I liked what I saw, I didn't have to worry about my shorts. Was it my sexual repression? Am I odd? Or do straight men exaggerate their own horniness to soothe some insecurity in their own sexuality? 

Regarding Writing

 

I've had conversations with a friend who doesn't write anymore. At least not for now. And we kind of agreed that we both wrote laregly for escapism. Various traumas kept us from wanting to really be present for our lives. We went somewhere else for validation and safety.

She said something about living. Being fully present for our lives. Living and being invested in ourselves, rather than the escapist fantasies we'd fled to.

Living is, in my writing mentor's words, grist for the writer's mill.

My imagination will always dream and fantasize and spin tales. But I wonder if I'm in a transition. Is this lull, this frustrating 'dead' spot, actually a threshold? A period of growth, rather than stagnation?

Am I now going into a place where my experiences can inform my writing? It's the richness of experiences that really fuels good writing.

In my youth, I think my writing was the explosive force of my angst, burning holes through me. I think it was escapsim, too. I didn't want the mundane. I wanted magic. But it was also my self expression, trying to find its voice--to scream itself into existence.

Re-reading my space opera for the audiobook really shows the loneliness and the struggle that I was having at the time. The novel is an exploration of alienation. I didn't fully understand or accept why I felt that way--but I did, and intensely. writing fiction was the only real way I had to even try to process something I was desperately trying to hide from myself.

Now, I've faced the trauma that is growing up queer and in the closet. Has my use for writing run out? Now that I no longer need lies?

I don't think so. I am still drawn to stories. To creation.

I think I just need to figure out my new relationship with it. How do I use it for love and pure joy instead of survival?

Maybe I just need more life. To live more. And the stories will write themselves again. 

They say pain makes art. Suffering is the artist's lot. Without which, truly good art can't exist.

I have been the most inspired by agony. There is a beauty in suffering. But I don't think that's all. There's still pain stored in these bones, enough to draw upon for sweet magic making. But I grow weary of such masochistic composition. I can draw upon that power later. Let me heal now.

I must let me. This is but the quiet valley after the war, and great abundance lurks ahead. More pain, mayhap. More storm. But life and art, too.

And at least I understand that now.

Unknown Longing

In a small town in a river valley, there was born a boy who listened.

He listened to the wind and the whispers of the secrets they bore. He listened to the hearts beating around him and the murmurs of the pain they held. He listened to the secret chime of an unknown bell.

And he dreamed. Dreaming of a secret place where he was home. A perfect place where the chiming bell rang out and the wind whisked the pollen in sparkling dances and the hearts beat around him with only joy.

Such a place must exist, he thought. It was as if the whispering wind bore its messages to him across the glittering river and the mountains high. It was out there somewhere, calling him.

He longed for it.

A place he'd never known. Never smelled its tranquil dust and woody stillness. Never felt the calm serenity. Never seen the mystery. A goodly place. A wondrous place.

It called to him.

And so one day he left his town and friends and family...the aching hearts. And he set out along the dusty roads, through baking fields of grain and rustling corn stalks. Along winding streams and across verdant meadows. Through towns and into forests thick and deep with mossy murk.

Earthy places, quiet and redolent.

And in the silence, he heard still the whispering wind, calling him on, and the secret chiming.

And though there was no one else about, he heard also the murmuring pain of a human heart.

He plunged on through the twisting trees and lichen covered rocks. Away, away from the quiet agony that stalked him. Away from pain and people, deep into the mountains, following the mysterious call of the secret chime.

Over the mountains, through the crisp snow. Fresh and bright. Sparkling and glittering in a static dance.

Howling wind drew him onward. Shivers wracked him and still the chime rang on and the pain followed him, tugging gently at his sleeve.

Would he ever escape it and find that mythic place he dreamed of?

Down the mountains, into new and exciting valleys, filled with unfamiliar trees and  strange animals.

New towns and New faces.

Across marshes, brimming with exotic scents and murmurs.

Through a barren plain, dotted with dry cacti and bedraggled birds.

And to a city, humming with noise and choked with smoke and hundreds of sweaty people, bustling, ever bustling.

And on from there, dogged by the murmuring heart pain and drawn on by the secret.

It must exist, it must!

Across grassland and into hills alive with steaming geysers.

Mystical and bubbling with possibility.

A canyon of holy magma. A quiet place.

Not the place.

Not his dream.

Tears stung his eyes and he knew at last that the heart pain was his own.

The hot salt poured down his face and the chiming pulled at him and his heart cried out for that place he had never known.

And a bird sat upon his arm and whispered to him.

It does exist.

It does.

But you will not find it by running and searching the world for distractions to mask your pain. Your heart is broken from being ignored and your soul is dry from not being watered.

The secret. It lies within.

The hidden place was deep inside him. Buried beneath cares and lies and the falsehoods he had believed as a child.

But it chimed on from within and called to him. It longed to ease the heart pain and heal him.

It is real. It is here.

The home you long for but have never seen, it is you. If you will embrace yourself. As you are and not as the world has made you out to be.

Shed the shadows and let the light shine out of you.