It is home to nearly 300,000 people, a growing and thriving LGBTQ community, an active arts community, and several large companies, particularly in the automotive industry. Psychology was still being established as a science in late the 1800s and as such still in it’s infancy.Located on the western side of Lake Erie, Toledo is the fourth biggest city in Ohio. However, it was one of the first scientific disciplines to study homosexuality as a distinct phenomenon. However, because society did not see it that way at the time he amended his view to say that having these sexual impulses did create other divergent concerns in the mental landscape.Ī founding father of psychology, Sigmund Freud thought it was a natural variation in human sexuality and did not see a need for the condition to be treated in itself. But he was firm on that he didn’t believe it could be cured and that all people are born bisexual. Many disagreed and thought that it was a mental disorder.įreud’s wasn’t the only opinion of the subject. Little understood at the time the treatments were painful and cruel by our standards today.
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They varied from incarceration, compulsory commitment to mental institutions. Involuntary procedures ranging from aversion therapies, castration, electro-shock treatments, and even lobotomies. The question of pride for many LGBTQIS people of color is a complicated question. The answer at the core of it is not just the rejection of being invisible but the demand to be seen as a whole. Whole meaning, the public embrace that affirms no person is a single piece, but a mosaic-many different pieces, each worthy of love, respect and human decency. I always remind myself that it was a black gay man, Bayard Rustin, who taught the Rev. the principles of non-violence and black queer woman Marsha P. Johnson at Stonewall who launched a fight against government oppression that lasted for three consecutive days. Only where things meet and collide can we struggle and come to a resolution to make change. Without the intervention of struggle, we do not change course and we do not change ourselves. It is only by embracing that struggle, daring to stand in that storm of disruption, where we can learn our deepest lessons.
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When we learn those lessons, we come back time and time to the same realization, that without each other we will never move civilization forward. We had arrived at my uncle’s house late in the afternoon, as we usually did. Like most kids that age, I was excited to play with my cousins and open presents. After playing with my cousins and siblings for a while, I began to wander around the house hoping we would be opening presents soon. That’s when I noticed something different. My cousins had their bedrooms and my Uncle Jeff had his bedroom, but where did Uncle Bill sleep? Curious, I went to go ask my mom. She told me that Uncle Bill slept in the same bedroom as Uncle Jeff. A bit skeptical, I informed her that there was only one bed in there. She responded by telling me that just like her and dad shared a bed, Uncle Jeff and Uncle Bill shared a bed too. Satisfied with her answer, I went back to playing. I grew up in a family where being gay was completely normal. There was never a real moment of exposure. To me, it was so normal that when I went to my first Pride event I felt that it was just another place to spend time with family and friends. He and I were driving somewhere and he pulled over the car.
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He said he needed to tell me something and I could see he was upset and afraid. Was he seriously ill? Did he do something? Did he hurt someone? Was he going to jail? A million thoughts ran through my mind. He then told me he was gay and asked me not to disown him. As he spoke I felt an intense mixture of emotions. I was relieved, happy, and extremely angry. My brother being gay did not matter to me. If he was happy, I was happy.Įvery year I ask myself this same question. What does Pride mean to me? The short answer is that is a period of time once a year when I can gather with the people of my “tribe” and spend a weekend living out loud. But, honestly, Pride is so much more than that. Recently, I had a discussion with my son and his girlfriend about the events that took place in Orlando, FL. It was a reflection on how that horrible event made me feel. As, I am sure, it made MANY people feel horrible.
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It reminded me that when I was growing up it wasn’t safe to be out of the closet. I didn’t come out to my family until I was 30 years old. Even then, it felt risky to be seen in public by the straight community or to be a lesbian openly at work. It took several years before I understood what it meant to “be” me. I slowly felt that our community was safer than it had been when I was young and questioning.