***image1***Santa Fe's youth discuss gay, straight and everything in between.
At first, the idea of working with teens overwhelmed Life Monologue Project Executive Director Pamela Thompson. "I was personally concerned if it was going to be too much for them," Thompson says.
Since it began in 2000, The Life Monologue Project has produced numerous events in which participants, after a series of group writing workshops, perform monologues that have delved into a variety of experiences-from AIDS to the loss of pets.
Last year, The Life Monologue Project produced its first OUT Monologues, which focused on stories of coming out as part of Gay Pride weekend.
This year, with Teen OUT, Santa Fe youth will share their stories of sexuality and gender identity in the 21st century.
Victoria Price, owner of Victoria Price Contemporary/Art&Design, was a participant in last year's OUT Monologues and is a co-facilitator for this year's project. She became involved through her work on the gay and lesbian funding committee for the Santa Fe Community Foundation. Through that work, Price visited the Santa Fe Mountain Center, which was the site for a conference on the gay/straight alliance groups in schools across the country. Price had taught for six years at the middle and high school levels and suggested that she and Thompson organize a mini-workshop for students who wanted to write on issues of gender and sexuality.
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From there, the Teen OUT Monologues began and, ultimately, 50 students-ranging in age from 12 to 18-and two teachers from Monte del Sol, Capital and one private Catholic school participated. This week's performances will feature nine of the students-but don't expect the same kind of coming out stories as last year.
"For many of the kids, coming out has not been a big deal," Thompson says. "I don't know if it's just Santa Fe, or if it's this change that's happening in our culture, but for most of these kids, there's a real fluidity in their sexuality. When I was growing up, it was so black and white; now it's so much of a rainbow."
Price says her own monologue last year was "a completely transformative experience," because it was
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a chance "to speak my own truth." For this year's teens, she says, "the more we've talked,
the more I feel that putting their sexuality into a box is kind of antithetical to who they are. And I think standing up on stage and being able to really talk about who they are and have adults and other teens listen to them is going to be an incredible experience, and an incredible experience for the audience."
As a preview, in the pages ahead SFR features four of this week's performers telling their own stories of gay, straight and everything in between.
Anya Acton Amundson
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Maybe one morning I woke up and lost who I was. Maybe I was never sure who I was. I desperately wanted to find a home, a comfy cozy place to fit myself. What I ended up doing was finding a box that, no matter how hard I tried, I could not fit into. I did as most teens and people in general do when they are not sure of themselves. I took on the characteristics that were indirectly decided for me by some unknown, seemingly godly force whose prophets were my peers, my family and the media, all of whom were feeding me propaganda that I swallowed out of terror of the unknown parts of my being. I was told that I was not good enough, not intelligent enough, not attractive enough, simply not. I was not all the things I once thought I was and aspired to be. Before, I wanted to be avant-garde but in the same breath I wanted to be accepted and appreciated. This is not an easy thing to achieve, as being avant-garde is characterized as not being accepted by the norm. Maybe I should have thought about that before I signed up? As it came to be, I was not accepted in the way I had envisioned in my little dream world and found myself somehow suspended in limbo between being what people expected me to be, and being what I wanted to be, but couldn't quite achieve. I believe, subconsciously, after this failure, I chose to take the "blend in" and "don't make ripples in the pond" approach. This did save me some ridicule but caused me to lose who I was outside of all my delusions. At least inside my avant-garde aspirations I was able to speak my truth and stand up for myself. Suddenly I only spoke my truth when it was asked of me. I no longer had a backbone, and I was not proud of who I was. I became a non-entity who desperately wanted to be concrete. Blending in was not working for me.
Learning how to step outside the box and be who I am, no matter how cliché that sounds, has been a struggle, to say the least. I groped for anything that would give me a stronger sense of myself. I wanted to move beyond my flesh, flesh that acted as the base for the person I made myself into. I wanted genuine human experiences, which are hard to find in a world where not only you, but also everyone else, is trying to be something they aren't. My transformation has been my becoming more real, truer with other people and with myself. This came with many things. Being able to release, saying, "screw it" to all the things that made me scared, insecure and lonely.
One of these things was accepting my immensely convoluted sexuality. I am 16 years old and I first realized that I might not be straight when I was in second grade and I had a crush on a girl. Then, when I was in eighth grade, I fell in love with a girl. I can basically define myself as pansexual, leaning more toward homosexual with extremely strong heterosexual tendencies. I think to myself, "why not just say I'm bisexual?" It would be much simpler but I like the idea of bending the rules of definition. I am a person, who is constantly changing, and I do not love sexes, I love people. I don't walk into a room and immediately start checking people out, or start playing, what for me is a large field. I wait. I make friends and do not expect love, romance, or relationships from anyone, but try and let them develop in their own way. I like to see how things grow and change and manifest.
Even as I am learning how to put all of my fears aside about fitting in and being judged, I am still filled with all the demons that kept me from being myself before. I still struggle with them everyday, but I think being able to acknowledge their existence has empowered me to move forward and stand strong next to what makes me genuine and real. I want to accept people for who they are and not their predetermined box. I want to let myself be free in who I am. I want to love the world for what it is and all the insanity that makes us humans tick.
Danielle Martinez
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GAY MARRIAGE
I want to get married. I want to have kids. I want an all white wedding, outside on a beautiful May day, with flowers everywhere and smiles on everyone's face. I want to walk down the aisle, with all eyes on us. But I want to be holding a woman's hand, not a man's. I want to drive away in a limo with the words "JUST MARRIED" written on the back window. I want people to honk and I want a honeymoon. An unforgettable honeymoon!!! Just me and my love. No questions. No stares. And I want everyone to be okay with it.
HOMOPHOBIA
How can people hate so easily, when I find it so hard? I am so baffled by homophobia. I see it every day. I EXPERIENCE it every day. But it can't break me. I've had worse than words and it's only made me stronger. I guess if you didn't have those people to push you and test your limits, then what would you be? But then maybe without them so many more people would feel comfortable with themselves and this world would be such a better place. Call me a dyke, fag, homo, I really don't care! I am what I am and I'm so happy with who I am. I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't experienced homophobia. I can't erase the past and take what's happened away, so all I can do is learn from it and move on. But one thing I've learned from it is that you don't need to be physically strong; you just need to be mentally strong. And I am.
Dear Mom and Dad….
Ok…where should I begin!?!
This thing I call love
You may call a sin.
I've told you once before
but it didn't quite sink in,
So maybe I'll try once more.
Or should I just give up and walk out the door.
Fuck it, if you can't accept it,
Well, I really don't care.
That's ok and that's fine,
cause I'm in love, and life is great…
And if you think,
that I'm going to just sit here and wait
for you to make up your mind,
Well you're wrong,
cause I'm ready to move on.
Jade McLellan
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I consider myself to be straight, but why constrain oneself with labels?
My mom's fiancé, Shalimar, is a transgender. People have trouble understanding that this means Shalimar identifies as a man,
not
as a woman, and that technically, my mom and Shalimar are a "straight" couple. It was hard getting used to their relationship, but when I saw how happy my mom was, I realized that was all that mattered.
Being a part of an LGBT family has been difficult at times because people judge us. I've been told my family does not matter or "doesn't count" because Shalimar isn't biologically male. Fortunately, my dad, my friends and even my teachers are supportive and understanding of my family. They all just want us, my mom, Shalimar, my sister and me, to be happy. Sometimes, people (especially those around my age) will ask me if life with a transgendered parent is difficult-for many friends of mine, living with a step-mom or step-dad is hard in itself. To them, the prospect of dealing with the issue of gender identity every day is intimidating. For me, it is something that can be both frustrating and valuable.
Shalimar first entered my life about two years ago. My mom and dad separated a few months before my 15th birthday, and a few months later, my mom and Shalimar started dating, and he moved in a little while after. To be very honest, I felt extremely small when Shalimar moved in with us. Not only had my mom not asked for my permission, I felt I had to compete with a practical stranger for my mom's attention. After my dad moved out, I became used to being the person my mom came to when she wanted to talk, and was used to having my sister and I be the centers of her attention. Jealousy is still the hardest thing I have to deal with-my mom and dad never had a very close relationship, and it can be hard to see Shalimar with my mom every minute of every day. The rivalry between my sister, Shalimar and I can be overwhelming at times-I have often felt replaced.
Despite this, I have come to consider Shalimar an addition to my family. He and my mom are planning to have their commitment ceremony this summer, and before then Shalimar never ceased to treat me like his kid. He yelled at me for breaking my curfew, attended my parent-teacher conferences and has been as responsible a guardian as I could have asked for. I remember the first time I felt that Shalimar really
cared about me was on my sister's birthday. My sister was upset with me because I had made the wrong cupcakes for her on accident, and I had stomped out of the kitchen in tears. Shalimar came to my room, let me soak his shoulder a bit, and told me my cupcakes tasted great (Shalimar doesn't even like cupcakes). Because Shalimar made an effort to show that he cared about me, I wanted to do the same.
Since then, the transition from having a mom and a dad to having a mom, a dad and a "mom's fiancé" has been less difficult than I thought. One of the hardest challenges was coming to understand Shalimar's gender identity. While I did understand what being
transgendered meant, I did not realize what a sensitive issue it could be. Someone who is transgendered is
not
the same as someone who is a hermaphrodite. A hermaphrodite is someone who is born with both male and female sex organs. People who are transgendered can include (but are definitely not limited to) transsexuals, cross-dressers and those who may not identify with any
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gender. Transsexuals, specifically, identify with a gender other than that which they were assigned at birth. In my understanding, it would be like waking up in someone else's body-if I were to wake up as a boy, I just wouldn't be me. For transsexuals (or transgenders), it's like waking up in the wrong body every single day. Being forced to worry about the pronouns I used, the jokes I made and how I introduced or talked about my parents has taught me more about having consideration for others than I could have learned anywhere else.
Through this experience, my relationships with my mom and dad have both grown stronger. My dad and I weren't always close-we used to fight constantly and we would never spend any time together. It took one very large fight after he moved out for us both to realize how much we cared about each other. If he and my mom hadn't separated and gotten divorced, I don't think we would have been able to stop fighting. He used to show indifference towards my mom and Shalimar, but now he asks how they're doing, and even hugged them both after my Senior Night. If he was ever disapproving of them, I know it was just because he is worried about me and my well-being, along with that of my sister. Sometimes, I feel that he thinks I don't need him, and sometimes I blame it on the way he was brought up. However, I think that my mom's new relationship has shown him that although things in my life may change, he is still my dad. I don't know if he has ever felt the fear of being replaced, as I have, but I think that he can sense that I don't ever intend to replace him.
My mom has been fighting for a long time to find her true calling in life-it has taken many years of abuse at the hands of retail chains for her to realize what she wants to do. She is going back to school now for a degree in natural medicine, and I know she couldn't have done it without Shalimar's persistent support. I feel I can talk to her more openly now, and the troubles we have shared have proven, if nothing else, the love we have for each other. Most importantly, my mom has taught me the true meaning of love. Love doesn't need an explanation or a label or anything-it just is.
My LGBT family has taught me how to see things for the way they affect everybody, and not just me. Because of this, I have tried to teach other people the consideration and understanding I have learned, primarily through my school's Gay-Straight Alliance. The hardest part of it all is hearing from people that my family is "an abomination" or "doesn't count"-that we are not a real family because we are not conventional. I know that people might think my family is weird, maybe even inferior, but I know that it's only because they don't see the love my family has. We are just like any other family, only a little different, and we are capable of a love as great and honest as anybody else's.
Zach Weinberg
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GAY, TODAY
A couple of months ago, I was driving around with my (straight) friend, and he said something that involved the word "breeders," and then proceeded to get a hearty laugh out of it. I was unsure what he was referring to, and so I inquired as to the humor in the word. He explained that "breeders" was a derisive term for heterosexuals that most of his gay friends used. I have just finished my junior year in high school. I've known I wasn't straight for about as long as I've noticed being attracted to people, and I came out as bisexual towards the middle of 8th grade. I chose bisexual then because it seemed to be the only word that fit how I felt. Now I don't think I could pick a definitive label, although I generally refer to myself around my friends as gay. All this is well and good for me, except that about the same time that I came out, half of Santa Fe did it with me. Literally, half the people I ran into advertised quite loudly that they were bisexual and that they had made out with someone of their own gender. This was, quite simply put, a fad. Now, when I talk to most of the people who came out at that time, they usually dismiss it as a phase, or, in some cases, are even embarrassed they ever said that they weren't straight.
What kind of a world do we live in where being bi can come and go almost faster than Britney Spears' popularity?
Being a non-heterosexual teenager in Santa Fe has not been at all hard for me. My parents don't care, almost all of my friends don't care, my teachers don't care, and most of my peers don't care. I have never suffered retribution for my sexuality beyond the occasional friendly joke from my friends. Mostly, when it comes up, people say things along the lines of "cool," or "you're so cute!" or other exclamations of that nature. I don't suffer, I don't flaunt it (though some of my friends may argue that) and in general, it does not come up as an integral part of my life except where I make it, as in my school's Gay Straight Alliance. It does not cause me to be ostracized, and it is certainly not something that seems abnormal. All of this led to my not being at all surprised to hear that someone had developed a derogatory term for heterosexuals. My friends and I, we use "fag" on a regular basis, both in positive and negative contexts. "Gay" can mean, depending on the tone of voice it is said in, that something is either really cool or really lame. We've reached a point in our culture where there are some people who think that being straight is bad thing-a place that 60 years ago, no one would have ever dreamed society would ever reach.
Not being straight seems to affect my life just as much now as wearing glasses does: yeah, it's different, but it's not bad. I'm certainly not saying that all of society has reached a point of understanding. Mathew Shepard, Defense of Marriage Acts, these are recent events. But society as a whole is certainly moving in a much more progressive direction. Which is why it baffles me when GLBTQ organizations attempt to distance the gay community from society at large. We're different. That's great. So are Italian-Americans. Yet, you don't hear them bitching about how much they need their own community centers, see them holding Italian pride parades, or distributing "Am I Italian?" pamphlets.
Everybody in the world is different. That doesn't mean they should be separated from society as a whole. If acceptance is what people want, why are they going to such great lengths to make themselves out to be different? Either way, I fully intend to live my life as a normal teenager-raucous and obnoxious, omniscient, invincible and pretentious-with my sexual orientation not even so much as a tertiary characteristic of who I am.
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Out and About
A guide to Pride on the Plaza 2006
Transamerica
Because of its short opening run here in Santa Fe, few folks had the chance to see the groundbreaking
Transamerica
, a film rare and brave enough to portray the trans community with subtlety and un-patronizing honesty.
Transamerica
writer/director Duncan Tucker hosts a post-screening Q&A about the film, which chronicles the road trip undertaken by a MTF person and her troubled son.
7:45 pm Thursday, June 15. $15. Santa Fe Film Center, 1616 St. Michael's Drive (formerly the CinemaCafe). Call 988-7414 for
tickets/information.
Outside the Lines Visual Arts Show & Sale
New Mexico GLBT artists, including Mark Frossard, Joe Horton, Gordon Micunis and Clark LeCompte, show their stuff.
Gala opening reception: 5:30-8:30 pm Friday, June 16. Free. Phil Space, 1410 Second St., 983-7945. Through Saturday, June 25.
Pride Train to Lamy
Take a ride on the Gay Train. A sunset ride, to be exact, featuring a catered dinner, cash bar and music courtesy of roller-skating, accordion-playing Francophile Dadou (no word yet on rather skates work on a train), from Santa Fe to the Lamy Station.
5:30-9:30 pm Saturday, June 17. $55. 989-8600 for reservations.
Queer Voices in Literature
Local GLBT writers submitted their poetry and prose to the Pride committee, which chose the best entries. The authors will read and discuss their work.
7 pm Sunday, June 18. $5 suggested donation. Santa Fe Playhouse, 142 E. DeVargas St., 988-4262; no reservations needed
Town Hall Meeting
It's not all disco and margaritas-Pride's also about recognizing the issues facing the queer community today. Participate in this community forum to discuss GLBT political, social and civil rights issues of the day;
then
you can go to Swig!
7:30 pm Monday, June 19. Free. The Unitarian Church, 107 W. Barcelona Road, 982-9674
Tom Spanbauer-Reading and Conversation
The acclaimed gay novelist, author of
The Man Who Fell in Love With the Moon
, reads from his newly published book
Now is the Hour
.
7 pm Tuesday, June 20. $12 at the door; box office opens at 6:30 pm. Santa Fe Playhouse, 142 E. DeVargas St., 988-4262
Quartet Orgolglio-Music of Gay Composers
A string quartet performs and talks about our musical heritage of gay
composers.
7:30 pm Wednesday, June 21. $12; for reservation, leave voice mail at 466-3253. The Awakening Museum, 125 N. Guadalupe St., 989-7636
Jennifer Holliday in Concert
The Tony Award winner for
Dreamgirls
and two-time Grammy winner will sing her ass off, with full jazz orchestra and special guest Chris Calloway.
8 pm Thursday, June 22. $18-$49. The Lensic, 211 W. San Francisco St., 988-1234,
Men's Night Out
A longstanding tradition of Santa Fe Pride, the Men's Night Out has always proven a festive meet 'n' greet.
6-9 pm Friday, June 23. Free. Señor Lucky's at the Palace, 142 W. Palace Ave., 982-9891
LesBeFriends Pride Women's Dance
After skipping last year's festival, the ladies' dance is back on track, in a new location.
9 pm Friday, June 23. $5. The Lodge (formerly the Radisson Hotel) 750 N. St. Francis Drive, 992-5800
Pride on the Plaza Parade and Festival
Freak out unsuspecting tourists by gathering on the Plaza to watch this year's parade, led by the Grand Marshal, Mayor David Coss, and themed "Brokeback Mountain." Then freak them out even more by getting gloriously sweaty, discoing under the sun to the tunes of DJ Santa Fe (Frank Cordero), or perusing the grounds, with 50 organizations and businesses with information booths, puppets and face painting for children.
Noon-4 pm Saturday, June 24. Santa Fe Plaza.
Elders' Circle
Join GLBT elders in sharing about life and remembrances from Santa Fe's past.
2 pm Sunday, June 25. Free. Rainbow Vision Retirement Resort, 500 Rodeo Road. For more information contact Doug Conwell, 988-4157,
Gay Men's Potluck
Gay men's potluck? You know the food's gonna be good! Plus a pool/hot tub wing-ding to boot.
5 pm Sunday, June 25. Free. Private residence; contact Michael Kaplan for information:
For complete and updated information:
