Peter's Place

There is nothing more important to #PRIDE than the Truth and that means even when it may not be very convenient. The #LGBTQ+ community is uniquely situated to handle this quandary because, after the self-realization of identifying as LGBTQIA2S++, one is then faced with perhaps the greatest inconvenient truth of all: the great, big LGBTQ closet. It's quite unfortunate that I've seen a rise in other such inconvenient truths (and no, not that  Inconvenient Truth ) since my return to the social web after a hiatus of a few years while I cared for, and then lost my mother as she battled breast cancer for the fourth time. We have come so far in the past 50 years yet have much further to go, especially as a community. I believe that is because we have been fighting for equality when in fact we should be demanding equity and justice . One needn't look far from the gayborhoods to see the self-harm that staying in the closet does to us. And that's why today, on this 32nd anniversa...

In honor of National Coming Out Day , I'm going to re-tell my own, personal coming out story. But before I do so, there are a few things we must address. First, coming out is not an event. Rather, it is a process. It is something that anyone who is part of the LGBTQQIAA2S ( please don't ask me what that means ) spectrum goes through every moment of our lives, once the process has started. For some, the process never goes very far; they live their entire lives in the closet. But that's another issue for another day. It is a process that must be repeated every time an LGBTQQIAA2S (oh screw it, I'll just use the universal "gay" to refer to this spectrum—that acronym is just too damned difficult to type) person meets someone. It is repeated every time we approach a new situation, a new person, a new location, a new job, a new...well, you get the idea. For some, the process may get easier over time. For others, it may become more difficult. For still othe...