Smalltown Boy

Pride Throughout the Years

June has arrived, and with it, another Pride Month worldwide. For those who follow history, the first LGBTQ Pride March occurred on June 28, 1970, exactly one year to the day after the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York City's Greenwich Village. The uprising at Stonewall was by no means the beginning of a fight for equal rights or liberation. Instead, the movement blossomed out of what was earlier known as "Reminder Day Pickets" in New York. The first event was called Christopher Street Liberation Day, named after the street where the Stonewall Inn is still located. The plan was to hold a massive march at the end of what would be Gay Pride Week between June 22 and June 28, the date of the anniversary. Thousands of people showed up in 1970, and as a result, the marches were planned for the following year in other cities, such as Los Angeles and Chicago, as well as in New York.

Initially, the celebrations were to be spread throughout the country and celebrated on the last weekend in June. The adoption of June as Pride Month has happened organically simply because of the positioning of the classic events and the history of Stonewall. In 1999, President Clinton declared June Gay and Lesbian Pride Month. Later, in 2011, President Obama extended the recognition to everyone in the LGBTQ community. June 28 remains International LGBTQ Pride Day. There are Pride events throughout the world during June and other parts of the year, primarily due to weather events, and likely to allow some who would celebrate the option to travel to more than one celebration within the calendar year.

I did not participate in the earlier years of Pride Month. However, I was alive and might have been a bit better adjusted as a human being if I had been able to understand more than I did. Throughout the 1970s, I was deep in the closet. So deep, one might say that I completely denied and misunderstood any related feelings due to events that life provided both knowingly and unknowingly. My surroundings did not exude the more substantial recognition of differences that can exist today (depending on the environment, the family, the support, the education, and the sheer number of others who can find their honest selves and celebrate pride). The percentage of this possibility is more significant today than in the 1970s and 1980s. I do not recall knowing any gay kids in my middle or high school years. That does not mean they did not exist, but it might have been an invitation for an open target were it to be evident. In the 1970s, I blocked out or ignored anything to do with my impending sexuality. I don't even remember the word "gay" being spoken around me in any capacity. I do recall being called a "fag” when I was younger. If I am honest, I know I was not interested in what the boys my age were doing or playing, which set me apart. I likely internalized and filed that away to make sure that anyone in the primary world around me saw what I needed them to see. I was wholeheartedly inauthentic to the outside world for years. That was my normal.

This is not to say that I did not live a double life for some of those years, especially when I moved to Los Angeles and into the 1980s. Los Angeles was where life began to be a lot more difficult because the line between authentic and inauthentic was changing and confusing. Still, I did not come out until the age of 25 in 1983. With the launch of truthfulness to key relationships came relief, but it took years to honestly feel good about myself through all the layers and layers of shame that had built up and disguised me from my genuineness for so long.

As always, in my story, music played an integral role in the identification and comfort of the soul. As these chapters have illustrated, my early 1980s were colored by clubs, dancefloors, DJ gigs, a job as a VJ, and a world of music that opened my eyes to a culture and a pride I did not know possible. My coming out coincided with my employment at the club Revolver in West Hollywood, California. Here, I was truly introduced to the sounds of gay culture. It was that culture that opened me up to authenticity and allowed me to begin forgiving myself for the years of lying I had subjected people in my life, primarily to myself. I allowed a world of hate and fear to take away my identity for fear of repercussions, anger, or ridicule. It was self-preservation but it might have changed the course of my trajectory or possibly someone else's. I maintain that I have no regrets. Every day, event, feeling, and activity have led me to where (and who) I am today. But today, I have the pride that is celebrated this month. Today, I identify openly as a gay man. Today I identify as Queer.

So, what was that music that lifted me higher and opened my world in the early 1980s? One artist that pops to mind, and one particular song that truly stands out is Jimmy Somerville with his band Bronski Beat and their first single, "Smalltown Boy." The tune, which is now 40 years old, was about a young gay man who is no longer welcome in his home after bullying and rejection. I cannot say that the story reflected my experience entirely outwardly. Still, it represented a significant portion of how I had treated myself for the fear of what I determined would eventually have been my story. Although there have been episodes in my life from youth through adulthood that presented and portrayed homophobia and even assault, I have chosen to keep them where they belong and grow as a person (with help) and not be their victim.

For fans of Somerville, The Bronski Beat, and Somerville's other band The Communards, the singer's insane falsetto rang throughout the 1980s with hits like "Why?," "I Feel Love/Johnny Come Home," "You Are My World," "Don't Leave Me This Way," and "Never Can Say Goodbye." The singer has released music throughout the last 40 years and continues to live and record in his home of Glasgow, Scotland. Lots of lasting anthems came in this era and will ring brightly for many years, especially in June. Happy Pride to all.

You leave in the morning with everything you own in a little black case

Alone on a platform, the wind and the rain on a sad and lonely face

Mother will never understand why you had to leave

But the answers you seek will never be found at home

The love that you need will never be found at home

Run away, turn away, run away, turn away, run away

Run away, turn away, run away, turn away, run away