The Return of LGBTSr (If not Now, When?)

Mark McNease, Editor

Life is not linear. Love is eternal. Strength is essential.

An excellent grief counselor once told me grief is not linear—it does not build, crescendo, then recede and leave us to move on with our lives. It comes and goes, sometimes for many years.

I look at life that way. It’s not, and need not be lived, as a linear experience: young, older, old. Here, there, gone. Life can be made of cycles and phases, and letting go of something doesn’t mean we won’t do it, or hold it, or be it again.

I put LGBTSr out there for six years and found myself wanting to take a big step away. My husband Frank and I moved into our house in New Jersey (an ongoing process for which I’m very grateful but tired). We live in the woods now. I write to the sound of silence, or birds, depending on the season. I work in a grocery store and will never again spend a workday sitting in an office cubicle. Life is good.

Life is also perilous for LGBTQ people at a time when our government is being run by people who don’t like us very much and in many cases actively hate us. I’m not a fan of the word ‘hate’ and don’t use it often or lightly. I don’t call people who disagree with me, even about something as fundamental as marriage equality, ‘haters.’ I don’t want to lessen the impact of hatred or excuse the truly hateful by calling everyone who has a different set of values a hater. But it is the only word that can express the depth and urgency of what is being systematically done to us—to our youth, to our children, to our elderly, and to ourselves.

Every effort has been, and is being, made to erase us. All mentions of LGBTQ people are being removed from government websites that, prior to the last presidential election, treated us rightly as part of the fabric of our American society. Now? Gone are the resources so needed by our most vulnerable. Gone is the guidance on caring for our elderly, on combatting discrimination in housing, on the very basics needed to help us stay healthy and alive.

They hate us. Make no mistake. They want us gone. But we will not go away … and in the case of this website, we will come back!

Is there a more appropriate time to shout, “We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it!” I’m not a big fan of that word, but the sentiment is necessary. We are NOT going away. We are NOT going back into the closet. We are NOT shutting up. We, like others who have fought for basic dignity and equal treatment, know that our lives depend on it. Not that long ago we watched our lovers, brothers, sisters, mothers, sons, loved ones, die horribly while the country made jokes about us. If there was ever a time that I’m grateful for the horror of the AIDS years, it’s now, when I know that I have been through the worst. The current situation may not be nothing, but it’s not half as hard as what I lived through at twenty-five. So bring it on.

I’ll be providing everything you liked at LGBTSr before, and doing my best to bring you some new things. Videos, tutorials, news, profiles, whatever I can find that I think you’ll enjoy and that may offer a place in the storm.

What you can do … Please tell people about the site! Encourage your friends to email subscribe. The more people I know we’re reaching, the more enthusiastic I am about it. And feel free to submit things you’d like to share (lgbtSr @ outlook.com)

Life is not linear. Love is eternal. Strength is essential.

Peace,

Mark