Growing up as a repressed gay boy in the heteronormative world of suburban Connecticut, I tried to force myself to be "straight." Having no queer icons or role models, knowing less than a handful of queer people and having my schools fail to teach me about phenomenally important queer events -- like the Labouchere amendment, the pink triangles of the Holocaust, Harvey Milk or even the Stonewall Riots -- I felt completely confused about who I was supposed to be. I lived in a place and a time when there was little to no mention or representations of queer people and no education about them. They were outsiders, they were weird, they were the subject of ridicule, hatred and endless jokes -- and everyone around me was ok with this.
After leaving my Connecticut prep school, I matriculated to Vassar College and was exposed to a whole new world. I learned about queer theory, about gender and sexuality spectra, about the nuances of feminism, about intersectionality, about queer activism, about patriarchy, about the separation of gender and sex, about ableism, about sexual violence and about social justice. I learned a lot about myself, and I was finally able to accept myself and take pride in my identity.
Vassar enlightened me, educated me and made me feel accepted. I felt inspired to bring that feeling of inclusiveness to all those in the LGBTQIA+ community who are not quite as fortunate to find such a place to call home. This is important for everyone -- not just in archetypically conservative places -- because discrimination is felt by queer people nearly every day. Since coming out, I have been shocked by the treatment I have received in supposedly queer-friendly places. People have made offensive comments to me, denied me jobs or housing and been blatantly rude and homophobic to me directly.
I, along with my partner Derrick De Lise, founded Queer Voices as an online magazine with the intent of enabling all members of the LGBTQIA+ community to feel accepted for who they are, to have a safe place to explore online and to understand that regardless of the mainstream media's inability to portray all of us accurately, we are all people of value. It exists to educate curious people about our various queer experiences; to discuss the major issues that queer people are facing; to create a forum for queer people to write about their queer lives.
It was extremely important to me to gather a very diverse team of contributing writers. Together we represent various backgrounds, races, sexes, genders, identities, dis/abilities, socio-economic classes, levels of education and interests. This commitment to all kinds of diversity was so important to me because I wanted to guarantee that Queer Voices incorporated as many groups as possible, and gave a voice to so many types of people who are not represented at all in mass media.
Queer Voices was an idyllic vision my partner and I shared and we are flabbergasted that it has been so well received by those who have seen the project. From the nearly forty regular contributors we have to the several thousand site visitors who regularly browse the site, we have received an astonishingly positive response. It makes me so happy that people care about Queer Voices -- it gives me hope that humanity is becoming more accepting and loving.
I, more than anything, want Queer Voices to be a beacon of hope for the LGBTQIA+ person out there who feels as confused about, and isolated by, their identity as I felt when I was growing up. I want them to be able to go online and read about queer history, hear queer narratives from role models, be educated about queer terminology, issues and activism, and be able to talk with other queer people. However, Queer Voices is not just for the youth or those exploring their identity for the first time, it is also for the aging who are more isolated as they deviate from the mainstream perception of "queer;" it is for the adult who is asexual but thinks there is more to their identity than just one simple label; it is for the trans women of color who are looking for a community to support them; it for the passionate student who wants to get involved in activism; it is for everyone, in every walk of life, who does not fall into the cisgender, heteronormative slot the world wants them to occupy.
I want Queer Voices to be the place our readers can go to feel safe, to feel validated, to feel that they too have worth and to be a place where anyone can go to broaden their views about the queer community. At the end of the day, we are all weird. We are all unique. We all have intrinsic value. We are members of your family. We are your friends. We are your classmates. We are members of your clubs or churches. We are your colleagues. We are human. Join the conversation at Queer-Voices.com and grow in your own humanity.
