Spreading the Love(=Love)

I recently returned from summer classes in Vermont, and I am so thrilled to be back in queer Durham, in my haus/zoo, and of course, the LGBT Center (there are new chairs!)

This summer was so transformative for me. I am so much more comfortable with my body, my sexuality, and my goals for the future. I know all of the gushy goodness gets sickening sometimes, but I spent way too long being sad. And with all the great things happening this year in Durham and at Duke, I can hardly contain my excitement. Folks, we have so much work to do!

I don’t know if you’ve heard about Womyn. But I hope you know that Megan, Jack and I will not stop harassing your Facebooks, this blog, your dorm rooms, your friends, your plaza, etc, until it is finished.

Also, some really, really super news. There is a new free bus called the Bull City Connector that goes from Duke all the way into Golden Belt! Don’t know what Golden Belt is? Well that’s proof that you don’t get off campus enough.

DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW QUEER DURHAM IS?! It’s soooo queer. You’re missing out on so much! So I hope to keep all of you informed as best as I can about the goings-on in town, because it is absolutely worth it.

To continue my excitement, The Pinhook has now changed its regulations to be 18 and up! There are constant queer things and dance parties and all kinds of goodness that you should investigate.

Some events coming up:

Queerbaret on August 20th, for those of you in town.

This weekend is also the Queerrilla Film Festival! Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Come out and support the love.

Also, a shameless plug for my partner’s show this Sunday at the Pinhook.

I’m not sure if you can tell, but I’m very excited for my friendlies to come home and explore with me. If you’re apprehensive about this semester, I think my enthusiasm is contagious, so you can come play with my kitties and eat cookies.

Much love, anticipation to see the oldies and meet the newbies, hope for a better year and a growing community of support and affection,

Summ

Ticks.

So first I should probably just note where I’ve been this whole semester. I had been so sure of myself: on this mission to present my community with interviews and photos. I loved doing it. But then, as some of you know, my last subject’s parents found the entries…the blog. What ensued was not the greatest of circumstances for this individual. I had the permission and everything but I couldn’t escape this feeling of guilt. I stopped writing. What right did I have to put someone in that position of pain and hurt?

I think I reflected on it too much. I was scared that I threw myself out there, and was trying to pull out everyone with me. To be supergay, or ultragay, or gay before anything else. To take the risk and out ourselves on campus, online. That’s a big step. Deep down, I still absolutely agree that being just us was the goal of my entries: to show the broader experience of queer folks at Duke.

But being more out has not been without its hate.

Reactions from family and friends and complete strangers have been interesting. Although I am perhaps more hesitant now to post online, I know these stories are important to tell. So I hope you can bear with me in this post. I hope to continue posting during the summer and make up for my absence and overcome the fears that have piled up on me this semester.

There were two events that occurred really close together. They were my most direct and blunt experience with hate speech. I tried to brush it off and not let it get to me, but I’ve kept replaying these events over and over in my mind over the past few weeks. The first—was on LDOC. For those of you who have seen Patrick’s Documentary, LDOC 2009 was a great memorable experience for me. LDOC 2010 was tons of fun too, don’t get me wrong. But while kissing a female in the crowd while the bands were playing, I suddenly became aware of the people talking around us. I tuned in to a pair of guys next to us, hearing: “They’re kissing each other, that’s fucking disgusting.”

I can delight in the attention and reaction and help show a broader spectrum of female sexuality, the girl I was kissing certainly was. But I don’t really like being told that I’m fucking disgusting. It tore through me like I didn’t know it would. I shocked myself with how much it hurt.

Then, awhile later, the second event. Walking down Markham, hand-in-hand with my partner, a gentleman took it upon himself to lean out of his car and yell, “God made Adam and Eve!”

Not so piercing, no. But what if it was? What if something happened?

The only thing you can really do is laugh it off. Crack jokes. Be stronger...somehow. How do I do that?

I went to the Eno a few days ago, on a hot humid Durham day. I jumped right in that damn river. The peace and serenity of it all was overdue. Listening to the river flow slowly by, sitting on a soggy log, watching the dragonflies dance. I even got a tick! I’ve been terrified of ticks my whole life, but somehow it felt like a milestone. I picked it off without an issue, and maybe I’m sinking too far into hippiedom for my own good but I was pretty excited.

This semester was huge for me. A coming of age with hate speech and ticks. My grades weren’t what I wanted them to be—but are they ever? And I talked to my dad yesterday and while on the subject of coming out to the family he said: Summer, I just want you to include in your life whoever you want to be in it.

I don’t think he knows what that means to me, to us. It made my big ol heart want to explode.

Transparency and honesty are hard. It’s what I’ve made out 2010 to be. So far so good I think.

This Weekend!Full Frame Film Festival and LGBT Related Movies

Hey all,
I just wanted to alert everyone about the Full Frame Film Festival happening this weekend in Durham (it actually opened tonight). This is The Festival's 13th year.

I was going through the list of featured films and saw some had LGBT themes. Here's a brief list I compiled with synopses (directly from the site) and their respective showtime information. Just to be clear, I've not seen any of these and I'm not "endorsing" any of them or their viewpoints. Though, hopefully some of you will be able to attend one or more over the weekend. Be sure to let us know what you thought of it! You could even write blog post review of the film! Tickets are $10 each...see this link for more information.

The Exectution of Wanda Jean [Friday, 7:50PM @ Carolina Theater] In 1988 Wanda Jean Allen shot her girlfriend, Gloria Leathers, to death outside the Village Police Department in Oklahoma City. The State charged Allen, who had a previous conviction of manslaughter, with premeditated first-degree murder and sought the death penalty. She was convicted. With direct access to Allen and her team of supporters, specifically her spiritual advisor, Reverend Robin Meyers, and her defense lawyer, Steve Presson, Garbus follows Allen’s final appeals for clemency and documents the last three months of her life on death row. The film further weaves in the experiences of Allen’s mother and siblings and also Leathers’s family and their reactions as the 2001 execution draws near. A staggeringly personal account of one woman’s battle to save her life, the film is also a searching examination of the morality of the death penalty, particularly when race, mental health, and sexuality come into play.

Regretters [Saturday, 7:40PM @ Durham Arts Council] Born men, once women, and now men again, Orlando and Mikael dig deep into the psychology behind the one regret they share: their sex change. Orlando was one of the first people in Sweden to undergo a sex change operation in 1967; Mikael went under the knife much more recently, in the 1990s. Before making this film, director Marcus Lindeen produced a well-received stage play based on their stories; now, he has Orlando and Mikael speak for themselves. The film is structured around a conversation between these two very different individuals as they describe their own experiences and ask insightful questions of each other. The ways in which their experiences overlap and diverge make this a complex, unflinching portrait of regret and a thoughtful exploration of identity and expectations.

[Just from reading the synopsis, I recognize that this film may be contraversial. I am affirming of any individual who identifies as transgender. I've not seen it and I am not endorsing it; I don't know what its agenda/viewpoint/message is. The film may be of interest to readers of this blog, which is why I've included it on this list. If you see it over the weekend, please give us a review!]

Stonewall Uprising [Saturday, 4:30PM @ Durham Convention Center] This essential history of gay rights in America centers on June 27, 1969, the night that patrons of a Greenwich Village bar, the Stonewall Inn, refused to be rounded up and humiliated just for being themselves. America was a homophobic nation, deluded by the belief—bolstered by hysterical documentaries like Mike Wallace’s CBS Reports episode “The Homosexuals”—that homosexuality was a mental illness. There was no such thing as being out of the closet—there was only in the closet. Greenwich Village was the exception, a place where gay people met openly. One hot summer night, with a police raid in progress, something snapped, and gays and lesbians fought back, hurling beer bottles and stones at the police. The loud and proud gay rights march that soon followed announced that gay people would now refuse to be treated as criminals. With a wealth of archival material and extensive interviews with participants, this film memorializes the rebellion that ushered in the gay liberation era.