No, Mother.
When I first came out to my mother - and to me, coming out meant coming out to my mother - this woman I’d heard cry only from behind closed doors, choked tears on the other end of the phone and said, “Your life is going to be so hard, and life is hard enough.”
I was 19 years old.
Now 31 years later at the cusp of 50, older than she was then, I can fully and truthfully respond, NO, MOTHER.
No, mother. Being gay wasn’t hard; what’s hard is oppression. What’s hard is being denied history. Not knowing for instance that there were queer kings and queens and emperors - still memorialized on coins - women that rode into battle and married wives. Men who dressed in gowns and wore makeup and called themselves “husband” to the man they held dear yet STILL ran an empire.
What’s hard is not knowing about the ancient sarcophagi containing some of the First People, male remains buried with tender female objects because these were the things treasured in life. It was hard to grow up in the South thinking I was the only one, all the while this history existed untold, the first people, gender-fluid, but still honored by their tribe, that was hard. It was difficult struggling inside with shame and guilt, shunned by classmates and threatened with damnation, all because I’d fallen in love with my friend, fell in love the way all teenagers do - an open, dazed stumble like falling into flowers – surviving that was hard.
Being gay wasn’t hard. It was being alone.
Mother, the hard was you calling me queer, sneer in your voice. Belittling me, as I cried post-breakup on the bathroom floor. The hard was learning later that so many queer children die needlessly for the same reason, taking their own lives, when had they known about Caleph Al-Hakeem and Queen Christina, and those Two Spirits, the absolute inevitability of LGBTQ people throughout time, well, they wouldn’t have died.
No, mother. Being gay isn’t hard. Seeing a college friend, jaw wired shut after being bashed in Alphabet City, that brings pause. Begging for politicians to recognize gay men dying of AIDS, to allow them healthcare, a basic human right, yeah, that sucked, I agree. But we threw the ashes of their dead bodies over the White House fence and eventually those inside got the point.
Mother, you were worried about me in your own way, but what you missed was the joy. What you didn’t foresee was the dancing. Limelight, NYC, a former church, now lit by spotlights. You didn’t know about the Pyramid Club down in the Village, friends dancing to the all-80s night. Or Private Eyes, where they misted the room with wet smoke and how we swam through it like a sea to meet lovers on the other side.
Mother, you missed the parades. We marched down 5th Ave from the Park, following a lavender line through the city. Held kiss-ins in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, grabbed the person next to us and went to town. It reminded me of being young on Sundays when we’d say peace be with you and reach across the church to shake hands with strangers, only in the protest it was WITH TONGUE. Yes, mother that was fun. That was exultant. The great rainbow ribbon of balloons. The dykes on bikes. Rounding Christopher Street past the Stonewall, queers cheering from their balconies and throwing streamers down on our heads like we were wartime heroes. The parade would dump out on to the west side Piers, into a rally, and drag queens would lip sync from the stage. They’d call us names, yell out, hey bitches happy Pride! And I’d be pressed in among the masses, a glorious press of bodies, love, and joy, we’d say our goodbyes and plan to meet back later when we’d dance by the water and kiss beneath fireworks, and the moon.
No, mother, that wasn’t hard. That was life. That was being myself. Feeling myself, feeling free. Free of hatred, particularly of self-hatred, and no, that wasn’t hard. THAT was grace.
Laura Jones is a writer, journalist and teacher. Her nonfiction essays have been featured in two anthologies, including THEY SAID, edited by the poet, Simone Muench, and the upcoming, HOME IS WHERE THEY QUEER YOUR HEART. An excerpt of Jones’ graphic memoir "My Life in Movies" was published in 2019 in Fourth Genre, along with a companion essay commissioned by the journal. Her nonfiction work has also appeared in numerous literary journals including Creative Nonfiction, Foglifter, The Gay and Lesbian Review, The Drum, and Wraparound South, to name a few. Jones earned her MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Northwestern University, where she also won the 2015 AWP Journals Prize. She is currently co-teaching a curriculum she co-designed in LGBTQ+ history and theory to high school students at the Springhouse Community School.