Besides that one defiantly out boy in my high school, and besides that one teacher we whispered about who played Linda Ronstadt during class changes, and besides me who didn’t think to call myself bi or anything else other than not whatever you fuckers try to box me into, I didn’t know any gay people in high school. Besides the guys I’d see at House of Pies, the ones a boyfriend’s skinhead brother bragged about bashing in the streets for fun some nights. Besides the sick ones on nightly news withering away, shoved away or hidden away in hospitals.
Besides the older women leading clinic defense training, and besides the Act Up folks who taught where to lie down lawfully and where to run from police horses, and besides me and that girl I surprise kissed for the photographers at the gay rights rally and made the front page, between Bowers and Lawrence, I didn’t know any gay people in college. Besides the famous ones we knew-but-didn’t know, Jodie and Melissa and even Amy and Emily. Besides all the women dancing at their shows.
Besides the women who owned the feminist bookstore that sold lesbian detective novels and Audre Lorde, besides the professors whose dogs I fed, besides me who moved in with Jen and spent Christmas in our apartment and not in Texas. Besides the kind teacher candidate in class beside me, worrying as I worried whether we could be the kind of out-but-in that showed we weren’t ashamed but also kept our licenses, kept our jobs, kept us safe.
Besides the kids I taught who “forgot” their journals on my desk, besides the kids who asked if I was married and hoped I’d tell the truth, besides the teacher down the hall. Besides the men at the bar down the street. Besides the pastor, the organist, and the acolyte.
Pride feels like celebration. Like appreciation, besides my skepticism. Besides my feeling that this was ours for us and now it’s something for everyone. Besides my sense that “bi” now just means something more like ally when it used to mean brave in spite of danger. Besides my insides screaming “Where the fuck have y’all been all this time?”, ungratefully.
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