HOW HISTORICAL EVENTS SHAPED MY LIFE By Sean Vail
I had not only lost someone I loved and forfeited a potential career, but I was also torn away from my main support group. As if losing a lover was not enough, later that year, I lost my best friend William. He died from a peculiar disease that no one knew much about at the time. The New York Times printed a story on July 3, 1981, about a rare pneumonia and skin cancer that seemed to be manifesting in gay men, initially the disease was called GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency Disorder later to be called AIDS. This began a time of sadness and great despair for the entire LGBT community. As was drummed into me from a young age, I could not stop thinking that bad things happen to people who deviate from the sexual norm. This indeed had to be some form of punishment for the choices I made. I had yet to deal with my family back in Texas, as all this had happened in Seattle. Upon my arrival home, as predicted, I was met with comments that stressed that this is what God does to people like you, change or forever be in turmoil. I rebelled against this treatment and was promptly thrown out of my parents’ home. I could ramble on for hours about how I endured the abuse and endeavoured to create a happy, satisfying life for myself. But the point of this article is to highlight that everyone is shaped by their personal experiences and by historical events that not only change their perceptions but have an apparent effect on those around us. We are just emerging from another catastrophic historical event that threatened us all to the very core. We faced months of quarantines, unhealthy periods of isolations and loneliness that will affect people for months to come. Now is an especially important time to lay aside preconceived prejudices, personal judgements and possibly your own homophobia and, to not only create your own support group, but to be part of someone else’s. The conclusion that I have come to, from my own set of experiences, is that it is so important for everyone to create a circle of support, to listen to the older members of your community and take the lessons from their stories, to grow from the mistakes of others, and to embrace our community and all that it has become over the years.
Up until this point, I had lived on the Canadian American border between Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario in a very conservative neighbourhood. In 1976 my father had a nervous breakdown, and I was shipped off to my sister to finish my last year of High School in Arlington, Texas. I was not prepared for what I faced in this new and alien environment. I could write a book based on my experiences, many good memories but a myriad of demoralising, disappointing, and dangerous affairs. If there was one thing I learned that year, it was that I liked boys, a lot. I developed a penchant for the local cowboys who wore tight jeans, cowboy shirts and cowboy boots. As handsome as they appeared, they were adamant about their dislike of LGBT people. I was away from my parents, but it seemed I could not get away from the bias and prejudice I was surrounded with in my youth. San Francisco again takes the limelight with Harvey Milk winning a seat on the Board of Supervisors in 1977. He was responsible for a gay rights ordinance that protected LGBT people from being fired from their jobs. He was also instrumental in overturning Proposition 6 which would forbid homosexual teachers. A year later he was assassinated by a former city supervisor, motivated by jealousy rather than homophobia or so the media portrayed. Surmising so far, I am believing that it is truly treacherous, or precarious at the least, to be open about one’s sexuality. After a tumultuous year, my brother and sister marched me down to the recruitment office of the US Navy, to be made into a man. There I would be taught how to do manly things, be among manly men and learn the necessary manly skills to take me into the world, to go forth and multiply. Instead, I was put into the submarine fleet, discovered other men whose sexuality was the same as mine and met a terrific lover, culminating in a new and healthy outlook on my sexuality and a thriving passion to learn more about my new community. But all was not to remain ecstatic and joyous. In 1981, my navy boyfriend drowned, which left me devastated and broken. It was apparent to my superiors that I was miserable, and my head was certainly not in a place to function as an integral part of a nuclear submarine. I made the decision to come out as gay and to express how toppled I was by the loss of my lover. I was given an Honourable Discharge despite it being an offense to be gay in the military at the time. I was shown a tremendous amount of compassion by the officers and crew, I learned how important it is to have a circle of support.
One year later, a riot broke out in San Francisco, and several transgender people stood up against the police and their abusive manhandling. This resulted in the formation of the National Transsexual Counselling Unit, which was the first peer-run support and advocacy organisation in the world. As news of this travelled through the media, I was again forced to endure the barrage of abuse towards those brave and daring individuals who were only standing up for their rights as human beings. Three years later, the monumental Stonewall event, credited with reigniting America’s modern LGBT rights movement, became newspaper headlines across the country. Family, neighbours and elected officials took to the tabloids and expressed their aggressive views towards the situation and voiced opinions on what should be done to the perpetrators of this unrest. At this point in my life, I felt I was different from other boys my age, but I can tell you for certain, I was not going to be one of those bludgeoned and persecuted people. I prayed for some form of release from these daunting feelings I was harbouring, I could not imagine what my own father would do to me if he ever found out what thoughts were milling around in my mind. Although progress was slow, there were changes taking place. In 1973 the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality as a mental illness and in 1974, an openly gay public official was voted to office. America’s civil rights were being challenged, not only by LGBT people but also by the black community, upsetting conservatives like Anita Bryant, whose campaign to repeal a gay rights ordinance in Florida was successful and was not reinstated until 1998.
Every holiday presented the opportunity for my enormous family to come together, to show off the new babies, rekindle family ties and, of course, eat. Whether it was Christmas Eve, which was also my parents’ wedding anniversary, or the 4th of July, we managed to make a colossal event out of it. It could be a BBQ in someone’s back garden or the annual takeover of a public park. Whatever the case, it was guaranteed to be memorable. Our mouths salivated at the thought of Aunt Bonnie’s potato salad, mom’s baked beans and the many delicious culinary delights from my multi-cultural clan. During those halcyon years as a youngster, I could not ask for anything more to fulfil my childhood dreams. But as the years progressed and I started to understand more of what the adults were talking about, I found myself a sheep amongst the wolves. Life, for many of my folk, had certainly been shaped by the atrocious and dreadful events that had taken place prior to my birth. My parents endured the Great Depression, World War II, the Korean War, the polio epidemic, the Vietnam war and a myriad of other ghastly crises that moulded them into the people they were and how they perceived the world. Little did I know that on a completely different level, my own life was being forged by the current and soon to be historical events, and the attitudes that those around me had formulated regarding them. As early as 1965, only being six years old, I remember the outrage of my father and my uncles concerning the picketing of civil rights activists at Independence Hall in Philadelphia; they had gathered there to call attention to the lack of civil rights for LGBT people. The conversation in our living room quickly escalated into a fury of hate and disgust; they were referred to as a deviant section of society that had no place among God-fearing, respectable people. Even as a very young child, I felt the shudder run over my shoulders due to the immense hate that was being exuded.
Reach out for yourself, reach out to others, let’s connect in the spirit of togetherness again.
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