Tag: news

Thankfulness 2024

I started this tradition some years ago: rather than celebrating Thanksgiving, I celebrate what I’m thankful for in the preceding year. It has become difficult for me to celebrate the colonization of this continent, which is how I have come to perceive the holiday we call Thanksgiving.

This past year… I am so grateful for the continued presence of my neograndson Theo in my life. Now living in Manchester, thriving at Manchester Metropolitan University, he and I continue to Zoom regularly. We are family. (if you are new to this story, read past blogs in which I posted about needing Team Tim, nearly 2 years ago now!)

I am grateful to have a loving partner. We sustain each other as we move on this journey through life together. 

I continue to be grateful, after 38 years, for the opportunity to participate in GALA choruses. I attended my 10th GALA festival in Minneapolis this past summer, singing with the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus, after a drought of eight years. 7500 of us blew the roof off Minneapolis! And we will do so again in four years. (GALA used to stand for Gay and Lesbian Choral Association; with the expansion of the possibility of identities, the letters ‘GALA’ are now the name of the organization, no longer an acronym.)

I am grateful to be a member of St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church. Such a welcoming family! I am thankful for our new Rector, Joseph Wallace-Williams. This parish chose a gay man as the rector back in 2002, at a time when that was even more controversial than it is today. Now the vestry has chosen another gay man to lead us spiritually, and I feel very much at home. 

Despite the results of this past election, I feel a strong sense of community and family that will sustain me. Though an unfortunate way to find out, I now know precisely who is for me and who is not. I am thankful to be surrounded by family of choice, both Q+ and allies, in this tumultuous time. I am so thankful that most of my biological family is also family of choice.

Can’t wait to see what I have to say about thankfulness in 2025! Stay tuned!

The Bonds of Music

Even at 69, I occasionally surprise myself. Today’s insight came during a conversation about chorus, a subject near and dear to my heart. I was talking with a member of my chorus who is neurodivergent, on the autism spectrum. I was curious, and asked him, “Why does it appeal to you to be in this really large group, with all this energy in this room? I would’ve thought it would be too much for you.”

He replied, “This is the only group thing I feel completely comfortable participating in. We’re all converging to a unison note, singing together, and it gives me a sense of belonging with other people. And I don’t have to look at them or talk to them in order to feel this strong connection. It’s perfect for me.”

This comment struck me, and hit home. It took me awhile to be able to articulate why I could identify with what this person had said. I am not neurodivergent myself, so why did I connect so strongly with his viewpoint?

In 1986, I was a founding member of the Portland Lesbian Choir. It wasn’t until the mid-1990s that I understood I wasn’t really a lesbian, but was a transman. Prior to this realization, I had always had anxiety and some level of depression participating in lesbian community. I didn’t understand these feelings at all, and worried and fretted about them constantly in my journals.

When my autistic friend told me why he felt comfortable in chorus, I understood for the first time that chorus had served the same purpose for me back in my lesbian community days: a place where I could bond with people through singing, a very powerful means of bringing us all together, and — I didn’t have to look at anyone, I didn’t have to interact with anyone, I could just be and feel a part of it all.

Now I sing in the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus. I transitioned nearly 30 years ago, and do feel a strong sense of connection to the world around me. I don’t have any trouble bonding with people now. And still, the bonds of singing together in a chorus are among the most powerful I experience. I wish choral singing was a bigger part of the larger culture. It has such power to bring us together.

Round and Around We Go

Today marks the first time I have felt able to write since the election just over a week ago. I’ve had numerous conversations with various folks, all of us processing the traumatic grief we are feeling over the election results. 

I have felt rocketed back to the 1990s anti-gay ballot measure era here in Oregon. The feelings this past election have evoked in me are similar, and more profound because they extend across the entire country. And they extend across my family – no one in my family voted in favor of anti-gay ballot measures in the 1990s. These days, I feel betrayed by a few folks I have considered family.

All this said… We did survive the anti-gay  ballot measures, emerging stronger as a community and with a greater sense of power. I have hope that the same can hold true this time around. 

One constant for me is the presence of the Portland LGBTQ+ choruses — beacons of hope into the future. A story from 30 years ago… the Portland Lesbian Choir and Portland Gay Men’s Chorus ventured forth, sometimes individually and sometimes jointly, into small towns in various parts of Oregon. In one town, we performed in the auditorium of a community college. There were right-wing picketers outside the concert, holding up anti-gay  signs. 

The picketers followed us into the auditorium and sat in the back, holding up their signs so those of us on stage could see them. Halfway through the concert, several people put their signs down. My thought at the time was, “They got tired of holding those signs up; they will pick them up when we get ready to leave.” But they didn’t. We changed a few hearts and minds that day. 

The power of music. There is a reason choral singing originated in spiritual traditions. Sharing the air in song thins the barriers between us all, making our interconnection all the more palpable. This was the effect we had on a few picketers that day back in the 1990s. And this is the effect we can have for our community, helping us all remember our interconnection, empowering us all, and lessening our feelings of isolation. Take every opportunity you can find to be sustained by the Portland Gay Men’s Chorus and Portland Lesbian Choir this season, helping us all support each other through this difficult time.