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TEDx Talks
Published: 2014-11-19
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_U1foLW8h54
six thank you oh god this is on so %HESITATION I'm trying to remember the first time I was ever asked why are you so gay probably in middle school %HESITATION before it actually applied to any form of sexual orientation right because the middle school you don't have any orientation let alone a sexual one I just used to refer to something that you know you don't enjoy
but the funny thing is that since middle school I've probably been asked this question almost as much as any other question I had a dime for each time I've been asked why are you so guy I could maybe pay for one credit at Georgetown so but the interesting thing about this question too is the sort of opposing %HESITATION motivations that's why people would ask this question
some people ask this question as a way to shame me into shame the identity that say no wiring so gay is if you know it offends them somehow it smells I don't %HESITATION but then also people very close to me who Love Me very much ask it from a place of love and concern why are you so visible why would you subject yourself to potential discrimination
when you don't have to and therefore answering this question involves addressing both of these sorts of concerns in both of these motivation %HESITATION and that transformation and really for me it comes down to three things one is my obligations to history two are the realities of my own identity and lastly our obligations for those yet to come now some of you here are guests so you're
like well he doesn't seem that gave me %HESITATION his suits a little tight but no gay person would use white taxed in a power point %HESITATION but I assure you and let me prove it to you you see two weeks ago I was on this stage in the Mister Georgetown pageant mom copyrights and and I was crowned Mister George how by performing the first ever drag
routine and Gaston hall I think I let's let the Jesuits has on that you know about but well the ranting confirm later but I the buddy thing about this is a shocking is this isn't as scared as I was that day to sort of break ground and bring this performance into this space where it had ever been before before I came out on stage I was
thinking about how scared I would be if who I was eight years ago see where I was now %HESITATION granted when I see who I was eight years ago an equally horrified give it to me the area yes so I admit this is a picture of me in a Harry potter costume but I assure you I look like this every single day except for the scar
on the forehead but is otherwise every it was the same this was the outfit the glass is that that was a real tape those are really broken glasses I go to this time in my life because I think that this is where answering the question why are you yeah I against because it was in this point in my life that I started what we know as
covering it was around this time that even though I didn't necessarily feel all that different from my peers other people dead and what had started as like I used to get a became whispers became rumors became slurs this is when we as a community we just sort of hadn't human beings have a sort of tendency that only detect difference when we detect something we don't understand
even if we can't name it yet and we were all too young at this age name what was different were to act on what was different we try to correct it through less than honorable means and so people would make fun of the way that I want and still do %HESITATION even though that was really because one leg was shorter than the other actually I was
born with one leg one insured in the US I always stand like this it's not %HESITATION an affect so I would certainly think about every single step that I took it became deliberate and then people search make fun of the way that I move my hands when I talked which is really just because I'm still here and %HESITATION what to do with that than anything else
and then people make fun of my voice even though none of our voices had changed out like you know it's funny to have some make fun of your voice when it cracks in the middle of an insult %HESITATION so you can imagine then how difficult as a New Yorker it was to walk and talk and have a conversation while I motivating every single motion of my
voice in my speech I couldn't take for granted the things that we take for granted the ways that we navigate the world the normal ways were critical things that I had to think about every second of the day I had to expend all of my creative energy uncovering what it was that made me different when I went to high school this starts to change a little
bit because I was able to have a vocabulary Sir to see what it was that made me different then other people because as we all know hormones kick in and we sort of can say aha so that's the problem now when I went to high school I was introduced to the director the debate team Johnson cruise who is who was the first person first gay person
I'd ever met who own their identity unapologetically instead of expanding his creative energy to change himself and to cover and to meet the standards that the side he wanted him to me he instead put his energy into building a community of dedicated students who worship him because he was a debate dot the hilarious thing is I don't have the photo because he would hate me is
you know he was a slightly overweight Jewish man from great neck who how the following how does that happen and it's because he uses energy he did apologize for himself by not having to cover he was it would apply that energy into community and into students but that wasn't quite yet enough for me to own my own identity I had to start working at a meth
lab now clarification you know that's what I was going other direction by meth lab I mean as a research library study people addicted to meth this is what it looked like it was not a trailer in Albuquerque I promise yeah it was seven twenty six Broadway very very different Albuquerque so I've heard so it was out this laboratory that I met another mentor you see a
Bronx science %HESITATION research that seniors and other students engage in these research projects for the email professors all around the country and try to get them to help them with research projects and that we can submit these papers all these things across the country on the idea and the only professor responded to me happen to be one they reach out to just because he held the
prestigious position and why you signed her his name was Barry hockey's and barrel case was yet another example of a man who was owning his identity but also we had a lot of common that I didn't realize he had grown up in the neighborhood that I had went to school and that my mother was from Astoria queens %HESITATION which will explain my parents accent if you
have met them %HESITATION and my own if it slips out but also he had gone to the Bronx high school of science and needing another person who would use his creative energy into building a commuter on to building a laboratory around him made me feel comfortable at least owning my identity to myself but it yet really wasn't enough for me to start owning it to other
people I needed a more powerful force I needed to understand what the history this community looked like so the first thing I learned was the reality my own identity was that I couldn't cover and understanding who I was to myself at the very least allowed me to be happy for the first time in years when it came to showing other people I was unlucky see this
lab was only two blocks away from this building now some of you may not recognize this building and if you do my phone numbers on the program jumping %HESITATION but for those of you who don't recognize this building let me give you some historic contact this building was a stone wall and it was a short walk from where I was working and I passed this building
nearly a dozen times before I finally realized that I was working only two or three blocks away from the birth of the gay rights movement and this was important for one real reason because stone wall was one of the first instances in American history where the LGBTQ community said we will not try to hide anymore we are tired of using our energies to cover we would
rather own ourselves and use our identities to change the systems around us it was there the first time that they acknowledge it is easier to change a community is entertain to society than to change your own identity and it does much less damage that way and it was those who could not change or edit it was those who had the most trouble covering the drag queens
the effeminate gay men the queer women who were the first of three who were the ones to throw the first breaks the first rocks the first punches being exposed to this history gave me the strength and knowledge that I was joining a community I was not the first I had his shoulders of giants to stand on not just Parry hockey's not just on cruise but also
an entire movement this influence the rest of my high school career where I sort of vowed to be outrageous there were %HESITATION administrators who were are homophobic and who gave pushed back during a project defense of the research that I was doing an administrator who had known that I was gay publicly questioned me and said well you're only studying game and in sexual behaviors because you're
going to get the results that you want every game and has hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of sexual partners and they're just born to make bad decisions never so I was disappointed to learn that all gay men had hundreds and hundreds of sexual partners %HESITATION I had not experienced that but a dozen would be nice but dealing with this push back required one more understanding why
was I fight why would I engage in this work why would I fight why would I be out and even if I had all this history what good with that what good was it doing if I could still hide away right I had this ability why fight it but it was in the works I was doing at the lab the taught me something else you see
my research revolves around men who became exposed to HIV aids and the context of drug use and the vast majority of the men that I studied were men of color they also were very unlikely to identify as gay even though their behaviors were almost exclusively all their sexual behaviors are almost exclusively with Matt and this was interesting because they were last because they were less likely
to identify as gay there were less likely to seek out community resources there were less likely to identify with testing resources the fact that the modern gay rights movement at the time had ignored communities of color and been focused on being mainstream were just like you look at Alan she's not at you know she's not going to try to convert you she's on daytime television right
%HESITATION and we had left out the more radical elements or can ease those who have a hard time fitting in history is rough behind they had no one to go to for readers and this was having real health implications and to this day the rate of HIV infection in the United States among young men of color is increasing and if increases at current rates it is
projected that fifty percent of all college age men of color who have sex with other men will be HIV positive by the time they are fifty half and this is a disease that we can treat and when you are in treatment you cannot infect other people this is unacceptable and so I understood that being out was not important just for myself it was not important just
because of the debt I owe to history but also because of the people that came forward and so I made sure that in high school when I was into put in charge of teaching novices I was my own John cruise I made sure I was as out as possible and taught debaters to own their identities as much as possible not enough of them have come out
unfortunately I think we've ruined them they've had three debate coaches so they all have all these affectations that are gonna really ruin their chances with women in the future but fun and they watch this I'm sorry %HESITATION but then it you know and really only your identity was valuable I was eventually I would my identity in debate rounds and that allowed me to win the NDC
national championship thank you John crews and then also %HESITATION the project ended up getting submit and I got to meet the president at the time Obama trust the bush would have been is amenable to the project about how math and gay sex could change the world so the time came to focus on %HESITATION my next step where was I going to go to college after Bronx
science I changed my institute I changed institution which I was a part but I was tired I received an acceptance letter from George hunt university and it made perfect sense that I would go here it was in Washington DC which as a New Yorker is probably the only other acceptable city on the eastern cut on the web on the east coast %HESITATION it was purposeful foreign
service is perfect for my academic interests and my parents again we're here today are Irish and Sicilian so finally getting into a Catholic school with a huge victory unfortunately in two thousand and eleven when I was graduating two thousand and ten when you search in Georgetown LGBTQ community in Google this is what you saw story after story after story of hate crime after hate crime after
hate crime I while Georgetown was still recognized as one of the most accepting Jerry you Catholic or religiously affiliated institutions in the country we still had this huge prospect of violence to contain I remember telling my parents I really want to go to the school but I can't imagine dealing with violence again I can't imagine you know in high school I had people write back across
my locker I can't deal with that again I'm too tired and they said no this is who you are this is the stuff that you want to study and I realize they pointed out in their wisdom in their support of me that to not go to a school because I saw the threat of violence was to deny the first thing that I had learned that my
identity could not be hidden my debate coach that's me Thomas the work that you've done a Bronx science means that you can't turn your back on other places that you know how a history I knew the Georgetown had a very rich history LGBTQ activism I'm not hold on the second thing that I had learned in high school that you have to continue the work of history
but then also I thought about the third thing that if I have the capability to go to this school and to be a part of a you know part of a great history in part of great institutions like the band founded LGBTQ resource center then I had an obligation to those who would be even less likely to be comfortable but I would learn more about that
later I learned more about what those committees were later but after the lab I sort of knew what the community health impacts were of trying to assimilate into not who you were so I came to Georgetown and I learned first about how rich are history LGBTQ Agnes can see what's so on the left you see well let's start with on the