O&AN | July 2016

— — — JULY 2016

VOLUME 15 | ISSUE 7

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+ Orlando: In Memoriam + Franklin County GSA Receives Natl Recognition

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07.16

LETTER

“You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life.”

- Winston Churchill Our 9/11 has happened. The summer of 2016 will be remembered as a time to comfort, to bury our dead, to grieve...and then to fight. The blood of innocents has now been spilled in this chapter of the unending American culture war. Our very lives and freedom may depend upon total victory over the army of hate.

Let no one misunderstand: we are at war now and must adjust accordingly. This is for all the marbles. The decision heralded not the coming end of our private little war, but the end of the beginning.

The other side is hunkering down and entrenching their positions. We must prepare for our long hard slog to continue for many years to come. Times are good now, but anyone who remembers the transition from the Jimmy Carter presidency to the Reagan era will tell you...things can easily change for the worse... and fast. Our adversaries are just waiting their turn.

This bastard could have been anyone. Just like ISIS, the wider bigot army recruits anyone who shares their dark worldview. Our Muslim allies and family, and we do have both, have come out locally at least to denounce this killer and express support for all of us. I take that at face value and will not equate mainstream Islam with LGBTQ-aimed bigotry accordingly. I truly hope you will not either.

We took a major hit last month. Let us be brutally honest, LGBTQ America is viewed as a soft target for anyone wanting their 15 seconds, or 15 days, of coverage on CNN. We are proxies in a longterm culture war, and there will be times when we will collectively be targeted, and not just with words anymore. There is not too much we can do to prevent the next occasion when bigotry goes for the jugular.

Love will always win in the end, but we may

to the

EDITOR

have to dish out a tougher love to anyone who dares raise a hand...or firearm...against any of us. I certainly hope not and wish that nightmare scenario never comes. We are not frightened weaklings. We are all strong. Very strong. You have to be if you live in this part of America.

Down here, our backs are to the wall every day.

The Southern part of LGBTQ nation knows how to fight as a result, and they’re pretty darn good at it. I pity the fool who violently challenges the Southernraised members of our tribe... The result will not be pretty.

They cannot break us. We are far too strong. It is now time to double down our efforts for freedom. We have strong allies who openly support us. We now need those allies who support our cause from behind the curtains to finally show themselves. We need all our quiet cousins who discovered their unrequested blessings in high school and college to speak up now.

You do not have to be a card-carrying member of LBGTQ nation to back the cause. You do not have to like drag, disco or bars. You do not have to enjoy LBGTQ culture or progressive politics. You do not have to have a certain number of notches on your bedpost to soldier in this army. You just need to be willing to stand for something.

Now gird your armor. The last twelve months of intellectual combat with fools has made us stronger, not weaker. The massacre in Orlando will make us braver, not more fearful. We are strong. We are sisters and brothers. We are not afraid.

Julie Chase is the pen name for a local 40-something trans woman. A graduate of The University of the South at Sewanee, she loves butterflies, strong women and the Austrian School of Economics.

By Julie Chase

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JULY 2016

NASHVILLE GATHERS TOGETHER IN THE WAKE OF TRAGEDY

Photos: Jennifer Sheridan

In the immediate aftermath of the attack on Pulse Nightclub on the night of Saturday, June 11 (the early morning of June 12), 2016, communities across the country and around the world responded in shock and grief to the news of the deaths of forty-nine people at one of Orlando’s best known LGBT clubs.

Some responded, quite understandably, by seeking solitude to gather themselves, while others felt a compelling need to join together with their community to mourn and grieve, and yes gather and show strength publicly.

The Music City Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, in conjunction with OutCentral and other community organizations, organized a vigil at the local community center for 6 p.m. on June 12, while the Tennessee Equality Project and others organized a larger vigil at Public Square Park at 8 p.m. As these events came together, plans were made to organize a march from OutCentral to Public Square as a demonstration of solidarity.

The combined event was a show of the strength of Nashville’s LGBT community and the support it has in allies from all walks of life and the city’s leaders.

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STANDING WITH ORLANDO NASHVILLE LGBT COMMUNITY REACHES OUT

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donations as well.

Tribe and Play Nashville planned benefit shows for June 29, with an event at Play Louisville on June 30. These shows were fundraisers for the staff of Pulse, and Play flew in as much of the cast of Pulse as they could.

This list is certainly not an exhaustive list of efforts made by Nashvillians on behalf of Orlando victims, not even those made by the local LGBT groups, and the effort to assist the victims of this tragedy will no doubt continue into the near future.

The photos on this page were taken at vigils and demonstrations in Orlando.

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Photos: Brian Becnel

CODY TRACEY

LGBT communities around the world have mourned Orlando, but also gathered strength supporting those most deeply affected by the tragedy. The following is a partial list of efforts made

by Nashvillians on behalf of Orlando victims.

At Lipstick Lounge, the staff donated tips on June 14, with bar owners Christa Suppan and Jonda Valentine matching every dollar—including $500 from Irving Materials and Ben Slinkard’s donations from Family Feud.

Their Friday performers also donated all of their tips, as well! Ultimately, over $7,800 was raised Equality Florida this way. When R. S. Lipman—a local wine and spirits distributor—and Heroes Vodka learned of this, they generously matched $7,800!

East Side Propaganda, co-owned by Suppan, Valentine, and Lee Patterson, is selling a specially designed t-shirt titled ‘Enough,’ with 50% of the proceeds being donated, with a $1,000 donation guaranteed.

Canvas hosted Evan’s “Sing for Orlando” karaoke on June 16, with tips and donations being given to Orlando.

The bar also donated 10% of sales that night as well, bringing the total raised to $3,000.

On June 18, Stirrup and the Conductors hosted a beer bust: they raised $1,700 at the bar, with the Conductors donating an additional $300 to round it out to $2,000.

At the Love to Orlando vigil and at Pride Spirituality night, the Music City Sisters collected a little over $1,000, and QDP donated June 17 proceeds to the Sisters, providing $3,000 to the Orlando House.

Vibe and Blue Genes collected donations for the OneOrlando Fund.

Trax had planned an event for the week after Pride (details forthcoming) and many of their staff members were out at the Orlando Vigil helping the Sisters collect donations as well.

Tribe and Play Nashville planned a benefit showsfor June 29. This fundraiser was for the staff of Pulse, and Play flew in four cast members from Pulse.Many of their staff members were out at the Orlando Vigil helping the Sisters collect

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JULY 2016

BRANDON THOMAS SEEKS TO REPRESENT 49TH DISTRICT LGBT CANDIDATE HEADED TO THE GENERAL ELECTION JAMES GRADY

Brandon Thomas is currently a candidate for the Tennessee State House of Representatives’ 49th District. Thomas is also a member of the LGBT community, and has been an advocate for it since his time as a student at Smyrna High School. During his college career, he worked to make Middle Tennessee State University’s campus a more welcoming place for LGBT students, and he hopes to do the same as a state legislator.

Thomas, who is gay, has a history of advocacy for LGBT issues, but he also seeks to be an advocate for his whole community. Thomas has been an advocate for all of his neighbors, however. “I’ve been a very active advocate not only for LGBT issues but for every issue where people need a voice, need an ally… I’m for protecting religious freedom without fear—like supporting the mosque in Murfreesboro.

I’m a really big advocate for ensuring that everyone has affordable health care.”

Thomas doesn’t feel like his district has been well represented by the incumbent, whom he believes is beholden to special interests and listens to a small group in the district. “There’s a lot of diversity in our community that is not being represented,” he said. “a very select group of people have their voices heard, and I think that’s atrocious.”

According to Thomas, it’s this neglect of the diverse interests of the people, as well as the unproductive legislative sessions overly focused on distracting, hot-button issues that pushed him to run. “With all that time spent passing bad legislation, we still don’t have a solution to our traffic problem, for our healthcare system or our failing infrastructure, or for so many other chronic issues facing our state.”

Despite the conservative leanings of his district, Thomas thinks his

message has wide appeal. Thomas has been going door-to-door, making calls, and attending events to make his pitch for passing Insure Tennessee, increasing public funding for schools, working on infrastructure, and dealing with traffic.

“I really ask people,” he said, “whether spending all of our time and legislative attention on a hot-button issue is really making their lives better, is it putting more money in their pockets is it making their communities safer. We really need to pose that question to the voters.”

In order to succeed, however, Thomas is going to need the support of volunteers, donors, and voters, since he’ll be facing either an incumbent or a another well-funded Republican candidate in the general election. “I’ll need folks making phone calls for me,” he said. “I need people going door-todoor for me, because the challenge is that we have to just outsmart the other side’s money by just making a lot of personal, direct contact.”

The local Democratic Party is providing support for Thomas, and he hopes that his ties to MTSU will give him a pool of active volunteers for the general election, once students return for the fall. He also has a few events lined up to help gather support.

“On July 8th, we will be having a showcase at The Block in Murfreesboro.

We’re going to have a couple of bands performing there,” Thomas said. “We’re going to be having a dinner July 23rd at Breaking Bread in Smyrna. I’d love to organize an event, or a house party, in La Vergne. I feel like the city of La Vergne is overlooked every political season, but it has a lot to offer, a lot of opportunity and I want people there to really get to know me.”

For more information or to sign up to volunteer, visit votebrandonthomas.com or facebook. com/voteforbrandonthomas. @O U T A N D A B O U T N A S H

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GLSEN RESPECT AWARDS SHINE LIGHT ON TENNESSEE STRUGGLE FRANKLIN COUNTY GSA ACTIVISTS RECEIVE NATIONAL RECOGNITION JUSTIN SWEATMAN-WEAVER

Franklin County is a quiet place, with serene wilderness and traditional values: you’ve likely passed through it on your way to Chattanooga or Atlanta. Since the end of 2015, young lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students in Franklin County have been at the heart of controversy that has drawn attention, and inspired activism, from all over the world.

Just before the dawn of 2016, students at Franklin County High School were approved to start a Gay-Straight Alliance—a student-led club designed to provide a safe and supportive environment for LGBT youth in schools. Gay-Straight Alliances, or GSAs, empower LGBT students and engage the entire school community to create a more accepting and inclusive climate.

In Tennessee, there are approximately fifty GSAs currently registered and supported by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) of Middle Tennessee, a local chapter of a national organization that has championed LGBT issues in K-12 education since 1990.

Before the fledgling GSA in Franklin County even could call its first meeting in the new school year, a storm started to brew. At the February meeting of the Franklin County School Board, supporters and opponents of the GSA showed up en masse, provoked by social media activists calling for the elimination of the club. Over 300 people filled the auditorium of Franklin County High School, where the meeting had been moved due to the expected crowd.

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About two-thirds of those in attendance were filled with pride inside and out as they waved their rainbow flags and help up signs with messages of support. The other third held flags symbolizing Christendom—a field of white with a red cross inside a blue square in the upper left corner. Many hissed condemnations as children with vibrantly colored hair or gender expansive attire walked past.

Prior to the meeting, students and supporters of the GSA rallied outside the school. This was more than the first event planned for the GSA: it was the first LGBT pride event ever organized in Franklin County.

After hearing testimony, the eightperson board chose to speak generically of policies and practices pertaining to all school clubs rather than take a stand for their students. The fate of the Franklin County GSA was left hanging by the school board, but the storm continued to rage outside of the school and on social media.

On Facebook, a key GSA opponent called upon Franklin County citizens to “ban[d] together and stop this B.S.,” warning that, if the school board failed to act, the next logical step was for students at the school to establish “F.I.M.A. (Future ISIS Members of America).”

The same man later called in the cavalry for help with his crusade: “Its time to get to work, its going to take

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JULY 2016

all of us to stop this attack on our County!

We need to get everyone we know to email a member then copy all other members in the email... Then we need to get all our family members, Churches and people we work with to do the same thing.

I have a group called MassResistence that I am working with that fights against gay activists all over the US that is willing to help us...”

MassResistance, designated as an antigay hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, rallied alongside opposing community members at the second school board meeting. Attorneys from the Liberty Counsel, also a designated hate group, joined the fray and offered legal support if the school board chose to disband the GSA—a clear, established violation of students’ rights that would have immediately resulted in a lawsuit.

Supported by outside organizations more aligned with the values held by Klansmen than the best interest of children, outraged citizens and school board members in Franklin County railed against “seasoned leftist homosexual activists,” such as GLSEN and the ACLU, whom they felt were trying to interfere with their schools

and conspiring to convert their youth.

Though numbers of activists on both sides diminished for the second school board meeting, GSA supporters remained most vocal. Another rally was held where students shared their stories, local supporters praised their resilience, and a Franklin County alumna read encouraging messages that had come to the GSA from all over the world.

Again, the board focused not on the rights of students, but on the micromanagement of student organizations in general. And once again, they remained indecisive.

At the third and final meeting of the Franklin County Board of Education where the GSA would be discussed, supporters and opponents divided the room—now back to the original location of a much smaller cafeteria in a local middle school. After some discussion, the board voted 7-to-1 on regulations that would require students to have parental permission to participate in any school club and would limit faculty advisors to little more than monitors, unable to provide any programmatic support or guidance.

The new regulations weren’t necessarily a victory for the GSA, but they were certainly far from a defeat. It meant that many students at the school would still have access to the potentially life-saving club and its resources.

As Tennessee’s only GLSEN chapter, our leaders were present for all three school board meetings to provide whatever support possible to the students, faculty and supporters of the GSA. For many of us, it

when they were being threatened by parents and school board members. I was horrified to find such angry people - some I know personally - who are willing to dismiss these young people and deny them the opportunity to create their own safe space.

As I’ve gotten to know some of these students better, I’m amazed at how resilient they are.

They’ve exhibited heroic courage in the face of bullies, protesters, and a conservative school board. They are smarter and much more aware of their place in the world than I was at their age. I want them to know they can live with authenticity, dignity, joy, and purpose, and I will continue stand with them and future generations so they have what they need to flourish in school.

In a flash, life has come full circle for me.

I have a responsibility to give these students encouragement I wish I’d had. I’m thankful to be able to bring the research, tools, and positive influence of GLSEN home where they are so desperately needed.”

reminded us why we do this work—for the students.

Among the GLSEN contingency present for the first board meeting was chapter co-chair Del Ray Zimmerman. For Del Ray, whose own experiences of bullying and harassment brought him to join GLSEN, it was powerful moment.

“I originally hail from Franklin County,

where standing out or being different is not necessarily appreciated.

That’s why I was so proud when students at Franklin County High School founded a GSA. And that’s why I’m so proud GLSEN could support them in

Allie Faxon, a sophomore at Franklin County High School, emerged as a fearless voice for her fellow GSA members throughout the entire ordeal. Allie has become a close friend of GLSEN Middle Tennessee and has worked with the chapter on issues in and outside of Franklin County over the few months of the controversy.

Though she didn’t know it at the time, Allie’s voice would soon reach a new, incredible volume.

In the midst of the controversy, the Franklin County High School GSA had received multiple well-deserved nominations for the recognition of GLSEN’s GSA of the Year. The GSA was contacted

by GLSEN’s National Educator and Youth Programs Office and participated in several interviews to help narrow down the field of nominees.

In the end, though they did not receive the top award, they were featured on GLSEN’s GSA Honor Roll and were invited to New York for GLSEN’s Respect Awards, where they would share the story of their triumph and perseverance on stage in front of hundreds of advocates. Allie ventured to the city with her mother, sister, GSA vice president and faculty advisor Jennie Turrell, who since day one had risked her job to advocate for her students.

From a quiet classroom in Winchester, Tennessee, to a black-tie event in New York City, Allie reflected on the journey that she, her advisor, her GSA members, and their supporters shared.

“We quickly realized that this wasn’t just for us anymore. At some point we understood that we were now in the middle of something much larger than us, that the eyes of LGBT youth from all over the place were watching.

They were looking to us for courage, for inspiration, to blaze a trail and show that even in a tiny place like Franklin County, the voices and lives of LGBT students matter and that we cannot be silenced.

Standing on that stage, we knew we had been part of something that would change Franklin County forever and for the better. And now GLSEN had given us a platform to once again spread it further.

That makes it worth it. The tears. The namecalling. That uneasy feeling when you aren’t sure you’re safe no matter where you. All the challenges that our students had to endure in school and outside of school. They were all worth it if it meant that others students somewhere else could look to us and see that they could make it through the storm.”

Justin Sweatman-Weaver is Co-Chair of GLSEN Middle Tennessee. @O U T A N D A B O U T N A S H

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SINGING SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS AND LOVES LOST

One of my favorite songs Floyd has written is the title track on The Blade, the third studio album by Ashley Monroe, a member of Miranda Lambert’s girl group Pistol Annies. “The Blade,” cowritten by Floyd with Marc Beeson and Allen Shamblin, two of the most sought after writers in all of country music, is one of those songs you hear and relate to on such a deep, emotional level. If you’ve ever had a broken heart, you can hear this song and remember the pain and know you’re not alone.

Discussing that song’s origin, Floyd gave some insight into the writing process. “Allen had heard a preacher say in a sermon, ‘Sometimes you catch life by the handle, and sometimes you catch it by the blade, and it’s up to you how you deal with it.’ And so Allen says this, so initially we started off down the track where it was going to be kind of a life’s lesson type of song,” Floyd explained, “but it just wasn’t fitting right with all of us. So we kept going around and around for quite a few hours, and we started to explore what it would be like if we put the blade in the terms of relationships and in terms of love. When we did that, we found the concept of ‘you caught it by the handle and I caught it by the blade’ hook. Once that happened, the song took off.”

It took a second session to complete the song, but she said, “I just remember by the end of it, we knew that we had something very special. Not in the sense of patting ourselves on the back, but we were all just sitting there crying. It made us feel very close to the song. I felt personally, that this was my story, the best possible way I could tell it.

None of were even thinking about radio or it getting cut or anything. We were thinking about having just crafted this song that at least moved us if no one else. That’s why I write songs. Every now and then, you get to feel absolute magic go through the room. That’s what happened when we wrote ‘The Blade’.”

The passion that she feels about songwriting just poured out of her like a waterfall. “That’s the trick of song-writing,” she said. “Just trying to take your own personal heartache and experience and relating it to as many people as possible.”

This authenticity is the key to her music. Her new EP, Sunshine and Rainbows, deepens the theme of lost love with “The People You Knew” by exploring that loss not between lovers

A CONVERSATION WITH SINGER-SONGWRITER Jamie Floyd ERIC PATTON

Occasionally, I go see a show of an artist I don’t know and find something I like. Almost never do I see an artist I don’t know at all and leave with a better understanding of myself. Back in March, I had that experience at the Her HRC benefit show.

Jamie Floyd’s singing captivated everyone in the room. Where just seconds before had been a loud audience, the crowd fell silent, hanging on her every word. The songstress had spoken, and we needed to hear what was coming next. Those moments are so rare and precious.

Floyd’s credits include cuts on the TV show Nashville and the title track to Ashley Monroe’s Grammy-nominated album, The Blade. She has recently released an EP titled Sunshine and Rainbows. Its six tracks include songs about gambling, the devil, lost friends, lost loves, new love, and remembering that things aren’t always that easy.

Obviously, she fits well into the country music genre.

Floyd is the daughter of two classically trained musicians. “Dad is an incredible jazz guitarist. He’s written theory books, jazz theory, just a very serious musician,” she said. “Even though he’ll get on stage and play all the pop hits and things everyone knows, he’s one of the most gifted guitar players I’ve ever known. And my mom also grew up studying piano with some of the most incredible pianists out of New York, so both of them are really classically trained, very gifted musicians. But they get up on stage and they’re really great entertainers… So getting to grow up and watch them entertain was really a great learning process for me.”

Her parents made a successful career out of playing high society gigs in Floyds hometown West Palm Beach, Florida. “They’d play country clubs, peoples high end weddings, and they even used to be one of the bands Donald Trump would use for his Christmas parties, and his parties at his house in Palm Beach which I got to do with them sometimes.”

Shocked, I asked her if she’d met him. “I have, at his home back when no one thought he was ever going to run for President,” she said. “He was just a

socialite and a businessman back then, but yeah… At the time he was married to his first wife, I think Ivana? So we met them playing at their parties and just kind of being their band…”

Eventually she’d join her parents performing and make a name for herself.

“My parents were musicians,” she said, “so I ended up playing a lot of the clubs in Palm Beach and a lot of the country clubs, and shows that they would play which a lot of times were on the water and really picturesque types of places.

So that was always really fun to get to do.”

When asked about her other musical influences, Floyd explained, “Growing up, I was really inspired by what I called The Georges… George Strait, all of his records, starting in the 80’s... And then, at the same time, my dad being the jazz guitarist really exposed me to kind of R&B and jazz artists, especially George Benson.” Besides the Georges, she added, “Also, Trisha Yearwood and Bonnie Raitt are two others [who], growing up, I listened to all their music.

And even Mariah Carey, honestly the Daydream album. I used to sing along to her as best I could!”

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but between close friends. Co-written with the incomparable Lori McKenna, the lyrics touch a place in your soul and cuts even deeper than “The Blade”.

“I got to write this song with one of my heroes, Lori McKenna,” Floyd said.

“I have been aware of her brilliance for years. So I got the chance to finally write with her, and I had saved this idea for her…. I really wanted her to feel like it was worth writing with me. I really tried hard to bring a decent idea to her, and I already felt like I wasn’t worthy in general, but anyway, I brought her this idea of ‘people you knew.’ I told her kind of the concept, and she immediately brought it so down to earth, you know, in that special way that she does. She just came right out with the ‘laugh ‘til we cry on the back porch’ line. That’s her, that’s all her. So many of her fingerprints on that song.”

“But for me personally,” she explained, “that song doesn’t signify a romantic relationship in my life, it was about the loss of a friend who was close to me that isn’t anymore. Just how that happens and how that effects the rest of your life and how you never stop thinking about certain people and the impact they had on your life. So when we wrote it, we were just being as sincere as possible

and trying to be as true to the emotion of that line, ‘when the people you know, become the people you knew.’ I’ve had people come up to me and say that they can relate to it on a romantic level or about a friendship, so it’s one that’s gone across the boards for people….”

The music is so full of emotion, for Floyd, that singing it can be difficult. “At my EP release, I actually lost it on stage.

I started crying and I couldn’t finish the end of it. And I’ve sung that song for years … and I still get up on stage and can’t get through it every time. Even when we cut the EP, my producer fought for the best cut because I was crying my eyes out in the vocal booth. Like at one point, I just sat down and cried and he opened the door and was like, ‘This has never happened to me before. Are you ok?’ – I was not ok. I was definitely not ok. That’s how emotional it was to me. I couldn’t even record it without breaking down. But that’s how I knew it should be on there. Because if it’s that effective with me, then surely somebody out there is going to relate to it. At least I hoped.”

She was right. The night I saw Jamie for the first time she played this song: it’s the one that silenced a loud crowd at a sold out show at Third and Lindsley. Those around me, as well as

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Floyd’s thoughtfulness in her music translates well into her personal and professional life too. She has been a huge ally to the gay community. I first heard her play “The People You Knew” at the annual Her HRC benefit. Her passion for the community is genuine and rooted deep in her friendships.

“I’m so happy to be involved in helping HRC and the community” she said. “Although I’ve never faced the discrimination that people in the gay community have, I’ve been so close to so many of my dearest friends, like Wrabel—I’m so protective of them— and Shelly Fairchild... I love them so much that it hurts me on a deep personal level to think that any of their freedoms are at stake, so I’m happy to stand with you all. Any day!”

Floyd, who has been playing all around town this year, including sets during Tin Pan South and CMA Music Festival, dropped hints that she will have some huge news dropping later this season about an up and coming project.

Follow her on all the socials for the latest, and check out her EP Sunshine and Rainbows on iTunes to hold you over while you wait!

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JAMES GRADY

Rolling hills and green pastures are abundant in Tennessee and Kentucky, and even more so in horse country. With their rolling hills and picturesque fencing, stateof-the-art barns and stables, and lovely homesteads, modern horse farms exude a quiet, country confidence that almost immediately instills a sense of serenity that is hard to replicate in cities.

Perhaps that’s why it was best to meet Bret Shea on his home turf, so to speak. Bret, who is featured on our cover, currently lives and works on an operational horse farm and is an addict in recovery— well on his way, but still early enough in the process that the conversations we are about to have are difficult, maybe even a little dangerous.

Part of the way that Bret stays sober is avoiding situations that might lead him to dwell on thinking about or romanticizing his experiences as an addict. “If someone talks about using for more than wanting to know about sobriety,” he told me, “or seeming to need help, I try to distance myself.” On the other hand, he said,

18

knowing that he can help people is one way he keeps himself on the path to recovery.

It’s a path he knows you don’t reach the end of, you just have to embrace the ride.

Addiction is a deep and worsening problem for the LGBT community.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when compared to the general population LGBT people are more likely to: • Use alcohol and drugs, • Have higher rates of substance abuse, • Not withhold from alcohol and drug use, and • Continue heavy drinking into later life.

Addiction is so stigmatized that we often don’t hear from those suffering. I spoke with three individuals who agreed to share their stories publicly, as well as numerous others who preferred anonymity, with the hopes that their experiences would help others understand better what we face.

Bret was introduced to me via Addiction Campuses. Eric Ginsberg, who is currently O&AN’s director of marketing, sales, and events, graciously shared his story with me. And Amy Sulam, who

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JULY 2016

writes “Snarkology,” has been open about her struggle with addiction and offered some insight into her experience as well.

The Roots of Addiction

Many in the LGBT community internalize feelings of shame around sexuality that create or feed drives that aren’t always healthy. Shame about the body can develop, and the need to be validated or feel wanted can be overwhelming. And sometimes there is psychic or very physical pain that seems like it can’t be dealt with and needs to be silenced. The reality is that escaping all of these risk factors is extremely unlikely for any given LGBT person.

Unfortunately, it is an established fact that members of the LGBT community are more likely to experience familial rejection: fear of such rejection affected Eric deeply. “I started using when I was 14,” he said. “By that time I had figured out I was gay, and I was so worried about how my parents would react. I knew my parents loved me, and I needed to keep feeling that love. I started using because I wanted to get

rid of the fear and pain.”

Of course there was a lot more behind it than that. “A lot of it was escaping the reality of being gay,” he added. “As a kid I was always called sissy or queer, because I was effeminate… I hated that feeling, having the word faggot thrown at me.

To stop that feeling I used to the point of annihilation.”

Bret, like so many in the community, suffered from body image issues. “From the age of six to eighteen,” Bret said, “my dad always made statements about me being fat, about being overweight. In grade school and high school, it wasn’t any different. Kids are mean, and I didn’t have a whole lot of friends. I became this extreme introvert, and I stuck with my three friends throughout school.”

These issues directly compounded each other. When he “found” the LGBT community it was in bars. “I’d go there, but I never knew anybody, so I stood in the corner and never talked to anybody.”

This in turn made him feel undesirable, reinforcing the body image issues and making him more introverted.

Communal Roots

The LGBT community’s social structure contributes to our problematic relationship to drug and alcohol: historically LGBT bars and clubs have been one of the few “safe spaces” where we can openly express our sexual identities.

“I was 17 when I went to my first gay club,” Eric said. “I got snuck into The Connection. That was the coolest thing I’d ever felt, being surrounded by all these gay people. I’d never seen this many gay people in one place. The only gay people I ever met before then were online, and one friend in school.”

However, in the same place one finds others like themselves, one also finds a means of burying the pain. “So many of us are dealing with a lot of pain and shame,” Eric added, “and this gives us a way to escape both.”

For Bret, deeply withdrawn due to his body image issues, going to the one place he could be himself exacerbated his experience, unless he was drinking. “I would walk into a bar that [standoffish] kid and then three or four drinks later I was somebody completely different,” he said.

“I was Chicago Bret, not hometown Bret.”

This puts the LGBT person who struggles with addictive behaviors in a

tight spot. Because the LGBT bar is the primary place to socialize with others in the community, LGBT people may find themselves with a hard choice between community “safe space” to socialize and staying sober but keeping to avoiding the community’s main gathering place.

The Drowning of Sorrows

There are many other issues that could be pinpointed, but these sadly represent some of the most common. Not everyone who experiences such traumas, of course, will find their answer in addictive behaviors, but it is a common enough response.

For Brett, sex was an early retreat, and his relationship to sex showed addictive tendencies. But it wasn’t always that way.

“I didn’t do anything else until I was 18,” he said, “and when I first started dating, I was one of those people who thought that love was real, you know? I thought you went on a date and fell in love, and if you had sex that let you loved each other.”

“I was naïve,” Bret opined. “So when people would sleep with me I thought that meant we were in a relationship, and I got jaded because I got burned. I started doing what people were doing to me and sex became this emotionless thing, basically like a drug.” Bret used it to satisfy a deep seated need that it couldn’t satisfy.

When he was twenty-one, Bret added alcohol to the mix and things began spiraling even more quickly. “I turned twenty-one in Chicago. I lived in Boystown, and my 21st

birthday I had five Long Island iced tea pitchers. I blacked out, and loved it...” Thus commenced the drowning of his sorrows.

“I continued drinking, socially drinking, but it’s not really socially drinking when you’re just creating opportunities to do it more.”

Amy understood even when she began that she was self-medicating. “The first time I smoked I felt the kind of gone and had been dying to that feel since my attack,” she admitted. “People say it’s a warm blanket. I think that’s accurate. It feels like being in some sort of safe space that Alice would’ve found on the other side of the looking glass.”

Eric discovered alcohol in his midteens and went hard from the beginning, he admits, because making the feelings go away was paramount. “The first time I drank, I drank to get drunk and it continued from there. I always drank like an alcoholic and used drugs like an addict,” he said.

“I would get completely smashed and wake up with a horrible hangover and my thought was, ‘That was AWESOME. Wow, I escaped and got out of that feeling.’”

Free Falling

By the time he was nineteen, Eric had progressed to everyday use of that combination of choice. “Opiates and alcohol combined was just perfect… I really didn’t care, the place that I was in.

If I couldn’t find what I wanted, I’d sill use ANYTHING to get out of my frame of

mind, and it nearly killed me.”

For Amy, that security blanket quickly turned harsh. “As my addiction grew, it changed from a safe space to more the feeling that I was cuddling with the monster under the bed,” Amy explained. “I knew logically I should have a healthy fear but it hadn’t killed me yet…”

She feared the thought of facing the the underlying pain more than she feared the drug covering up the pain, however.

She just needed to bury it deeper. “The high from smoking led to snorting, and finally to the fateful night I ‘banged it out’ for the first time. I was in love. Shooting was the release I’d wanted. It was this ‘next-to-god’ high. I kept chasing a bigger high when I shot and was smoking for main range doping daily.”

Once Bret entered the bar scene, given his relationship to and use of often anonymous sex, it was almost inevitable that he would have found his way to meth.

“I got involved with the crowd that does party and play, PNP, whatever you want to call it… I was sexually promiscuous before, but it was like a nitrous boost for that.”

Once he moved to shooting up, everything escalated quickly. “I never wanted to smoke it again… When I started shooting, it went from occasionally to constantly… There were days when I would stay up for seven or eight days on end. At one point, I tore the skin off my cornea, because I thought my contacts were

“By that time I had figured out I was gay, and I was so worried about how my parents would react. I knew my parents loved me, and I needed to keep feeling that love. I started using because I wanted to get rid of the fear and pain.”

Photos: Amber Mohr

Another cause of pain that Bret was fleeing was the pain of sexual violation.

“When I was 17 … I was raped. I begged him to stop and cried, but he didn’t.

That was my first sexual experience.”

In addition to the primary trauma, this compounded Brett’s body image issues, and his “introversion.”

Amy shared a similar story. “I’m not an addict, I was raped,” she reflected. “Sounds weird but that’s how I think of it, anyway.

I went through something traumatic. I couldn’t cope. Smokable heroin was given to me and presented as something slightly stronger than weed or, ‘It’s like Xanax, really no big deal.’”

Many addicts who don’t have sexual trauma in the roots of their addiction will experience it as their addictions progress, adding to the well of pain that they are escaping. “I got into some very dangerous situations,” one young addict who preferred to remain anonymous admitted, “going on the net and meeting with people I didn’t know. A lot of crazy shit went on, but I knew how to get rid of that pain… There were two different rape situations that happened when I used online sex to strive to feel good about myself and feel loved.

I did things that normal people wouldn’t have done. Sex was a drug…. This entire time all I ever wanted to do was feel loved, and I didn’t.”

@O U T A N D A B O U T N A S H

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in and they weren’t. I put myself in horrible situations. I mean I used sex to get drugs, I stole from drug dealers which is not smart, especially in Chicago.”

Rock Bottom

Addiction escalates until you crash: some are able to walk away, one way or the other, and others aren’t. It’s often called hitting rock bottom. Sometimes it only takes once, and sometimes people get up only to find out there is still further to fall.

Eric was hospitalized a number of times, waking up to find out he had no idea what he had done or what had happened to him. He ended up in rehab a couple of times. But in the end it, what sent him there wasn’t his rock bottom.

“I had started stealing from my parents and I got kicked out,” Eric admitted. Eric bounced from a homeless shelter to a dealer’s house, where he had computer access. While there he got a message from a friend, Chris.

“He said he cared about me and was willing to help, but only if I was willing,” Eric said. “He brought me to his place, and I was trying to stay sober. Ultimately, we became a couple. About a year in, I was not going to meetings, I was still using. He was about to kick me out, and this was the man I loved, the first man I loved, and I was

about to lose the one thing I had been after all along. Someone who really loved me for me. I didn’t really grasp that until it was down to the finish line: I almost lost him, so I detoxed for my very last time.”

Bret too bounced a couple of times on his way down. The first time he really knew he had to get sober was when someone he was using with told him he had a problem and needed help. That prompted him to enter rehab for the first time, at Hazelden Betty Ford, known for its cognitive behavioral approach. “They do massage, you swim and focus on relaxation and meditation,” he said. “That may work for some people but it didn’t work for me” When he left rehab, Bret stayed sober for a few months and relapsed. After that, he said, “My mom gave me the ‘I’m not going to enable you anymore’ speech.

Later, after I didn’t call her on her birthday, she called me and she could hear in my voice that I was f***** up, and I could hear it break her heart… My mom that I’ve gone through a lot together, and that’s what kind of did it for me...”

Recovery

For those struggling with recovery, it’s not always a straight path, and it’s important for anyone who has stumbled to realize that. “Relapse is a part of a lot of

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people stories,” Eric said. “It doesn’t mean you’re less of a person or can’t get sober.

I had a lot of lessons to learn. There was a point where I wanted to be sober but still have the good feelings while sober, and I thought it wasn’t possible. My recovery showed me it is possible.”

Bret’s path was tangled with snares: After Bret returned home, a friend of his mother who worked for Addiction Campuses, helped him enter a different kind of therapeutic center, TurningPoint.

The focus of the program there was on developing skills for accepting and dealing with difficulties which might trigger negative responses.

“After Bret arrived at Addiction Campuses,” his therapist Luanne Gilbert said, “the first thing each morning, I was greeted at my office door by Bret with him telling me what someone did to make him mad. And each morning, I’d ask him what DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy) skills he was using to deal with his frustration.

After a week of our early morning chats, Bret said, ‘I guess I should use my skills.’”

While he did relapse once more after his treatment there, the center’s model worked much better for him. “It helped me accept the trauma I had in life, it helped me accept my body issues, and it helped get back to the roots of what was fueling the addiction. Obviously I didn’t take it all in, I relapsed, but when I went back I feel like it stuck better. I hope.”

“I can’t tell you how proud I am of this wonderful young man,” Gilbert said of Bret. “June 30 will be his one year sobriety anniversary. Bret’s story is one of radically accepting oneself, another DBT skill, and learning other skills to build a better life.”

Bret can see the change too. “I still get frustrated and still get angry, but instead of acting out I sit and think about it. I don’t burst out and explode or keep it all in. I handle my feeling. Before I’d let it build up to this point where I’d ask, ‘Do I want to kill myself, or do I want to get high?’”

Securing Recovery

Recovery from addiction not a state one achieves, it’s something one is always working on—and that’s true whether one is in a 12-step program or not. “Recovering from heroin,” Amy said, “is like breaking in a pair of heels, it’s uncomfortable and tolerably difficult. Then the next thing you know you’ve made it through a whole hour, then a day, then another one, then another.”

All of those I talked with agreed that, to endure and be successful in recovery, it has to be something the addict wants for themselves. Doing a program of recovery for someone else is precarious. But neither is it something one should go through

alone. “Recovery is not something most people can do alone. If it weren’t for the recovery movement,” Amy said, “I’d be dead. I know that. If I hadn’t been able to be public about being clean, I could’ve hidden and relapsed much more easily.”

Seeking help isn’t just wise when trying to get sober, it’s also necessary. For some addictions, even trying it on your own can be physically dangerous or fatal.

“There are two drugs you can die from withdrawals,” Eric explained, “alcohol and benzos. Heroine and things like that you certainly might feel like you’re dying, but you’re not.”

When Eric sobered up the last time, his now-fiance Chris saved his life, perhaps twice. “He was there while I was very sick, took my blood pressure, he watched me, in case I needed to go to the hospital.” After that, Eric “started going to support group: August 13, 2012 was my first day sober, and I started going to support group, started making friends that were sober who could help me stay sober by talking to me about

what they had been through.”

For Bret, seeking such help is one of those skills he’s learned, but he has to self-monitor closely. “Also if I find myself getting distant from wanting to going to meetings, I make myself, if I find myself getting spiritually unfit, I pray more, if I find myself not calling a sponsor, I make myself do it. I have a therapist now, I have a psychiatrist, I have people who hold me accountable. I have a home group. I make sure that these places keep me coming back.”

Being part of a community, not only seeking help but giving it, is important too.

“You need help, but that’s the last thing most addicts want,” Eric said. “But it’s what we need. It’s humbling. I’m almost four years sober, and there are people who help me and there are people I help. Part of me staying sober is through helping others stay sober. If I want to use, the first thing I do is look around at who needs help to get out of my own head—which is the worst place to be.”

“It just kinda clicked that I had built up all of this fear in my head for nothing.... I don’t want to sit in the passenger seat and let fear drive my life anymore...”

Leaving Fear Behind

Getting caught up in your head—for an addict or for anyone who struggles with anxiety and related issues—is almost always counterproductive. Problems are magnified and escape seems wiser. But escape—wasn’t that the problem? If we bury pains and fears and live around our problems rather than work through them, they put down roots.

There are, of course, things to be avoided, like triggers. Bret’s recovery involves staying away from those as much as possible. When, after leaving rehab for the last time, members of his sober house relapsed, Bret had to reach out for help. “The people who own the farm I live and work on gave me that, and I took the opportunity.

I’m forever indebted to them for that. I get drug tested once a week, I have a curfew, I get to go on family vacations with them, and I get to be involved with the horses and equine therapy in itself is amazing. It gives me a purpose to wake up in the morning.”

Bret admits to being deathly afraid of horses when he arrived, but a breakthrough with that fear taught him a larger lesson deeply related to his recover. “It just kinda clicked that I had built up all of this fear in my head for nothing…. I don’t want to sit in the passenger seat and let fear drive my life anymore… Had I never gotten over this fear of horses, I would have always been driven by the fear, and I never would have made this connection, and I never would have seen this spirit, this energy that they have.”

Drugs buried problems and entrenched them. Bret’s fears, and other problems weren’t dealt with, they were covered over.

So the fear not only remained, it built up.

And he couldn’t see the world for the dark spots.

“There is one horse in the barn,” Bret said. “Every time she looks at me she always puts her head down and nuzzles me.

What’s going through her head? It makes my problems seem smaller…because there is this giant, beautiful horse in front of me.

The world is amazing!”

For more information on addiction, reach out to one of the many support groups in Nashville. “There are gay support groups in Nashville and all over,” Eric said, “and they’re very helpful.” For information on rehab facilities, research online: there are LGBT-oriented rehab facilities, like Pride Institute, that are designed to serve the particular needs of LGBT clients.

For more information on Addiction Campuses, visit addictioncampuses. com. @O U T A N D A B O U T N A S H

21

COUNSELING, TREATMENT, AND PREVENTION OF ADDICTION RISK FACTORS IN THE LGBT COMMUNITY JOHNATHAN JOHNSON

It is a well-documented fact that the LGBT community struggles with addiction at a much higher rate than other populations. Studies report rates of 20-30% compared to 9% in the general population. This means, when compared to the average American walking around, members of the LGBT community are a 2 to 3 times more likely to struggle with substance abuse.

The LGBT community struggles up to 200% more with tobacco use. When it comes to alcohol, LGBT people have a rate of 25% compared to 5–10% in the general population. Men who have sex with men are 3.5 times more likely to use marijuana than those who do not have sex with other men. They are 12.5 times more likely to use amphetamines and 9.5 times more likely to use heroine. These numbers are overwhelming evidence that the LGBT community faces a huge crisis in the face of addiction and treatment needs.

Several factors contribute to the increased rates of use, abuse, and addiction among the LGBT community, and most of us do not need to be reminded of the reasons. We have all have struggled with the social factors contributing to these higher risks, but I would like to address some of them: Early Childhood Experiences— From early in our childhoods, many members of our community experience rejection by society, friends, and, most importantly, family. Rejection and lack of supports at an early age has a detrimental impact on coping and adapting to stressors, acquiring stability and achieving a healthy lifestyle. The LGBT community also faces higher rates for sexual abuse.

Need to Belong—Even the most accepted member of the community can recognize the early perceptions of “being different and not being like everyone else.” While this is not completely

22

unique to our community, it is extremely marginalizing and isolating. This isolation and marginalization pulls at our human need to be part of something and find our tribe. So to fit in and find others who accept us, we tend to turn to social lubricants like drugs and alcohol in higher rates.

Stress Management—Another social and internal stressor for the community stems from coming out and integrating our sexualities and gender identities. The anxieties of maintaining our secret of being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender contribute greatly to our need to find ways to cope. Drugs and alcohol provide this in an unhealthy, but functional, outlet.

Now that the problem has been clarified, let’s explore prevention and treatment. Prevention of substance abuse and addiction can come in the form of healthy choices, positive support systems, counseling and many other forms. Treatment, on the other hand, is more difficult and complex due to the nature of addiction and human behavior.

The LGBT community needs to have prevention and treatment specifically targeting the unique needs of the community. Research shows that, for the LGBT community, parental acceptance and support can often be a huge factor in the prevention of criminal behaviors, addictions, and contracting HIV. However, accepting a child’s desire to show a little flare, or dress/ behave in ways that are not in line with gender norms can be very difficult for some parents to manage.

It is generally my belief that parents (no matter how healthy or unhealthy they present) are doing the best they can in the moment. This does not excuse them from maltreatment, abuse, neglect, nor does it praise them for doing well either. It is simply to state the premise that they are doing the best they can in the moment. With that said, as adults, it

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JULY 2016

becomes our responsibility to manage ourselves and take the steps needed to heal, grow, improve, and own our problems, wounds, and lives.

With any luck, we have escaped childhood and adolescence without any serious wounds, traumatic events or harmful effects. However, I believe that this is not a very realistic expectation for most in the LGBT community. It is far more likely that many among our ranks have experienced traumatic events and internalized anxieties and negative thinking that significantly affect our behaviors and development.

These factors can lead to sexual addictions, in addition to substance use to numb our daily struggle with our past.

This is not to say that everyone in the community struggles with addictions.

The numbers show this is not the case.

However, how many of us arrive at adulthood with unhealthy thoughts, feelings, and behaviors?

Our need to be part of something and belong to a group of similar people, again, is a human need. In our community, we all start out isolated and wary of the world around us. When we begin to reach out, we often receive ridicule, punishment, and judgment, contributing more damage to who we are trying to become. Eventually, many of us find some method of making friends and begin creating our tribe to rely on.

If lucky, we find a great and supportive healthy group of friends.

Stress can be a common issue for anyone and is not unique to our community. However, we do have unique stressors that other communities do not have. In the LGBT community, stress can come from family, guilt, our workplace, our faith, our own behaviors, and fears and anxieties. Stress is a very common reason for seeking counseling and can be the beginning of a great exploration of our desire to achieve a healthy and happy life.

Now let’s turn to the concept of counseling and treatment. Some counselors, including myself, prefer to separate these two concepts. Treatment focuses

on

addressing

a

specific

psychiatric disorder or mental health condition, such as depression/anxiety, addiction, or traumatic experiences.

Many view cost as a barrier to treatment, but it typically leads to a diagnosis, allowing the client rely on insurance to help pay for treatment over a long period of time to resolve the underlying problems and hopefully to begin to manage symptoms and possibly eliminate them.

Alternatively, counseling focuses on exploring a client’s history, thinking and emotional processing, or behavioral expressions.

Common

reasons

for

seeking counseling include relationship issues, a desire to replace unhealthy behaviors, or needing to build skills for stress management. In the case of counseling, too, insurance can often offset costs, and there is less of a need to have a diagnosis in order to bill insurances. Frequently, counseling does lead to out of pocket payments and can range in price but can be affordable.

If someone is struggling with addiction or factors contributing to addiction such as depression/anxiety or trauma, treatment can begin very early and prevent the expense of hospital stays and lengthy treatment. Through early recognition and intervention, addiction can be prevented. Addiction responds best to treatment, however, when the person is ready to make the changes and address the causes. Treatment in the addictions community is quite readily available and ranges from support groups, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, or outpatient counseling to treatment centers across the country and inpatient hospitals.

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A B S T R A C T S • L A N D S C A P E S • C O M M I S S I O N E D P O RT R A I T S

THE CULTURE CLUB IS BACK ON TOUR

thought he was a really hot chick, ya know?” Moss asked. “Then they found out he was a man, the cat was out of the bag. How do you deal with that one?

Once they figured that out, it was like ‘O, shit!’ But it depends on the way you think of it. You know, with that, I think we really helped people who didn’t know how to express themselves, maybe. Whether or not it was sexuality, some people just wanted to dress up, ya know? People wanted to express themselves. Like even if they didn’t have the talent, musically or artistically.

I think Culture Club represented that,

JON MOSS ON GETTING BACK TOGETHER ERIC PATTON

The Culture Club, with Roy Hay on guitar and keyboards, Mikey Craig on bass, Jon Moss on drums, and the legend himself, Boy George, singing lead, owned the 80’s with mega hits like “Do You Really Want To Hurt Me” and, one of the biggest earworms of the decade, “Karma Chameleon”. Their biggest album, Colour by Numbers, went quadruple platinum here in the US. Now, The Culture Club will bring their first major tour in twelve years to Nashville on July 26 to perform with the world renowned Nashville Symphony.

Drummer—and former boyfriend of Boy George—Jon Moss the other day spoke to O&AN about the tour, and a little bit of his side of that love story that is so often left untold.

“George always has his various things going on, and we all have had other stuff, but we’ve always wanted to do this,” Moss said, explaining why the tour has taken so long to organize. “We all love doing the band. We get along ok, but when we get on stage, it’s the same as it ever was…. It’s got the magic that it’s always had. It’s weird, but it’s never worn off even after all these years, through all the ups and the downs, the arguments, the soap opera… So why wouldn’t we want to do it?”

Thinking of the seven years Moss spent romantically involved with Boy George, I asked him about whether there was some sort of rekindled romance between them that brought the band together again.

“You mean as a couple?

Romantically?” he asked. To my affirmative reply, he responded, “No, no, no…. Oh, no, no, no… I don’t think that was in the cards for either of us, actually. I mean, I get along with George alright, but I mean, we’re [older] now…

55. He’s got worse sets of problems now, really.”

When asked about whether their history made it hard for them to work together, he said, “I think what happened originally was there were lots of factors that led to the end of our relationship.

Main thing being George decided

heroine was a good career move. It wasn’t entirely that, but obviously it doesn’t help things. It was just one…”

“It’s fine,” Moss added. “We’re fine. George is fine. He hasn’t changed very much, really. So as long as you know that with him… I understand George well, and then I don’t understand him at all if that makes any sense. You know sometimes there’s tension and occasionally you avoid flashpoints.

I mean the thing about George is he’s always been quite acerbic and everything. He’s gotten a lot better: he’s a bit more human now than he used to be. But occasionally that cat comes out, Georgina comes out, and you just have to learn that he’s trying to get a rise, really.

George likes to push the buttons just to see what’ll happen occasionally. And ya know it doesn’t bother me anymore, I tell ya. I’ve had too many buttons pressed in my life. I haven’t got any left to push!

Well, that’s not true, I’ve got two left.

You don’t wanna go there.”

At that point in the interview, the moderator broke in and asked us to get back to the tour. Jon laughed and said, “Listen darling, this is Out and About Nashville! We’ve gotta talk about…” I confirmed we were the LGBT paper, and he said, “But I suppose she wants to talk about the tour, so I guess we’ll have to get on with it. Back to the tour, back to the tour. It’s great!”

With Pride month in mind, I asked Jon what he was most proud of when it came to culture club.

“I think the thing with Culture Club is that we have a much bigger effect than people realize. But it’s been sort of forgotten with all of George’s colorful career things, ya know. And I don’t mean the bad,” he said. “I don’t know if Culture Club played a part, as in the gay movement. I mean when we first came to America, you really couldn’t say anything then. I know some places are still like that. But on the whole, people see it as part of everyday life on the whole. I’m not going to say we were responsible for that, but I think, maybe in some way…”

“The interesting thing is, people originally thought George was a girl and

was considering any cancellations due to discriminatory laws against LGBT citizens.

Being from England, Moss was mostly unaware of the situation developing in America. “I have heard a little about it, but I don’t know,” he said.

“I know Bruce (Springsteen) cancelled a show, but we didn’t really get that sort of any big news story about it over here.

If Bruce [Springsteen] feels like that’s the right thing to do, that’s it. But I can’t comment on it at the moment because I really don’t know enough about it….

Are you asking me to cancel the show now?” We both laughed and he added, “Maybe once we’re there you can

“I THINK THE THING WITH CULTURE CLUB IS THAT WE HAVE A MUCH BIGGER EFFECT THAN PEOPLE REALIZE.”

which is where we set ourselves apart from with the music sometimes. I think that was very much our element, you know? It was the otherness; we represented the ‘others.’”

Given the the counseling bill that was passed in Tennessee and the wellreported loss of HRC’s Time To Thrive Conference, as well as the ACA’s annual convention and the Spiritual Life convention, I was interested in Moss’s take and whether Culture Club

introduce yourself and we can talk about it.”

Jon Moss and the rest of Culture Club, including his (very) ex-boyfriend Boy George will be performing at Schermerhorn Symphony Center on July 26 at 7:30 PM. Tickets, including VIP experiences, are available. There will also be a pre-party for an extra $50 that will benefit Nashville Cares and the Symphony’s Music Education Programs. @O U T A N D A B O U T N A S H

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BRINGING THE NEWS AND BEING A MIRROR OF SOCIETY

MELISSA ETHERIDGE KEEPS PUTTING A FACE ON LGBT STRUGGLES JAMES GRADY

Few musical artists have enjoyed a career like Melissa Etheridge, particularly as out and proud lesbians. On July 17, Etheridge will perform at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, where she will regale audiences with her classic hits, songs from her recent This Is M.E., and introduce some music from her forthcoming Memphis Rock & Soul. So, she promises, “We’re just going to have a good old Melissa Etheridge night at the Ryman.”

About Memphis Rock and Soul, Etheridge said, “I went to Memphis—as far as I’m concerned Memphis is the birthplace of rock and roll—and recorded and reimagined some Stax songs with so many of these musicians that are still around and

have been playing this music in Memphis.

I rewrote and rearranged the songs with utmost respect to the original versions and … I think the fans are just going to love it...”

I caught up with Etheridge shortly before Orlando changed the tone of a month dedicated to celebrating the LGBT community. Just a few days later, she announced she was releasing a song, “Pulse,” benefiting the victims of the shooting.

“I’m just doing what musicians have always done,” Etheridge told Billboard.

“We’ve always been the ones that bring the news to the town and we’re the mirrors of society. We give that song we can all sing when we all get together. That’s my job.”

And it’s a job Etheridge has been doing

“my best activism has come from just being willing to be out”

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superbly for many years.

She’s been “out” a lot longer than she’s been out, and that deeply impacted her.

“My first Pride experience was in 1984,” Etheridge recalled when we spoke. “I was living in Long Beach, and we went up to the Los Angeles Pride Festival—Christopher Street West, it was called at the time—and oh that was quite a moving experience!”

For Etheridge, no stranger to the LGBT scene, the experience was transformative.

“It’s one thing,” she explained, “to be in a club, a gay bar, with forty or fifty people maybe that were gay… But to be with thousands of people on Santa Monica Boulevard celebrating Pride, that was, that really stuck with me, and it really showed me how important it is to come out and be out in numbers and support. It was just wonderful!”

Etheridge finds it strange that her identity as a lesbian remained so below-theradar for so long because of how “out” she had been. “Oh, yeah, it was really funny,” she said, “because I was discovered in a lesbian bar…”

When she got signed, she wondered how the label would deal with her sexuality.

“When my first record came out,” she said, her record company had no plan for that.

“So it was kind of this ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ thing. I kept hoping someone would ask me so I could go, ‘Yeah.’ But nobody asked…”

Ultimately, Etheridge’s desire to be in solidarity with, and to support, those fighting for LGBT rights drove her to come out. “This was the AIDS crisis, this was the height of our organizing, and it was one of the first times that gay and lesbian organizations helped elect a president… and I thought, ‘This is ridiculous, I need to come out!’ You know, I needed to make a statement?”

So Etheridge made a plan to come out, but in the end a special moment sparked a spontaneous declaration. “I had a new album coming out at the end of 1993,” she explained. “My plan was to go on Arsenio Hall and come out, but I was invited to come to the Triangle Ball at the Clinton-Gore inauguration, and it just was a beautiful time, celebrating with our brothers and sisters. And so I sort of said, there, ‘Yeah, I’m gay,’ ... and there it was!”

That same year, Etheridge made headlines by boycotting Colorado over Amendment 2, which the New York Times described as voiding “existing civil rights

protections in jobs and housing for gay men and lesbians in Denver, Aspen and Boulder and will bar other localities from passing such ordinances.”

I asked Etheridge about her view on boycotts now, in light of the current boycotts by artists of states which have passed antiLGBT legislation. “Oh, I think it’s effective when businesses do, definitely,” she explained. “When a business says, ‘I’m not going to do business with this state because of its laws,’ that’s super effective. When a high profile celebrity or something does it, it can be good because it brings attention.”

However, her own experience with boycotts and activism have led her to a different conclusion. “As I look back over the thirty-some odd years I’ve been doing this now,” she said, “my best activism has come from just being willing to be out and speaking and being that person who will answer that question. My best activism is accomplished by being there and being the person they can say, ‘Well, she’s gay, and she’s not so bad.’ The last boycott I did was Colorado—that was it—the rest of them I like to show up. I don’t want to leave my brothers and sisters alone in North Carolina...”

“I made a choice,” she explained, “that the people who are coming to my show … are my brothers and sisters that are there in that state, doing the work. I’m going to go in there, I’m going to donate money to the equal rights organizations there—to NCEquality—and I’m going to support and give a voice to what’s going on, to show people what they can do.”

As to the backlash the LGBT community has seen over the previous year, Etheridge takes a largely optimistic view.

“It’s the last wailing, dying call of an old hate, of an old fear, that’s really trying to get legitimacy again but can’t in this day and age. You just can’t!”

“Our own fear of our own sexuality,” she said, “is just kind of embarrassing, I think, an American Puritan thing. Find me something that says that our Creator, who created us all, in some way hates something they created? It makes no sense! I think, as history has shown us, in moving forward of our humanity and embracing diversity, these sort of obstacles will come up. We will overcome them, and you’ll ask me in ten years, ‘Oh, remember when that was a big deal?’”

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27

CAN A PAGEANT QUEEN MAKE A DIFFERENCE?

AURORA SEXTON, 2016’S MISS GAY US of A, SAYS YES JAMES GRADY

As one of Play Dance Bar’s playmates, Aurora Sexton is one of Nashville’s most well-known drag performers. She’s been performing coast-to-coast for a decade, but most Nashville audiences know her for the dark comedy and elaborate costumes she brings to the stage, often pushing “the envelope of morality, decency and taste”— and that’s from Play’s own bio!

What many may not know is that she spent a lot of her early career competing in national pageants. “I used to do pageants a lot when I was in my early 20s,” Aurora said. “The pageant circuit was a great place to network, especially for entertainers in my position…” She has been Miss Renaissance, National Entertainer Of The Year, and a top 5 finalist at Miss Continental, among many others.

Recently, she took one more foray into

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the pageant world, and won big. Aurora has now been crowned 2016 Miss Gay USofA! “I got dragged kicking and screaming back into it,” she said, joking.

There are many pageants and pageant circuits, but the USofA Pageants are one of the oldest and most respected. “There are three or four large competitions,” Aurora explained, “and Miss Gay USofA has been in existence for 31 years! Back in the 80s it wouldn’t have been unheard of for them to have over 70 contestants. The last time it was in Nashville was when Diane Hutton won, I think….”

In order to compete in the national pageant, one has to qualify through a prelim. “I flew to Key West and won Miss Gay Southernmost of USofA,” Aurora said.

“During the four months that followed, I was traveling all over, getting fittings and meeting with dancers. I documented

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JULY 2016

the travel and the rehearsal all the way up to the pageant, and I am turning it into a documentary called Pageant Queen. It’s not just you it’s you and a team of fifty people.”

Aurora and her team seem to have done a fantastic job: she won every category in the competition and finished with a lead of over thirty points over the second place contestant. Now what?

“As I’ve gotten older,” Aurora said, “I’ve also gotten more politically sound and have wanted to get more involved in activist work, and being a titleholder gives me a vehicle for some of what I want to do.”

Among other things, Aurora has a project in mind that brings together a number of her skills and interests, particularly performing, telling stories, and using social media to get a message out. “I have this idea to do a social media

campaign I’m calling ‘On the Road with Miss Gay USofA’,”she explained.

In a way, the idea is similar to her documenting the road to the pageant. “As I’m traveling around the country for the prelims,” Aurora said, “while I’m there I want to highlight whatever is going on in the local community, whether it’s fighting homelessness or working on slowing the HIV epidemic. I want to use my platform to shine a light on local LGBT communities.”

She hopes that, by capitalizing on the prominence of her crown and using the social media skills she’s developed, she can help make a difference. “I want to tell stories that will be meaningful to our community. One of my biggest dreams was to be an actress, but I really think my calling is to be a storyteller, and I’m passionate about helping shape our story.”

Using the platform this way isn’t something she’s seen anyone else do.

“I’ve seen a lot of people in the pageant community support fundraising for organizations and causes, which is great,” she said. “But I think with these really underused tools of social media, we can

“I’VE ALSO GOTTEN MORE POLITICALLY SOUND AND HAVE WANTED TO GET MORE INVOLVED IN ACTIVIST WORK, AND BEING A TITLEHOLDER GIVES ME A VEHICLE FOR SOME OF WHAT I WANT TO DO.” really use the attention paid to titleholders to wield real change and bring more attention to our community.”

Since the attack on Pulse in Orlando, Aurora has been working both in Nashville and with friends in Orlando to help however she can. “I have a lot of friends there…

Todd and I and all of us were there ‘til 5am getting live updates, and I can’t even describe the feelings. Everyone I knew personally got out, but for days after I was watching my friends wail at the loss of so many of their friends.”

On Tuesday, Aurora traveled to Orlando with the support of Play and the USofA Pageants. “Everyone down there is broken… I had friends who lost up to twenty close friends, and people were going to 2-3 daily,” she said.

While in Orlando, Aurora participated in two benefit shows. “The line to get into the fundraiser at Southern Lights went on for blocks,” she said. That evening, the show raised $77,000, and the next evening the show at Parliament House raised an

additional $5,000.

“It was really amazing to see the community come together. I had no idea how to perform for that, but I decided to take Joan Rivers, because I figured people needed to laugh. There were other times during the evening when people were all in complete tears, so they needed to smile. I’ll never be the same after that night.”

“We really live in a bubble,” Aurora reflected upon her return from Orlando. So many of us who live and work in the gay community, we go to gay bars, we go on gay cruises, and so many of us don’t step outside of is. It’s too easy to forget how many in the world feel about us in the safety of these places. This really exposes us to how many people still feel about us.”

When she was in Orlando, Aurora said, people would come up to her for a hug in tears. “It wasn’t about me but about what I’m representing—it showed me a lot about what I can do with this… I hope I can work towards a lot of change while I have the crown.”

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SNARKOLOGY: FOOLED AROUND & FELL IN LOVE DISCLAIMER: Amy Sulam is a comic, and not everyone thinks she’s as funny as she does. We condone nothing she says, particularly not if you decide to take the following seriously. It should not be taken as such.

AMY SULAM | @Amysulam

I fooled around and fell in love ... and ended up in a foreign country.

That’s right for all my ‘bah humbugging’ about love and relationships, I’ve gone and done the most highly illogical thing I could think of—fallen into the pit myself. It’s gross, I know. I’m literally in the kind of situation where I’m thinking about a future and a family. I’m even thinking about marriage. Yes, me, and yes, you read that right.

I’ve realized, in all this happiness, that I may have some kind of weird relationship PTSD. Let me explain: the last two people I dated are best compared to angry potatoes because they had a habit of storming off (over nothing) and they had wobbly heads.

One was probably leading a double life.

The other one literally resembled a wobbly potato. Both would freak out over social media posts and PAST relationships. Never mind that wobbly potato extraordinaire (the one who went through my phone while I slept) was besties with someone they used to sleep with on a regular basis. The complete lack of adult-level emotional control is just astonishing. I realize that now, hindsight being 20/20 and all.

I also realize that these two emotionally crippled morons had left me so gun shy that I was blown away when someone wouldn’t just freak out and bail if there was a problem, someone who wanted to sit down and talk it out—you know, like an adult. We’re still learning to communicate, being that we basically speak different languages and come from VERY different cultures. Which brings me to … being in a foreign country.

Holy crap, do we come from different worlds! I’m definitely an interloper in a place I don’t belong. This became painfully clear just seeing how my partner interacts with their friends on the phone. I actually overheard a conversation between my partner and their mother where they were discussing cheese.

Cheese! Like the texture and flavor and it goes with stuff!

I realized that I have no idea how to white girl. I thought I could pass, but when you put me next to an actual upper-middle-class-raised

white chick, I become that “one friend.”

I recently met my partner’s friends at a gathering called a diaper party. Apparently this is a thing where you eat lake bugs (crawfish) and bring an expectant couple diapers. To paint you a full picture, these people (my partner included) were all part of the Greek system at UT Knoxville. What I thought was a cookout with diapers turned out to be a gingham nightmare.

There were no other black or brown people, no other non-Christians, and no other LGBT peeps. I was the “diversity” at this gathering, where I was also older than everyone by at least two years!

This party was taking place in someone’s front yard. I can’t stress that enough. They were playing things called “yard games.”

Apparently there is a version of corn hole not played on the patio at Trax, where you bean bags through a hole in a board (so, close, but not what I was envisioning).

So I’m there playing yard games in jeans and tank top, and I realize the other girls there are in dresses, pearls and heels. Are you fluffy kitten me?! I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized the Kentucky Derby was going to take place immediately following us drinking beer in someone’s front yard like rednecks…

A few of them talked to me, but most didn’t thank god! I have no idea what I’d even say. Maybe, “So yeah, I’m a recovered heroin addict, single mom, Jesus-killing, Arab gypsy who has prolly slept with more women than you. Nice backwards baseball cap!”

A lot of faking it later, I started to panic a little. Yeah, I could deal, but what happens when my partner is over whatever kind of phase dating someone like me is? I realized I was about to self-sabotage and find fault where there was none, rather than going with the flow and enjoying where this thing was.

My partner seemed to find the opinions of their friends, negative or positive, irrelevant to how they felt about me. I’m fairly certain this is due to the fact that we’re both intellectuals who enjoy discussing string theory over dinner, so our dating pool was already pretty dried out.

This is also good because, while our personalities could not be better matched,

from character and family values to intellect and dark humor, my partner and myself do not look like we go together at all. Literally, their parents said I don’t look like the type of person they’d date but that we’re a good match.

So strange as we look together, and great as the chemistry is, the true tale of the strength of a relationship is in how you communicate when you don’t agree. We had a pretty big argument over a friend of theirs who takes issue with my religious beliefs and thinks that they make me “not a person you’d want to spend your life with.” I’m quoting a text this dick sock sent my partner.

We had a disagreement about how my partner handled the issue, based in

immature. While those relationships left me with what I call dating PTSD, they taught me a lot. Like how to spot adult children. Just because someone has a job and pays their bills doesn’t mean they’re mature.

In a loving relationship, the things that make us different also make us great. We have a different life experiences, and we can learn from each other. I think that’s what relationships are really about: growth, and working towards a common goal.

“I realized that I have no idea how to white girl..” cultural differences, but we were able to talk through it.

In the end, my partner said, “In this equation, that friend is expendable: you’re not.” This blew my mind.

Rather than beating me over the head with how they thought they were right, they were more than prepared to step back, be objective and see the situation from my perspective. I was able to do the same, and we compromised. WTF?! This was supposed to be the point at which we broke up, right?!

It was pointed out to me by—of course—Sully that this what love is supposed to look like. The person in the relationship with you is supposed care about your happiness, fulfillment and stability. It should be a twoway street.

You can’t have that with wobbly potatoes: they are insecure and emotionally

So here I am, with a partnership with mutual respect, with a person who refuses to leave my side, wants to work through issues rather than yell or give me the silent treatment or play any other kind of little kid games. It’s like an official adult relationship. GROSS! I hate me too right now.

Also, if any of my readers can volunteer to give me lessons in how to white girl, that’d be super helpful! Just post them to my Facebook, DM my Instagram, or Tweet me. I need to be able to fake home training, and I’m counting on classy O&AN readers to help me perfect this charade before the holidays. @O U T A N D A B O U T N A S H

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A KIKI WITH PAIGE TURNER | @PaigeTurner01

Let’s have a kiki! This month is a special, as we talk to Obsinity. She is well known for her incredible impersonations of country superstar Reba Mcentire, and for always wearing incredible costumes guaranteed to leave the audience gaging. She is a former Miss Nashville Gay Pride, and now is actually the organizer for the pageant. This lady always stays busy, but even with all her success, she still remains very humble.

Time to sit back and get untucked, as we learn all the deets on Reba’s doppelganger.

How would you describe your childhood as a homosexual?

Childhood was kind of tough for me. I knew that was different from the other boys at an early age. I had a crush on this guy in second grade. I adored him! That is until someone dared him to lick the toilet seat and he did. Crush was over!

Not only did I always have a little bit of a feminine side, I was also kind of a husky kid. And I was very much a loner. I had friends but I would have a friend from this click, and a friend from this click, and so on. I never really felt like I fit in anywhere, and it depressed me. I was sad a lot as a kid.

I never felt unloved by my family, but in some ways I still felt separated. I knew I was gay, and I was so scared that I wouldn’t be accepted that I actually pushed them away for a few years.

Did you face a lot of hardships coming out?

My family was great about my coming out, but I still grew up in a religious family, and they often made negative remarks towards gay people. I think they were so great when I came out because they were like, “He finally figured it! We’ve always known.” It was more of a relief for them.

I’m a very lucky person and I have an amazing, loving, and accepting family. My mother is one of the best! She’s always

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there for me and supports me in everything I do. I’ve even gotten to perform with my mother. Obviously, we did The Judds!

What sparked your interest in drag?

Growing up, I would dress up in long t-shirts and put on a belt on and perform The Judd’s music for my family while they played cards. I loved entertaining, even then. I think it stems from that part of my childhood. It was almost like destiny!

I saw my first drag show at twenty and instantly fell in love with the art. I loved the illusion, the characters that each performer became. I mean, I had been doing that all my life, these people were doing it onstage and it looked a lot more fun that way!

How did you become a performer?

For years I only attended the drag shows. I got to know several of the entertainers and would often travel and go on road trips with them. I knew I wanted to do it, but I was terrified at the thought of being on a stage in front of total strangers. It wasn’t until I was dared to do drag for a friend’s birthday that I even attempted it. I called on a couple of friends to paint me, I borrowed a wig, bought a dress at TJ Maxx, and I was set. I hit the stage that first time, and I knew that’s where I belonged.

I was still hesitant, and it did take some coaching to get me to overcome my stage fright. I’m so glad that I overcame that fear, and even though I’m much more comfortable onstage now, I do still get a little stage fright from time to time, but I don’t let it stop me. I know that once the spotlight hits me, I’m home.

How did your family and friends feel about you becoming a drag queen?

My friends all knew how much I wanted to do it so they encouraged me. My family didn’t find out until I had been doing it for a few years, had won a few pageants, and was actually making money doing it. When I started drag I made a decision that I would

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keep it from my family as much as possible until I knew if it was something I was going to be serious about. My grandmother was the first to find out, and she thought I wanted to live as a woman. It took a lot of convincing for her to believe otherwise, especially after I got my ears pierced and my eyebrows were completely shaved off.

can affect their mood, bring a smile to their face. I’ve had people come up and tell me “I didn’t want to come out, but my friends made me. You made my night!” Things like that are what I find most rewarding: knowing you can bring a little bit of joy to someone’s life or even just a smile to their face.

Now they’re all supportive. I’ve had lots of my close family and extended family come to see my shows. They all love it! Once they see the art of the illusion, they’re addicted.

Not just me, but all the girls in the show!

What has been your biggest achievement as a drag performer?

Performing with my mother! A few years ago my mom and I were asked to host a monthly bingo game held as a fundraiser for Birmingham AIDS Outreach. It was the Mother’s Day edition, and my mom was already well known in the Birmingham community, as she came to my shows and Gay Pride events with me.

Who is your biggest inspiration as far as your drag career?

Definitely my drag mother, The Goddess Raven. She was the definition of a showgirl: Big feather costumes, head pieces and back pieces galore!

My first drag show ever, she walked out dressed as Wonder Woman, then later came out and set the stage on fire. I was hooked!

I didn’t miss a show for almost two years.

What is the most rewarding aspect of being a performer?

For me, it’s the audience. I love watching people’s faces from the stage. It’s so much fun when they’re into and singing along and dancing. And just knowing that you

I asked my mom if she would want to do a duet for the event and she said yes. We did a medley of The Judd’s greatest hits. Halfway through our performance, I looked into her face and realized not a lot of entertainers get these kinds of experiences and this was something I needed to cherish. I thought to myself, “Never forget this moment. Never forget her face right now.” It was truly magical for me.

After that she developed a fan base and they gave her a stage name, momSINity.

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THIS TRANSGENDER LIFE Photos: Julius Greene

HOLLING SMITH-BORNE: ‘FACING THE MUSIC’

BOBBI WILLIAMS

Holling Smith-Borne’s life is music to our ears. He has been the director of the Anne Potter Wilson Music Library at Vanderbilt University since 2006.

Before that, he was the coordinator of the music library at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana, and prior to that, the music and fine arts librarian at Butler University in Indianapolis. And if you have attended performances by many of the musical groups in Nashville, you have probably seen him at the piano, accompanying vocalists, or conducting the choir.

But music hasn’t always been the most transformative thing in his life.

“Clothes were the big issue,” he said.

Early in life he rebelled against the ‘girly’ outfits his parents insisted on. And, when his interest in music developed, it became even more of an issue. “Just go to an orchestra concert, a choir performance, or even that of a soloist. The dress codes are very strict. Men wear tie and jacket or a tux and women wear below-the-knee length dresses or skirts, nearly always in black.”

The irony of it is that his parents were “old school” and subscribed to the tradition that said young girls had

to learn the piano. That opened a door they hadn’t anticipated, and during in his Senior year of high school Holling’s choir director took him to an audition at Bowling Green State University in Ohio (about 150 miles away from his home near Canton). That was the beginning of the end of the ‘girly garb’ for him.

Sadly, his strict family had rejected him because of his identification, first as a lesbian, and later as transgender.

Fortunately, the academic world has traditionally provided something of a haven for LGBT students. For Holling, going off to college was like becoming part of a new family, even though the music department maintained the strict gender standards he despised.

It wasn’t all that smooth though. At one point, the library’s director called him into his office and told him, “There are rumors…and I want you to make them stop.” But the director didn’t know the depth of Holling’s feelings. And he also didn’t know that a gay man in the music department would go to bat for Holling and make sure gender Identity was part of the school’s anti-discrimination policy. So when at last Holling took the steps necessary to transition and begin life recognized as the man he is, he was totally accepted.

After graduating from Bowling Green with a Bachelor of Music in piano performance, he went to the University of Michigan (another academic refuge) where he got a Masters in Music Information and Library Studies (M.I.L.S.) with a specialization in music librarianship.

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JULY 2016

Perhaps more than the music, though, Holling wanted a family. So it was his good fortune when, as piano accompanist for the Indianapolis Women’s Chorus, he met the woman who would become his wife. Together they became parents to their son, who is now 14 years old and in demand as a violinist and sometimes fiddler here in Nashville.

In the meantime, Holling has been active in the Music Library Association and recently completed a term as Member-At-Large on the Board of Directors and Chair of the Education Committee. He is also active in the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) Users Group, where he recently served as the Treasurer, and is part of the Southeast Chapter of the Music Library Association.

A life of music is what it has been for Holling, and it continues to be. And Nashville is an ideal place for a person with Holling’s eclectic tastes. When I met with him he had just come from the Nashville Irish Festival, where his son played the fiddle with an Irish music group, and Holling confessed to me that when he isn’t attending concerts or being part of them, his favorite group is the Time Jumpers.

How fitting is that?

“THERE ARE RUMORS...

AND I WANT YOU TO MAKE THEM STOP.”

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