OISTL Winter 2020

WINTER 2020 I VOLUME 3 I ISSUE 2

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KICKING ROCKS WITH JOSS | MOVING PAST TRAUMA | PASTOR TORI JAMESON IN THE STREETS

dating in st. louis

A magazine exploring and celebrating the LGBTQ community in St. Louis Publisher Chris Keating Editor in Chief Chris Andoe

THEO WELLING

E D I T O R I A L Associate Editor Melissa Meinzer Director of Social Media Elizabeth Van Winkle Contributing Writers Joss Barton, Patrick Collins, Sage Freeman, Joshua Phelps Editor at Large Doyle Murphy

A R T Art Director Evan Sult Contributing Photographers Theo Welling, Monica Mileur, Ronald Wagner

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Founded in 2017

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR:

CHRIS ANDOE

W

hen we rang in the year 2000, it wasn’t about a new year or even a new decade. We were celebrating a new millennium (setting aside the boring technicality that the millennium actually began in 2001). Prior to that, it felt like each decade was distinctive from the last. Visuals come to mind when someone mentions the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s. But while many changes and monumental cultural shifts have certainly occurred over the past twenty years, they somehow don’t feel decade specific. Rather, it’s as if the past twenty years were measured by presidential administrations instead of tidy ten-year boxes, or perhaps were all part of one supersized decade.

But now that’s over, and we find ourselves looking into the ’20s, and it feels fresh and new. And what better year than 2020 to put your life into focus? In this issue we look at “living your best life” from many different angles. Joshua Phelps interviews therapist Jason Eccker about the cutting-edge ways in which he’s helping people move past the trauma that’s holding them back. I talk to our cover models Kevin Hayes, Jr. and Mike Lehmkuhle about their story of dating in the age of hookups. (Special thanks to Gallery 720 at the Laclede Tower for letting us shoot our cover in the highest residential penthouse in St. Louis.) Melissa Meinzer features the inspiring and revolutionary pastor Tori Jameson, who specializes in caring for the trans and kink communities. Patrick Collins interviews entrepreneur Chef Curtis McCann about his booming catering business and the ways he gives back, and then Joss Barton turns the entire “best life” premise on its head like only she could.

Letting go, saying yes, taking the leap, helping others or giving ’em hell. Whatever your strategy, we’re rooting for the best you in the ’20s.

Out in STL is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies of the current issue may be purchased for $1.00 plus postage, payable in advance at the Out in STL office. Out in STL may be distributed only by Out in STL authorized distributors. No person may, without prior written permission of Out in STL, take more than one copy of each Out in STL weekly issue.

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Chris Andoe Editor in chief COVER PHOTO OF KEVIN HAYES, JR. & MIKE LEHMKUHLE BY THEO WELLING

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feature

carrying a community THE JOURNEY OF PASTOR TORI JAMESON

BY M EL ISSA MEINZER

P

astor Tori Jameson’s life had long been trending toward their unique place as a pastoral care provider for the queer and kink communities. But it was physically carrying a dead woman’s children during a march in her memory that brought Jameson’s life’s mission into sharp focus.

Jameson was serving at the church that did the burial for Kiwi Herring, the 30-year-old transgender mother of three who was shot in St. Louis by police responding to a dispute between Herring and a neighbor in 2017.

“Doing that level of visceral, interpersonal work changed my life,” they say. “All these statistics about the number of trans women killed — it’s always felt like numbers,” Jameson says. “Now, one of the numbers belongs to us. I’ve carried her children. It changed my perspective. I wanted to do everything in my power to create community, and also to fight like hell to keep these people alive.”

Jameson became a pastor in 2015, eventually creating Lot’s Wife Trans & Queer Chaplaincy, a sort of circuit-riding pastoral care organization not linked to a specific church. The organization is headquartered at Metro Trans Umbrella Group, and Jameson also works with MTUG on several initiatives.

Jameson now serves people who, like them, felt forced out of their spiritual or religious homes because of their identities but still longed for holy connection and guidance.

“I have the joy and honor to care for our transgender, gender non-binary community members,” they say. They also emphasize their care of the kink community, whose unique family configurations might not go over well in traditional houses of worship. “What that looks like is about seven

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thousand different things.”

That’s not exactly a pat job description, and Jameson says there’s no such thing as a typical day. They might be sitting in a hospital with a trans-expansive human while wearing a clergy collar and correcting medical staff’s use of pronouns as many times as it takes. They might be performing meaning-making rituals, like true-name baptisms.

Lately they’re working on hosting end-of-life workshops, ensuring that peoples’ last wishes are codified (and notarized, by the multi-qualified notary Jameson) to prevent the nightmare of non-affirming and shaming memorial services. Another current project is an e-book called “Once Straight,” con“I’m visibly queer, I’m visibly sisting of responses to claims non-gender... I need to serve in by the “Once Gay” converthe fullness of all I have to offer,” sion therapy ministry prosays pastor Tori Jameson. gram by homophobic megaRONALD WAGNER church Bethel Church.

While they’ve been moved by and connected to a higher power since childhood, the 34-year-old Jameson has plenty of critiques for churches — even ones that aren’t openly cruel and hostile.

“Churches are these big stone institutions,” they say. “They move about as slow as stone moves. These institutions have FA L L 2 0 1 8

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not served well our particularly marginalized folks.”

Jameson cuts a rather dashing figure entering MoKaBe’s on one of those autumn afternoons that’s so gorgeous we all decide to forgive St. Louis for summer and winter. They’re tall and open-faced, with a braid casually woven into short light hair and a NASA shirt under a cardigan.

They texted to say they were going to be maybe five or ten minutes late because they’d been talking to a caller during their shift at the SQSH, a free, confidential queer support helpline. About six minutes later they roll into the coffee shop, taking a moment to greet proprietor and St. Louis queer legend Mo Costello. They light up with nerdy charm describing the “Bat Them” costume they’re working on for the upcoming Halloween weekend—a non-binary update on the moody superhero.

Jameson has been knocked down and kicked out of places where they went seeking sanctuary, finding cruelty rather than spiritual nurturing. Instead of becoming bitter, though, Jameson has chosen to find their own way and provide the care from which they would have benefited.

Their first faith experience was with Catholicism.

“Growing up, I always had a connection to something bigger than myself,” they say. “I knew it through the language of stained glass and incense.”

But serving as an altar person as a gangly kid, they took a tumble during service one Sunday—embarrassing, sure, but they were hardly the first kid to do so. Bu the priest, rather than encourage the eager young Catholic, suggested that they and their family find a new church, Jameson says.

Fast forward a few years, and Jameson joined what they describe as a cult, with views they describe as “to the right of the Duggars,” referencing the troubled reality TV family with nineteen kids in hilarious hairstyles and modest frumpy outfits.

“I joined because I needed stability and because I come from a chaotic family,” Jameson says. “‘Join us and you can have stability, marriage and family, a great life,’” they say the church said. “I with all my gusto dove into it.”

At the time, Jameson was not living in their truth as a non-binary queer person, instead going through life in the apparently heterosexual female packaging they’d been born with. Right out of college, they married a man from the church who died by suicide 22 months into the marriage.

The church, Jameson says, blamed them for their husband’s death, and cast them out.

“If I were my pastoral care provider, I would have expected me to lose my faith,” says Jameson.

But they didn’t.

They joined a highly conservative Southern Baptist church that felt incredibly liberal in comparison, given that some of the women occasionally wore pants and people read books other than the Bible. In that church at least, pastoral leadership quickly saw Jameson’s natural charisma as leadership potential, and recommended seminary.

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They attended a single semester of seminary in North Carolina during the lead-up to voting on Amendment 1, the last state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Most of the campus had a rather predictable and particular view in support of the amendment, but Jameson didn’t share it. At the time, it wasn’t necessarily queer solidarity motivating their choice, since they weren’t yet identifying as queer.

“I knew Jesus was consistently on the side of people being denied their rights,” Jameson says. “I have to imagine Jesus is on the side of people who are about to be governmentally marginalized, so I was against Amendment 1. I was the only one on my campus. It did not make me popular.”

Another moment at the seminary made it clear the education they were receiving wasn’t a good fit. The tiny population of female seminarians was gathered together and addressed by a higher-up in the administration.

“Congratulations on pursuing your call as pastor’s … wives,” Jameson says he told the group.

“If I wanna wife up, there’s easier ways to do this — why am I studying master’s level biblical Greek?” Jameson says today.

So they found a new seminary, Andover Newton Theological School in Boston. There, the community was drastically different and skewed heavily queer. Their final year in seminary was 2014, the year a white Ferguson cop fatally shot unarmed black teenager Michael Brown, a galvanizing time for people across the country.

“We shut down highways in Boston,” Jameson says. “I spent night after formative night being out in the streets.”

Jameson is careful not to compare their experience in that city with the way things went for protesters here in St. Louis.

“After 45 minutes they politely told us to move,” they say.

“It wasn’t tanks rolling down the street. But I saw how important organizing was.”

After seminary, they moved around the country working with homeless and poor people. They were living in Tulsa in 2016 when a murderous bigot executed 49 people inside Pulse, a queer Orlando nightclub. The aftermath of the massacre led them to come out.

“When I came out in Tulsa, literally zero people were surprised,” Jameson deadpans. “Everyone just assumed!”

They had been asked to be part of an interfaith memorial service for the victims during their coming-out process.

“I watched a thousand queer people packed in this tiny bar cry,” they say. “I wanted to cry with everyone because they were my people. I came out right then so I could mourn. I was spending so much time counseling people about living authentically, but I wasn’t doing it.”

For years, Shelley Tibbs-Moore’s version of authentic living has included the care and friendship of Jameson. Tibbs-Moore met them at her church and was impressed by Jameson’s youthful, vibrant openness. Tibbs-Moore says she felt immediately that she could talk to Jameson and be close to them.

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Jameson re-baptized Tibbs-Moore in her true name after her transition. Later, they sat with Tibbs-Moore through the recent death of her wife, Christine.

“I met my wife in 1960 when we started first grade, 59 years ago,” says Tibbs-Moore, 65. “We grew up going to school together. Once I got into high school, she became my steady date. One of my favorite pictures of her is me and her at our junior prom.”

After high school, Tibbs-Moore served three tours in Vietnam, and returned to marry her sweetheart. Tibbs-Moore was raised with very traditional values, and the couple never even slept together until they were married.

“Well into our marriage, I came out. I had cross-dressed around the house with her since about 1982,” says TibbsMoore. “She didn’t count that as a big deal. But in 2010 I came out and told her flat out who I was, what I was. We had a rough spell for a while—it’s a lot to handle.”

Friends came by to see if Christine needed help moving out, given the news.

“She made me so proud,” says Tibbs-Moore. “She said ‘I married a person, I didn’t marry a body.’”

Tibbs-Moore and her wife stayed together until death parted them this spring.

“The last words she said to me was ‘my Shelley.’ It wasn’t ‘my Mike,’” says Tibbs-Moore.

Christine had gone into the hospital for what Tibbs-Moore expected to be a routine ailment, and her health rapidly deteriorated. Once it became clear that the situation was anything but routine, Tibbs-Moore called her friend, Pastor Tori.

“Tori stayed with me the whole night,” says Tibbs-Moore.

“Next day, we gave her last rites. Tori stayed with me the whole time we went through the hospital experience.” Jameson, says Tibbs-Moore, was a great comfort to her.

Pastoral care and providing last rites were important, but they weren’t the main thing Tibbs-Moore was looking for in the moment.

“In all honesty, I was probably looking for my friend Tori more than anything,” says Tibbs-Moore. “I needed someone with me to carry the load.”

And it was a heavy load—Tibbs-Moore had wrenching decisions to make at the hospital.

“The day came, I had to tell them to unplug all the life support,” says Tibbs-Moore. “It’s a real tough call to make, one I wouldn’t wish on anybody if I had a choice. When you’re losing a spouse of 45 years, it’s a lot harder to do. I needed someone to talk to, someone to share with, someone to tell me that the decisions I’m making are necessary, they’re right.”

Tibbs-Moore is still grieving, but she’s also continuing her life. She’s preparing to undergo training in lay ministry, which may be her biggest challenge yet.

Recently, Tibbs-Moore and Jameson spent hours in the Transgender Memorial Garden, “just talking about issues that were on my mind,” she says. “They were kind of respon-

sible for where I’m at right now. Knowing that I’m called to do something is one thing. Being brave enough to step up and say, ‘this is what I’m called to do,’ is something else.”

Through all her years of life, changes, and ups and downs, Tibbs-Moore has relied on faith, though it’s had to adapt to hostility from clergy and others.

“My faith is very important to me,” she says. “I didn’t have a lot of congregational care-type things in my life. I can go out under any tree, drop my feet in the creek and have my church there. I came to understand the need for congregational care for other purposes.”

And now, she’s preparing to learn to provide pastoral care herself, and to lead and serve others in the name of her faith.

“The transgender community is the most marginalized of any community,” she says. “It’s the most despised of any community. My big goal is just, even if it’s only one person at a time, to educate the world on who we are. We’re not a threat. We’re just like you—we want to live our own life.

That’s where my ministry will take me—ways to overcome the hate, the distrust, the dislike, and just be people.”

Amiyah Cole, 28, is a new staffer at MTUG. She helps trans folks find resources like food and hygiene products. She’s also happy to provide a listening ear when she can. Her faith, she says, is the rock of her life. And she’s also been hurt by traditional religious institutions.

“Me, right now, as a person, I get told all the time by Christians, ‘Well, because you’re trans, you’re going to hell. You becoming a woman is not how God made you.’ I am an African American transgender woman, and I just want other people to know that you can still believe.”

Cole comes from a family of Pentecostals and has been told by her parents that her life is not godly. She studied for a few years at St. Louis Christian College, but left after being told by the administration that only “thugs” were out in the streets protesting the death of Michael Brown.

“When they said that, I felt disrespected for being black,” she says. “I just told them, ‘Well, I’m sorry, I can no longer be a student at this school.’”

So she’s had to find her own way, but her faith hasn’t wavered. Connecting with Tori Jameson through MTUG has been affirming and helpful—and felt at first like just a friendship, rather than a theological connection. But their bond grew and deepened in their discussions of their shared faith.

“The first time I met Tori, I did not know that they were a chaplain at first,” says Cole. “We connected and we have talked about our faith. I told them that it was always my prayer to help other people in the same situation that I’m in, because that’s the type of person I grew up to be.”

Cole says that the experience for queer folks of being hurt by the church is almost universal.

“So many people within the LGBTQ community have been hurt by the church that they are now becoming atheist,”

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she says. “They are like, ‘If God was real, how would God allow this person to treat me like this?’”

But Cole says she’s blessed and brings blessings into the lives of others—and that’s godly stuff.

“God still loves me for me,” she says. “God does not judge his children. For me as an individual, my faith is my foundation.”

A major connection point Cole found with Jameson, Cole says, is the idea that affirming faith communities need to be maximally visible, so that they can reach people who may have stopped looking for them but still want to find them.

“Any church that identifies as inclusive, any chaplain or pastor or whatever, should step out into the community and make their presence known,” says Cole. Quiet affirmation will not do.

“We just talked about our connections, talking and elaborating on how the inclusive churches within our communities need to do more to let gays who have been hurt by the church know they are here, and within our communities, so that they could reconnect. Help them rebuild their faith without forcing it. Pray with them and let their faith do the rest of the work.”

Tori Jameson sees their work as the ultimate service to a beautiful, vibrant and challenged community—their community, where they love and are loved, and live as their truest, most authentic self.

“The queerer you got, the less likely you could find a spiritual community,” they say. “Polyamory is kind of a norm in

our community. Our kink and leather communities also need spiritual support and can’t exist as their full selves.”

Their upbringing emphasized community, and their spiritual education led to a calling in a “mystical, pastor-y way” to serve their own community. Sometimes that service is explicitly spiritual or religious, but not always.

“It’s important for me to be able to say you can be a person of faith and care for our trans or kinky community,” they say.

“I am, as far as I know, doing a unique thing in the world.”

The concept of “possibility models” is key to Jameson’s work. For them to wear the pastoral collar to events serves as a possibility model: “I’m visibly queer, I’m visibly non-binary.

I need people to know there is spiritual support for trans people. I need to serve in the fullness of all I have to offer.”

Tibbs-Moore is a possibility model, too, Jameson says. She gets to share the wisdom of her grief with the community as they wrap around her. She gets to show them life after loss as a full and seen version of herself.

“You are an example of what it means to be old and trans,” Jameson says of Tibbs-Moore. “You’re going to be old and trans and die from something other than your trans-ness.”

For Jameson, yes, Christianity is their foundation. But don’t expect them to start yelling about Jesus if the situation doesn’t call for it. Jameson’s mission in their community is about faith, but it’s also about affirmation, love and support—things some old-timey Jewish carpenter was actually pretty big on.

Here are the dimensions: Live Area: 4.5x7.5” Trim: 5x8”

Full Bleed: 6x9”

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FLavors

he can really cook BRINGING RECIPES TO LIFE IS A FAMILY TRADITION FOR CURTIS McCANN

BY PAT RIC K C OLLINS

I

t doesn’t take long for a conversation with Curtis McCann to become a conversation about entrepreneurship. Striking out on his own was an important step for McCann, 27, who launched Catering by Curtis LLC a little more than a year ago. But it’s also a big part of how he helps others.

He defines the term in a way that’s deceptively simple. “An entrepreneur is a person who has great faith in something, hopes it will work out and has the courage to keep trying,” he says. “It’s saying, ‘I have a great skill set. I’ve applied it to corporate settings, and now I’m going to apply it to my own thing.’”

McCann says the roots of his work can be traced to his childhood in north St. Louis County, where he was part of a large family with unapologetically southern sensibilities.

“I was a greedy kid,” he says. “I was always super hungry.

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When other kids were outside playing, Curtis McCann was I would sneak into the kitchen and determined to make his watch my aunts and uncles cook.” passion for food into a Watching their recipes come to life successful business. was like watching art happen, he recalls.

CHRYSTOPHER WILLIS “You can mix nutmeg with clove and then mix some whiskey in and have an amazing taste, and who would put that with candied yams?” he asks, his already expressive face even more so thanks to his enormous smile and the FA L L 2 0 1 8

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even larger laugh that follows. “My grandmother!”

In addition to his grandmother, who put no fewer than twenty pies on holiday tables, McCann learned from watching his six aunts and three uncles. His uncles were the barbecue and potato salad guys. His aunt Stacey made the best catfish while another made the best macaroni, a recipe he says she still won’t give up. “I make a pretty good second,” he says.

(McCann doesn’t give it up either, except to say the secret ingredient begins with the letter P.) “The seasonings, the marinades, everyone had their own little unique thing that makes every recipe different,” he says.

“I thought it was amazing.”

A little more than one year into his own venture, there are already many who consider McCann and his work amazing as well.

Working full time in retail, McCann began asking himself why he was working so hard to generate great results for a gigantic company rather than doing it for himself. So last October, encouraged by friends, he left his job and, to cover the food and the venue, sold tickets to a tasting event he’d organized. “People wanted to see what I could do,” he says. “Most people knew me as Curtis who works at Target. But then they thought, ‘Wow, he can really cook.’ My family knew it, but it’s good to get reinforcement from others.”

A few days later, McCann catered his first official event, and it’s been nonstop ever since. “Word got out way more quickly than I would have ever imagined,” he says. “I was expecting a repast or some baby showers. I wasn’t expecting to shake hands with some of the people I’ve worked with during my first year.” McCann’s client roster currently includes Fox 2, Hoffman Brothers and Parallon.

McCann says he’s happy to create items based on what clients want — he made pasta out of almond milk recently, for example. But he’s developed a detailed menu that’s reminiscent of the kitchens he grew up in. Popular items include the mac and cheese and voodoo pasta, which he describes as almost a gumbo. “I’m from St. Louis,” he says, “but I have a great admiration for creole-inspired food.”

In turn, his clients — he has about 60 — admire him enough to keep him busy on a full-time basis, with gigs every weekend and pop-up shops on a mostly weekly basis, including a recent vendor pop-up, which McCann describes as entrepreneurs collaborating and pushing their brands out to the public.

McCann says creating recipes is his favorite part of running his own business. The mac and cheese is a perennial favorite, he says. He enhances it with various spices and a heavy, hearty roux. His candied yams, spiced with honey garlic, are also popular.

McCann likes his menu, but when it’s time to eat, he keeps it basic. “I’m a simple St. Louis boy,” he says. “I love an Imo’s pizza. I go to Fitz’s on the Delmar Loop to get onion rings and

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a milkshake, and I’m good with that.”

For now McCann rents a kitchen downtown, a setup he says is fairly common in St. Louis since entrepreneurship is on the rise. Rather than focus on the inevitable increase in competition, he sees more people entering the industry as an improvement in the area’s mental health. “People don’t leave their jobs, they leave toxic work environments,” he says. “Entrepreneurship is picking up because people are excited about controlling their own narrative — waking up in the morning, thinking this is what I want to do and then being happy doing it.”

He’s also looking to open a brick-and-mortar spot in the near future. “I have some great spots in mind,” he says. He hasn’t settled on an exact location but says he really likes south city, adding, “It has its own little heartbeat.” He’s currently leaning toward a very nostalgic, southern restaurant with long tables, interesting artwork and a family vibe — all of it grounded by the aroma of fresh-baked dinner rolls. He plans to continue catering as much as possible. There’s certainly a demand for it, given that lots of people don’t want to spend time in the kitchen cooking for large groups.

At the same time, he’s equally committed to continuing mentoring and other volunteer activities. It isn’t hard to get McCann talking about mentoring or his support of an annual weekend event that takes place each October on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus called The Forum, which he describes as a celebration of minorities that shines a light on the health disparities communities of color continue to experience.

But he steadfastly refuses to link his business with his volunteer work. He cooks for clients; he volunteers to help people with whom he empathizes. Other than occasionally employing young people as servers, the two worlds remain in their own orbit in a way that’s refreshingly free of feel-good buzz phrases like “giving back.”

“I became interested because I have friends who are social workers, community outreach specialists, people who do testing,” he says. “They inspired me to get involved.”

McCann’s own experience also motivated him to volunteer on behalf of young people: Although they’ve long since reconciled, his mother kicked him out of the house when he came out to her. “Homelessness is still a big deal in the LGBTQ communities in general, affecting people of all colors,” he says. “Being shunned by your family is universal.”

McCann tries to help youth who are homeless with challenges that arise because they don’t have insurance and to guide them toward jobs and personal development opportunities.

Including, of course, entrepreneurship. “I look at it as a way to show people a better outlook on life,” he says. “I encourage them to follow their goals and dreams, even if they don’t make sense to other people. No one tells you to start your own business when you’re younger, so I do that.”

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culture

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men of the match KEVIN HAYES, JR. & MIKE LEHMKUHLE ARE BRINGING DATING BACK

BY CH R I S A N D O E

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hat is it about new romance that captivates us? Supermarket checkout lanes are lined with cover photos of attractive, freshly minted couples. We even went through a phase of coming up with cute names for them, like TomKat and Brangelina.

Whatever the reason, public interest is undeniable. The dominance of hookup culture has made getting our “it couple” fix a bit harder as dating almost seems like a dated concept. Air Force Sergeant Kevin Hayes Jr., 34, remembers when he noticed the cultural shift from dating to hookups. “When I came out in 2007, there were a lot of people dating, but around 2011-2012 things seemed to shift to nobody wanting anything serious.”

Hayes points to the apps as the reason. Launched in Mike Lehmkuhle kisses Kevin 2009, Grindr had really hit Hayes Jr. as he views the skyline. its stride by 2012, reaching THEO WELLING 4 million users. And if dating is like cooking meals from scratch, the instant gratification of DoorDash is awfully convenient — and habit forming.

The relationships he did have, Hayes says, were unhealthy.

Several cheated, and one was closeted. “I had written off dating. I was done.”

Someone else who prematurely retired from the dating scene was Army veteran Mike Lehmkuhle. The 29-year-old had been single for seven years, five of which had been at Fort Riley Army base near Manhattan, Kansas. “There was nobody there other than closeted gays and immature military guys,” he says.

Lehmkuhle relocated to St. Louis for work at the beginning

of 2017 and shortly after accepted an invitation to join the St. Louis Crusaders rugby team. During his first game, he zeroed in on Hayes.

“I noticed him first,” Lehmkuhle says.

During the game Lehmkuhle got to the endzone, but didn’t place the ball on the ground, irritating Hayes. “You didn’t put the ball down,” Hayes exclaimed. “You scored, but it doesn’t count!”

But while packing up at the end of the game, Lehmkuhle overheard Hayes telling the teammate who brought him, “Hey, you need to make sure he comes back.”

Within a few days, Lehmkuhle found Hayes on the apps and messaged him. “I convinced him to have dinner with me, but he canceled!”

“Initially … I don’t know, I don’t know. He wants to have dinner with me, it’s weird. I kinda wanted to see how long it would be until he asked me again,” he says with a wink. “Also, I’d just joined the rugby team, and I didn’t want to date another teammate. You know, keep it professional. I didn’t know if there was a rule against it.”

And if those excuses weren’t enough, Hayes had more.

“I thought, ‘This kid doesn’t like me. I’m this six-foot-tall black guy. He probably likes twinks. He doesn’t know how to

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handle all this.”

The two began hanging out as friends and then as friends with benefits, but looming on the horizon was Hayes’ sixmonth deployment to Qatar.

“I don’t want to date you when I’m gone, because if you’re talking to someone else I’ll kill you,” Hayes joked at the time.

During the deployment the two texted a few times and Hayes urged Lehmkuhle to go out and see other people.

Lehmkuhle replied, “When you’re ready [for something serious] let me know.”

“I was deployed, and one month later Mike was dating someone! Pics of this guy all up on Facebook. It’s what I told him to do but still was a gut punch,” Hayes recalls.

In August 2018 Hayes returned from his deployment without telling anyone and made a surprise appearance at the Crusaders’ end-of-season party.

“Kevin showed up like nothing happened,” Lehmkuhle recalls. “And I was dumbfounded. Speechless.”

Hayes expected a big friendly greeting, but Lehmkuhle was in shock and kept his distance.

“He didn’t really greet me. Finally, I said ‘hi’ and he said ‘hey,’ then he got really drunk and went home.”

Lehmkuhle broke it off with his boyfriend a week or two later. “I was comparing him to how much fun I had with Kevin. Plus, the sex wasn’t working for me.”

Lehmkuhle and Hayes picked up where they left off, hanging out regularly, all without labeling their relationship.

After a really tough loss, the Crusaders were gathering at Just John, and it was announced that the game’s Man of the Match was Hayes. “I thought it was going to be Mike,” he says.

Lehmkuhle describes the moment it all became official.

“Kevin ordered us two shots of Fireball and told me he thought I was going to be named Man of the Match. He then pulled me into him and said, ‘You were my man of the match.

Would you be my boyfriend?’”

“It’s been fun,” Lehmkuhle says. “It’s like hanging out with your best friend and then sleeping with him.”

Lehmkuhle has found the LGBTQ community in St. Louis to be supportive of the new relationship and says he’s having a great time in his new city.

“I love living in St. Louis. I think it’s very underrated.

We’re always finding something fun and new to do. There’s always something new to check out, some event or festival.”

It does appear a return to dating is catching on, which is something Hayes has noticed, even if he doesn’t take any credit. “A lot of my friends who were single for a significant amount of time have recently gotten into relationships, but I blame it on this polar vortex,” he laughs.

The Instagram-ready couple, together for just over a year, has made such a buzz in LGBTQ St. Louis that we decided to serve People Magazine realness with them on our cover.

Cute couple nicknames feel pretty 2012, but if you insist, how about Mikevin?

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wellness

moving past trauma EMDR HAS HELPED LGBTQ PATIENTS OVERCOME TOXIC FEELINGS

BY J OH UA PHELP S

W

hen Jason Eccker finally sought counseling for the bullying he faced in grade school, it changed his life — personally, and professionally. Now, in his own counseling practice, he makes use of the specific type of therapy that helped him so much.

It’s called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy, or EMDR. It’s a proven modality for rewiring the negative emotions patients have attached to memories, and it’s especially useful for moving past trauma.

EMDR (also known as eye movement therapy) was developed by the late American psychologist and educator Francine Shapiro. In 1987, Shapiro was walking in a park and realized that left-to-right eye movements decreased negative emotions with her distressing memories at the time. Later, Shapiro added a cognitive component.

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After countless studies by scientists worldwide, EMDR is now recognized by the U.S. Department of Defense and the American Psychiatric Association as an effective way to treat post-traumatic stress disorder.

Eccker used EMDR therapy to help a patient deal with PTSD after they were deployed to Iraq three times. After they returned home, the patient developed anxiety and had trouble adjusting to everyday life, like relationships and being out in crowded situations.

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what we did was identify the shortlist of these memories that this person had during their deployment that still caused them a lot of distress,” Eccker says.

One of those memories was when the patient experienced trauma in a convoy in Iraq. After identifying the target memories that were the most bothersome for the individual, Eccker targeted the bad experiences with EMDR therapy, reprocessing the bad memory and helping the patient understand they’re safe now.

“By using the EMDR technique in that memory, we were able to talk and reorient the brain to believe that was a situation that happened then and that person survived,” he says.

Eccker says PTSD is not just limited to life-threatening experiences, and trauma is experienced from everyday tragedies.

“Trauma is anything that I experience that hits the traumatic alarm in my brain,” he says. “It’s traumatic to me, and it doesn’t matter if it would be traumatic to you.”

For clients who have experienced trauma, Eccker stresses to visit only EMDR-certified therapists like himself.

“Somebody might say they can do EMDR because they watched some YouTube videos,” he says. “And I would not [go to them] because there’s a lot that can come up around past traumas. You want to go to somebody that understands, that’s been through the training to understand the stuff that can come up and come out when you do this kind of therapy.”

With EMDR therapy, Eccker works with his patients to get past trauma by connecting the trauma with new and positive information.

“We can catch it up and say, ‘Wait a minute. That was then, this is now,’” he says.

The therapy works by stimulating both hemispheres of the brain. Patients hold tappers that buzz back and forth in their hands, which stimulates both hemispheres of the brain. This motion is similar to how our eyes move in REM (deep) sleep. At the same time, the patient holds different aspects of the traumatizing event in their mind while holding the buzzers. Eccker says it’s a form of reprocessing a bad memory with a good one.

“When I do EMDR therapy with individuals, I have them hold these tappers or buzzers that buzz back and forth: right, left, right, left — kind of like your cellphone vibrating. And so that’s what activates that system that we use in EMDR reprocessing,” he says.

Eccker, who devotes his spare time outside work to the southside underground disco group Nightchaser, compares the buzzing to that of electronic music, his version of therapy.

“The back-and-forth sound stimulation is very similar to what we’re doing with the EMDR. So that’s the reason that

people connect with dancing and electronic music. There is something therapeutic about it,” he muses.

When Eccker works with clients with EMDR therapy, he says they’re bewildered after the sessions.

“They feel confused at first because it’s an odd feeling to realize you didn’t react to something the way you reacted to something for years,” he says.

He adds that sometimes LGBTQ patients can face shame associated with their identities, and he treats this through the lens of trauma. The LGBTQ community is three times as likely to abuse drugs than the general population, Eccker says, because of internalized shame.

“They have internalized shame because they’re in an oppressed group,” he says. “And any oppressed population is going to develop this shame, these shame triggers.”

He adds some may not feel comfortable to let the shame go, and EMDR therapy helps turn around the memory of not feeling accepted to being comfortable with their sexuality. They let go of shame as they realize it’s safe to do so.

“Shame is always toxic. It’s never helpful or motivated or anything like that,” Eccker says. “Shame is misguided. What we do is Jason Eccker uses EMDR to figure out that sense of process and get past trauma.

‘There’s something wrong COURTESY JASON ECCKER with me,’ and turn it into ‘I’m okay with what I am. I am loveable.’”

Eccker, a Chicago native, got his undergraduate degree in business administration at Washington University in St. Louis in 1996 and moved back to Chicago for thirteen years before returning to St. Louis to get his master’s degree in social work at the Brown School at Wash U. After working in mental health and substance abuse counseling facilities, Eccker got certified in EMDR therapy by the EMDR Institute in 2014 and opened his business, Synchronicity Counseling Solutions, alongside his coworker Erica Braun that same year.

Located at Lemp Avenue and Arsenal Street, Synchronicity Counseling Solutions (1902 Arsenal St., 314-252-0174) offers psychotherapy (EMDR treatment) for individuals living with mental illness, trauma and addiction.

Synchronicity Counseling Solutions is open Monday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., Tuesday and Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Thursday 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Friday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The counseling service accepts many forms of health insurance as well as employee assistance programs, cards and cash payment. For more information, visit www.synchronicitysolutions.org.

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laureate

how to break rocks

I

f you truly believe you are living your best life then stop reading this now. Up-cycle your time, and enjoy the fact that you are winning. This essay is for the losers.

The concept of “living your best life” is as old as the first Neanderthal showing the other homos how to break rocks.

A cursory google glance at the term brings up over 300 million hits from self-help books, seminars, vacations, astrology, new wardrobes, YouTube videos, mantras, massage therapy, doctors, psychiatry, religion, movies and drugs. Instead of crushing stones we now funnel hundreds of billions of dollars into finding this supposed “best life.” Astrology alone is a $2 billion industry, which means hundreds of thousands of people around the world look to center their lives on the zodiac scales. Even the stars ask us to buy something.

The idea or image or, let’s say, astral projection is that there is a best version of ourselves possible as people existing in this world. To be this person means we must be living it. The Instagram tag #bestlife has 2.1 million posts, and they’re all well lit. There is a lot of Yes in all of them as well.

Yes to love. Yes to last-minute reservations at the expensive sushi restaurant. Yes to sweaters. Yes to a new job. Yes to sex. Yes to anything and everything that resembles a smile.

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BY J OSS BARTON

That, however, would be the living part of the equation.

To have a best life is a tall order when even a happy life is never guaranteed. Of course, we can say yes to being better than we were yesterday. A life’s trajectory is made less petty and banal when we do. But if you can step back long enough from the warm light of the constant comeups and glo-ups saturating the eye, you might notice cracks in the screen.

The “best life” is how we convince others we have it.

Kanye West told us he found Jesus and now he has it. Aunt Cindy might tell you her cancer is finally in remission. Or Donald Trump will tweet about his election results again.

Our psyches filter every single one of these moments into a framework that tells us what our best lives could be. Some of us look to build stronger community bonds through local organizing. Some of us try to maintain our relationships.

Some of us get sober. Some of us may be intentional and some of us may be lying about our best lives. As a projection, your best life exists for others to believe or to buy. And we as queer people need to start saying No to it all.

If we began to say No could we begin to be honest about our fractured community? Our trans and queer POC communities feel abandoned by the white cis gay majorities. We still have poor people dying of AIDS. And trans women are being imprisoned. What does it mean to be queer or gay or transgender and try to find your best life when we can still be fired or denied housing or banned from hospital beds for simply existing? What does showing others a best life do when it takes multitudes of filters and face-tunes and finstas to believe it ourselves?

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EVAN SULT

The Supreme Court is expected in the coming months to hand down one of our nation’s most crucial LGBTQ civil rights decisions. A decision that decides if we even have a legal right to live a best life. The case before the high court hinges on our nightmare regime’s Department of Justice arguing in favor of defining the federal ban on sex discrimination in the workplace as one that enshrines the legal protection to fire someone because they are part of the LGBTQ community. Welcome to Trump’s Twilight Zone. The same president who told LGBTQ voters to vote for him because he would “protect” us is the same president whose DOJ is asking for permission to ban us from protections against actual harm and discrimination.

A best life indeed.

I can see why these hashtag moments feel more empowering than barricading and chaining ourselves to the steps of the White House. We want people to know that we’re dating again or that we’re throwing a dinner party or that we’re moving to a new city. We want the communal experience of “being” even when the “being” hasn’t even begun.

Something tugs inside the meat brain, and we sense ourselves in the refractions of light and memory. We have forgotten to see ourselves in lives playing out next door or across the hemispheres.

The protestors in Chile are living their best lives as they set fire to the buses and late trains.

Chicago’s teachers are living their best lives drumming in the streets on strike and walking out to demand a better future for hundreds of thousands of students trapped in ill-functioning school systems.

Our sisters are living their best lives bringing the CNN LGBTQ town hall to a halt demanding to know why black trans women are being erased from the conversation that is killing them.

We lived our best lives in Ferguson on shut-down freeways and running from tear-gas clouds.

These are all a best life of No and not Yes. No to abuse.

No to second-class citizenship. No to rising nationalism. No to rising rent. No to lies. No to racist cops. No to war. No to more drones. No to the rats gnawing on our toes. No to rigged elections.

This means living our best lives knowing that Ben Carson is in the room. This means living our best lives knowing that they’ve stacked the federal appeals courts with lunatics who want us back in the closets. This means living our best lives as the climate melts. This means knowing that we can’t survive if we say Yes anymore. No elite Yelp badge or selfie bomb or thirst traps or good vibes or beach vacation check-ins are going to produce a best life for any queer person under the thumb of our current nightmare regime’s escalating rate of cruelty.

This is not a call to stop enjoying the overpriced cinnamon roll because it reminds you how your momma made them. Or a call to ban #transformationtuesdays. Or a call to stop trying to improve yourself in whatever personal and intentional practices you know you need or want or even just briefly embrace. This won’t radically reroute our selfishness or even our envy. And I don’t expect anyone to leave this redefining how they wish to live their better selves.

This is just me breaking rocks and saying no.

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