Rainbow: Summer 2022 Mini Magazine by Roam Boulder

ROAM BOULDER | RAINBOW | JUNE 2022

The Stonewall Rebellion: A Note Without the resilience of Black, Brown, Indigenous,

recognize our inherent right for all, as Americans, to and Asian queer and transgender people, modern art, protest. After centuries of violence, injustices, and fashion, and culture would not be as vibrant. Even protests, we will not be silenced. Everyday, we should though their work is stolen, villainized, and erased, act with love as our center and fight for human rights, they continuously fight for liberation and justice. To just as many brave people have done before us. honor those who have paved the way for LGBTQ+ rights and awareness, we have chosen to release our In our issue “Rainbow,” we seek to embody first Pride Month Mini Magazine today, on the 53rd queerness as bold resistance to society through our anniversary of the Stonewall Rebellion. photography and featured journalism. A written piece that grapples with cultural rejection and resistance is, On June 28th, 1969, in Greenwich Village, New “Reflecting on My Experiences at the Intersection of York, city police occupied and set fire to the Stonewall Ethnicity and Sexuality,” by Nic Tamayo. This piece Inn with the intent to rob the gay bar’s employees and is a meditation on race and queerness, on the entropy customers. According to accounts from Marsha “Pay that holds our bodies together in our constant state of it no Mind” Johnson, renound Black transgender drag falling-apart-as-queer. Paired with Tamayo’s work is queen and activist, people of color and gender non- our photo essay of models selected to embody queer conforming identities fought back police clubs with performance. bottles and fists. These people that risked their lives in a watershed fight for gay liberation catalyzed queer In this space we have curated for you on this movements around the world, and for that we thank momentous day, we hope that you resonate with them deeply. our selected essay, that you find solace, resilience, and inspiration. The core of our Pride Month mini This raid was not the first police raid on queer magazine is love, love for you and for the caring spaces in the late 20th century, but these harrasments communities that have continued to subvert societal did not silence their voices. The people who fought expectations and defy the prejudice of this world. This for their rights at the Stonewall Uprising are an issue is intended to come as a rainbow after the storm, inspiration to what true resilience and strength looks as a reminder that there are better worlds possible; to like. The events lasted five inconsecutive nights and dream of them is itself an act of resistance. resulted in a paradigm shift for LGBTQ+ activists everywhere. In the spirit of the Stonewall Uprising With love and solidarity, and Marsha P. Johnson’s legacy, it is crucial that we Roam 5

ROAM BOULDER | RAINBOW | JUNE 2022

Reflecting on my Experiences at the Intersection of Ethnicity and Sexuality By Nic Tamayo

I grew up being most comfortable in the kitchen.

I would stand at the counter, helping my mother portion out food on plates. I would slowly and carefully cut and clean the onions, radishes, and cilantro that so often accompanied our dishes. During family gatherings, I would sit at the table, shaping masa balls & listening in on the chisme being shared in hushed whispers between my mom, my tias, and my primas. As I grew older, though, I lost my ability to blend into the background and be where I felt most comfortable. I was no longer the boy child whose presence was accepted and welcomed; I was the adult man who needed to act like it. That space where I once felt comfortable became inaccessible, blocked by the doors that my dad, tios, and primos had constructed in front of the entryway. I was to play outside with the other men, lounge around, and talk about sports, politics, and news– things I had yet to be interested in. I couldn’t exist in the place that I once called home. “The kitchen is for women,” I remember my father saying, “and you are not a girl.”

life. I had learned from a young age that pink is for girls and blue is for boys. Cooking and cleaning are for women– working, and relaxing is for men. Especially in a Mexican household, these roles were enforced with an iron fist, or a leather belt, when it came to it. “Machismo has been defined by Victor de la Cancela, a Puerto Rican psychologist, as a socially learned and reinforced set of behaviors in Latino society which men are expected to follow... Marianismo is about sacred duty, self-sacrifice, and chastity. About dispensing care and pleasure, not receiving them. About living in the shadows, literally and figuratively, of your men...” (Gil and Vasquez, 2013, 7).

These strict gender roles have been reinforced in my life since I learned to remember. My parents’ relationship has been rocky from the start. My mother was 16 when they first met, and my father was 22. A year later, they were married with a baby– the only commonality tying them together being me, their firstborn child. My mother grew up in a broken home. She had grown accustomed to the drugs her parents Gender is one of those things that doesn’t always used and the problems that came along with them. remain stagnant. It’s a spectrum of identities that She was used to the food pantries where they found can be fluid and ever-changing as one continues to all of their meals, the constant evictions they faced acquire life experiences. Gender roles, however, have due to their lack of rent money, and the abandonment remained a constant and easily definable rule in my she felt from her parents when she was couch-surfing. 15

When my father came along, she saw a way out of her situation– a prince charming that would take her away from her problems. Because of this, she has been more than happy to follow my father’s demands of the perfect housewife over the past 18 years. This relationship dynamic between the homemaking, miserable wife, and the breadwinning, distant father is what I had grown up with. It was a reality that I was comfortable with, rarely looking at it with a critical eye– until the same expectations began being placed upon me as I grew into adulthood. I needed to succeed in school, more so than anyone else, because it was my responsibility to become a breadwinner at some point. It was a requirement that I create opportunities for stability in the workplace to provide stability for a future wife, future kids, and a future family that I could never seem to envision. It wasn’t until I made close friends throughout my schooling that I realized this system of thinking isn’t the same for everyone. During late-night talks over text under the blankets, quiet whispers between ears at lunch, and direct messaging on social media, I learned to talk about things that mattered with friends. During this time, I opened up about the expectations placed upon me by my family, and the expectations I set upon myself because of this. These conversations helped me to dissect the ways in which I thought about these relationships, these expectations, and these ideals. I have always been an amazing student. I worked so hard for so many years to ensure that every report card sent home was stellar, every graded assignment was marked with a giant red A+ at the top, and every minute not taken up by classes was taken up by extracurriculars and resume builders instead. Looking back, I think this obsessiveness with excellence stems back to the expectations of masculinity placed upon me. Because I struggled to outwardly and overtly project the toughness my family associated with masculinity, I needed to distract them from my insufficiencies. This practice has stuck with me, and I continue to overwork myself, undervalue my performance, and obsess over everything that needs to be done in order to be the best. It’s a hard habit to break, and it continues to be a comfortable crutch on which to place my insecurities and doubts about myself.

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I remember this one time I was in the shower. The thought came to my mind that this wasn’t going to just disappear. I understood it, then, as a conscious choice– something that, once decided, would have to remain a permanent fixture in my brain. I saw two paths– one where I would be like the people in the movies, falling in love and getting married in a chapel, and having children that play on the front lawns of my white picketed yard. In this, though, I remember not seeing happiness– as though this path were something that would be filled with obligation and responsibility rather than fulfillment and joy. The other path, though, is where I saw myself emulating the lifestyles of social media influences and YouTubers like Joey Graceffa and Tyler Oakley. A group that represented the “other,” in my view, but made the most of their identities and found happiness in the fact that they could be who they are. The representation of themselves as openly effeminate, openly queer, and unapologetically happy was something I wanted– something I knew had to be chosen. It was then, as the shower’s water ran down my back, that I decided (though, is it really a decision?) to consciously embrace and emulate the people I looked up to most. “In short, both hegemonic and subordinate forms of masculinity are shaped and maintained through active homophobia. In particular, hegemonic masculinity is accomplished through the simultaneous valuation of aggressive heterosexuality and the denunciation of homosexuality.” (Perry, 2001, 106). When people aren’t educated on the differences between sex, gender, and sexuality, they often conflate every term as the same thing. I was taught that someone who is born a male that acts in an effeminate manner can only be gay. Someone who is born female has short hair and plays sports is a lesbian. Even then, though, there wass always the underlying sentiment that they weren’t actually gay or lesbian– they’re just confused, or rebellious, or a worshipper of the devil. The black and white binary in which most people think about queerness eliminates and invalidates the existence of people who fall outside of the spectrum that is “gay or straight, male or female.” Nothing in this world is as simple as this or that, here or there– there is fluidity in sexuality and gender expressions that is often ignored. Because I was effeminate, I was “turning” gay (as my father once put it), but it was never discussed whether or not I was being effeminate because I wanted to have a gender expression that bent the societal norms of “male.”

“In psychometrics, norm or normal are terms describing individuals or characteristics that fall within the center of the normal distribution on whatever variable is being measured. However, as the notion of normal is applied in social science contexts and certainly in general parlance, it implies its obverse—abnormal—and they both become value-laden. Often, those who are not deemed normal are devalued and considered a burden or problem, or are highly valued and regarded as a potential resource” (Linton, 1998, 22). 17

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As a result, we tend to lack the ability to understand things outside of the realm within which we exist. Someone who is cis-gender may find it harder to empathize with the struggles and challenges that someone who is transgender faces– let alone understand these things. There is something to be said about the demonstrative performances that many queer people have had to do. Especially in spaces that may be hostile to the existence of queer people, many may find safety in the outward expression of heteronormativity– in the reassurance that they are just like everyone else in the room, normal. This ability to understand what the majority want from the historically marginalized allows those who are queer to better understand the complex dynamics of sexuality and gender than someone who is strictly cis-gender.

gender expression in spaces where they are typically excluded.

The hardest part about writing this piece for me has been this nagging question in the back of my mind: how can you write the autobiography, the explanation of a journey that has only just started and is nowhere near being finished? I think that, for me, there is still a lot of confusion surrounding the identities I identify with, especially in a media ecosystem that both encourages and discourages gender expression, open expressions of sexuality, etc. Through mixed messages, it can be hard to find the words and thoughts that best fit your own. This constant expedition into self-reflection can be tiring, demeaning, and painful at times. Even so, I have done my best to embrace it, to allow this journey to reshape me into the person I find along the way. This new “Until equality between genders is achieved, until person, whoever they are, will be the representation we all can blur the boundaries between genders, we of myself that I feel inside. This person will be the one will continue to force people into rigid categories of who can be a better leader because they understand male/female, straight/gay, normal/deviant. And we the hardships associated with the journey. will continue to devalue and ‘persecute’ the negative Molina, L., Vazquez, C., Gil, R., & Audible Studios.(2013). The Maria Paradox: How Latinas Can Merge Old World Traditions With New World Self-Esteem. Audible half of the equation.” (Perry, 2001, 118). As leaders, Studios. Perry, B. (2001). In the name of hate: Understanding hate crimes. New York: Routthis understanding provides us with the unique ledge Linton, S. (1998). Claiming disability: Knowledge and identity. New York: New ability to understand the intricacies of things like York University Press. 19

ROAM BOULDER | RAINBOW | JUNE 2022