“You have all the same rights.”

I’ve re-written this over and over again, each time overthinking the amount of information I needed to give to allow anyone reading to understand. I felt like I needed to give excuses and context before you could really “get” why I’m so passionate. I wanted to over-explain my story in hopes that it would make my experience, and the experience of others more palatable.

Then I realized what I was doing in that was essentially the same as someone complimenting my new dress and me spewing all the facts that they didn’t ask for because I was uncomfortable in just owning that yes, my dress is fabulous. “I got it on sale!” WTF cares?

So instead of giving you a backstory that doesn’t matter, let me just dive into how upsetting it is that we are met with a barrage of narratives, accusations, and assumptions due to us putting on what is, at it’s core, a fun family festival that just has a few more rainbows.

“Why are you pushing this down our throats?”

“You have all the same rights as us, stop complaining.”

“You’re indoctrinating children be telling them they can be who they want to be.”

“Stop sexualizing kids.”

“You’re perverts.”

“Just live your life. Why do you have to tell us about your sex life?”

“We love you, but why do you have to push this gay agenda?”

“Why do you have to be so loud?”

I could go on and on. Let me focus on the claim that we have all of the same rights as everyone else, because I think a lot of the other will be covered. in that.

So, here are some real examples from my life.

THAT WORK LIFE:

EX ONE: 21 years old, working at a tanning salon. I had just come out (as an adult) for the first time, and had a 2 year old son. I was exploring who I was. Who I was then wanted to wear cargo shorts to work. The guys were wearing them, and honestly, I looked ADORABLE in them. I promise I sold more lotion and memberships to “straight women” when I was owning this look. I was a rockstar at work that was breaking records. But I was brought into the corporate office and told that I could no longer wear “men’s clothing” if I wanted to keep my job.

At this point in my life, I refused to hide who I was, so when male customers that had been coming in for awhile started asked creepy questions about my love life, I was honest with them. I had a serious girlfriend at home.

Every. Freaking. Time. I was somehow still shocked by the reactions.

Several of these men reacted by angrily cancelling their tanning memberships. Not with me, the store manager, directly, but by calling corporate and making complaints about how I had deceived them and they demand their membership be cancelled. Often they asked for refunds on any purchases they had made because they made them under false pretenses. I was doing my job. I didn’t treat these men any differently than I did women or just really anyone else. They made assumptions based on their egos and were pisses when those assumptions were wrong.

Some of these men, and this could be triggering, retaliated by coming in to tan and being sure to ejaculate in the bed, knowing there was a good chance I’d have to clean it up. Just….I can’t. This is so vulgar and disgusting and I don’t even know how to break that down. Controlling asshole narcissistic behavior is what that is.

A few of them took to stalking me, but only one of them REALLY stalked me. He knew my schedule. He knew I was a lesbian. He knew when the store closed, and that it was policy to let someone come in and start their tanning session as long as they checked in five minutes prior to close. Every night that I worked, he’d check in five before close request the most popular bed so he knew it wouldn’t be immediately available, wouldn’t even be able to enter the room until after we had closed, and then linger in the room for up to 20 minutes after his bed had shut off. All in a very clear attempt to catch me there alone.

Luckily, I was aware of what was happening. Luckily, I had a district manager that kept his phone on and was essentially on call for any time that I felt uncomfortable. Luckily, one of my employees had parents with intuitions that told them something was off, and they protected me at all costs.

That district manager fought for me. I will forever be grateful for what he did. He pulled into that parking lot, tires screeching, any time I suspected this guy may have been hiding around a corner, or when the guy was still hanging out in his tanning room 45 plus minutes after close. My DM fought corporate and tried to convince them to cancel this guys membership and work with me to file a restraining order. Not all men are bad, and that DM of mine is proof of that. But it took almost a year before his membership was revoked and an RO filed. They wanted his membership dollars more than they wanted to protect me. The only reason change was made is because those parents of my minor employee had instincts that probably saved me. They picked up their daughter, and, without me knowing, just drove and parked on the other side of a gas station in the parking lot. they waited there.

Add onto that our strange experience and emotions around being exposed to a world of successful, intelligent, badass members of our LGBTQ+ community. When you’ve grown up in a world that tells you being gay means a lifetime of poverty and portrays “your kind” as unintelligent and mentally unwell, this is absolutely shocking. Even though we had both experienced very high levels at success at this point, much of that had been under corporations encouraging us to keep our “personal lives” under wraps.

Let’s break that down for a minute. If you haven’t experienced this yourself, you may be wondering “well, how hard is it to just not talk about being gay?” Which is problematic on multiple levels, but we will get there. Maybe. As a 21 year old woman dating another woman, it wasn’t as simple as just not talking about it. In every meeting, every client consult, every…everything…people ask about your life. They either assume you have a husband and ask what your husband does for a living, or they simply just ask if you’re married.

In either scenario you’re kind of screwed.

You can create an entire matrix of “answer this way, go down this path.” All paths either lead to you 1) lying and pretending you are straight 2) trying to get out of the conversation, but them not having any clear answer, so they will continuously try to hit on you or set you up with their male friend or 3) coming out, reluctantly, and going back to the scenario where you are just “throwing it in people’s faces.”

Ok, sometimes, you’re not called out for throwing it other’s faces. Instead, you are faced with being the “token,” being asked wild questions about your sex life that no one would dare ask a straight person, being hit on by swingers that just cannot believe that you have no interest in that lifestyle. Gay means open marriage, right?! 🙄 Men think you just haven’t had the right guy. Women turn gay for you anytime they’re drinking and want to piss their husband off.

You can be the most “normal” and loving couple, and yet no one will respect your marriage like they will a straight marriage.

I am SO thrilled that Shaina and I get the opportunity to be the founders of Pride Kel-So. SO thrilled that there is some change in this community coming from it. The positive will always outweigh the negative, but man...it takes a toll. Let's be very real about that.

Let's be real about that because there are people that have reached out and felt bad about not being as vocal, not making big moves. They see all of our pictures and posts and think we're living some dream life. Which we are, 90% of the time.

But oh, honey....this work comes with some crazy s***. We need more voices, absolutely, but we do not want anyone that's not ready to step into a role that could utterly defeat them if not prepared for it.

Once you start to learn more about this world, about what others go through, about REAL history, you can't turn back. You will take on the hurt of others and feel responsible. You will forget your boundaries that protect you for the sake of hopefully saving others. You will want to get involved in things that are not yours to get involved in because you just want to help. Then you'll have to have that dialogue with yourself about it not being your place, and hope that you don't see something on the news later that makes you deeply regret your decision to step back.