I'm From Driftwood

by Howard Nields

I guess I must first preface this tale with a revelation. I am a gay man living with HIV. I have been this way since October 23, 2007. I don’t blame anyone but myself for my “situation”. I mean let’s be realistic, it takes two to tango. I wasn’t raped or drugged or whatever. I willingly engaged in stupid, risky unprotected sex and now I must deal with the penultimate consequence. But I digress…

I was told something the other day that was rather hurtful and I suppose untrue, yet there are many times I wonder if that is so. A stranger, upon learning of my “condition” felt it his duty to tell me that I had a lot of balls to think that I should ever have sex again. That apparently I had given up my right for human affection, human contact and sexual gratification the day I failed the most important test of my life; who was I to try to have sex and infect others. Now of course the initial knee-jerk response is that this guy was obviously an ignorant, uncaring moron and that I should pay him no mind. But sadly he is not the first, and I am sure he will not be the last, to tell me such a thing.

I don’t look for pity or even empathy for who I am. Like I said, I made my bed and in it I must lay. But at a time when the country is at a crossroads in determining just how “equal” we as gay men are, can we really expect them to understand if we as a sub-culture can’t even find respect and compassion amongst ourselves? I mean it’s not like I don’t tell guys my status; I don’t try to hide it or deny it. Yet over half the time upon revealing it you get the look; the look that makes you feel like a modern-day leper. I made a mistake, albeit a rather stupid and severe mistake, but who among us havn’t? Do I suddenly become less of a person because of this? Do I no longer have the right to the same happiness as any other man?

Now I know these stories aren’t supposed to be tirades or rants or whatever about social injustice, but I think sometimes we as gay men need to just take a step back. We want to be treated as equally as our heterosexual counterparts, yet we are always quick to discriminate against other gays who are “less than ourselves”. When does it become right for the “victim” to become the “victimizer”? Never…it never does. We are all human and deserve to be treated with respect and compassion. Just try to remember that the next time you complain about how you are treated by another. Think what it would feel like if the shoe was on the other foot. Would you degrade someone just to make yourself feel safer, all because of your own fears and misunderstandings?

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by Stefan H.

(TRIGGER WARNING: Homophobic slurs, homophobic violence)

I grew up in the city-suburb of Bethlehem, PA, in the heart of the Lehigh Valley, to Greek-American immigrants. Bethlehem is just like every other podunk Pennsylvanian town, except it’s always Christmas and there’s a now-defunct steel mill that the town is still in the shadows of. Everyone in town has some connection to “The Steel.”

Growing up, the word “lesbian” was thrown around with words like “demonic,” “anomaly” and “filthy” and I’ve never really liked the word too much because of that association. My father to this day is extremely homophobic and has made many threats of what would become of my younger brother and me if we were to “turn gay.”

My first recollection that I may be “different” was around second grade. You see, my parents had only been in America for about five years when I started school, so they thought that students get enrolled in the school closest to their home. That happened to be a neighborhood private Catholic school. Not being raised Catholic servedmy firstchallengeasa student,andcoupled with no English language spoken in the home; I was cast out from my classmates immediately. I did manage to make some friends, though, and they were all boys to the discouragement of my teachers and the nuns. During recess, the school segregated boys and girls by gender — the boys got the side of the school with the basketball courts, and the girls were encouraged to play hand games or play with dolls and pray next to the convent. I would frequently “cross the line” to go play basketball with my friends. This would resultinthenunscallinghome andmy father whipping me with his belt very often. My mother, like the “obedient Greek woman” she was at the time, blindly followed my abusive father. Yet I continued to “cross the line” and was confused as to why I was not allowed to and why my father would hit me for it if he’d find out. This ended with being punished with losing recess for the rest of the year, and the suggestion that I’d be enrolled in cheerleading to “stop any more abnormal behavior” from developing. The nuns suggested that I would end up “a homosexual”if I were not socialized with the other girls. I became extremely anti-social and refused to talk to anyone during this time and was reprimanded constantly for not having any friends. Cheerleading further confirmed my young belief that I was “different” and somehow “not normal.”

I was transferred to public school a year later. My father, taking on the advice of the nuns in my former school, dressed me in pink skirts and dresses every single day. I was never comfortable with this and the other kids would tease and bully me for it. This was just torture, yet I managed to make one friend this entire time, and my father refused me contact with him. He even had me switched to a different classroom. The bullying didn’t stop and turned to being called a “dyke” and a “slut” almost daily. I felt like I was a horrible person and deserved the harsh words.

Later on in grade school and middle school, when kids started to notice attraction and develop a sexual identity, I felt isolated again. Some of my male friends started noticing girls, and many of the girls were boy-crazy. I did not understand the fuss about boys, so I kept silent. I knew that I did not “like” boys in the same way those girls did. Boys were my friends. I enjoyed skateboarding and getting dirty with them. The pressure, from mostly my father, to like boys took a toll on me. I’ve been a competitive swimmer my entire life, and I developed an eating disorder. I started burning myself with my father’s lighter. I startedsmokingatage 12.AllI wanted to doisforget about the feelings I was having for the girls on my team. In my mind, I thought it would be better to be “caught” doing all the other terrible things I was doing than to have anyone know that I did not like boys as anything more than friends.

I was hospitalized with a failed suicide attempt in the summer before 8th grade, yet I still refused to speak. I was terrified of my father ending my life. We then moved to Greece for about three months after President Bush was elected. My father, being the irrational human being that he is, believed this was the best course of action.

My first month of high school, 9/11 happened and tore the country apart. I was also dealingwith a thick Greek accent that got me teased constantly, and that old “skeleton” of not liking boys. Soon after, tragedy struck. I had been sneaking out to a new LGBT youth group that had just formed and had made a few friends there, yet I never came out to any of them. One night, we snuck into a gay nightclub in a neighboring city with a slightly older straight ally friend who was going off to a prestigious New York music school. He was gunned down and killed because someone assumed that he was gay minutes after our group had split to go home. The police never charged the men that took this young life. After this, I went back into the closet out of fear that I could be the next victim. His killers are still free. It scares me, even if attitudes have changed for the better in the Lehigh Valley just over ten years later.

My friend’s death destroyed me, and I tried to change what I knew about myself. I tried being the most straight-acting person I wanted to believe I was. I wanted nothing more than to “be straight” and would constantly battle myself when I thought about girls “that way.” I got heavily involved on my campus and decided early on that I wanted to go to music school. I did everything I could to avoid thinking about being “different” and to avoid my father’s house. I’d leave at 4.30am to swim and would not return until after 10pm after my last rehearsal. This was exhausting, but temporarily relieved what I was feeling.

I had my first kiss on a band trip to London during my junior year. She and I are still friends. I hated myself even more after that.

One day, during my final year of high school, I could not take my act any more. I had just been accepted into both of my top choice music schools, and saw the end of my torture in sight. Yet, I was still smoking, doing entirely too many drugs and drinking uncontrollably. I was terrified. So I told a teacher that I trusted while I was practicing for college. To my surprise, he reassured me that I’m okay, and that I’m not an anomaly. He saved my life. This educator helped me get my life back in line before heading off to music school. But most importantly, he listened and did not judge. I had never had that in my life for all 17 years of it. I was never told that I’m a “normal human being” before, just that I’m defective. He’s still a huge supporter of me as a musician and as a person.

I slowly came out to some friends, and lost many of them.

Thankfully, college treated me well. I came out as transgender about two years in, and my group of friends continue to love and respect me. I have a beautiful girlfriend of over three years who I currently live with.

I made it out of Bethlehem alive. There’s no doubt that I’m stronger because of my rough childhood. But I’m proud to say that I’m alive and happy. I’m a college graduate with a great future in front of me. I’m free from substance abuse and I have my health. I play with an LGBT and Ally band in Philadelphia regularly, who have become the family I always wanted. Funny how powerful saying the words “I’m gay” openly and freely can be.

My parents do not know. My mother has since begun to challenge my father’s terrible ways, and has taken on a very liberal “love everyone” lifestyle, even going against him to his face. She has LGBT co-workers and friends that my father does not approve of, but she insists that he can’t do anything about it because she’s “an American woman.” They both assume that my partner is “just a friend.” I assume my mother would be fine if I came out to her, but I continue to fear my father. So I keep my mouth shut. My partner is fine with this. Her family has greeted me—us—with open arms. I’m the second child they always wished they’d had. They love and respect me.

I’m lucky.

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by Audrey Smith

Colby and I met in 1991 when I was dating my ex and she was dating an abusive ex. Colby’s twin sister was dating my ex-husband’s best friend. Through his best friend, my ex became friends with Colby’s ex, so the 3 guys began to play computer games together.

I never liked Colby’s ex from day one. I knew he was a pathological liar and abusive towards Colby! I felt a connection to Colby and that I could probably be good friends with her. But I never got to spend much time with her because my kids were babies and demanded so much of my time and energy. I would sometimes go visit Colby and her twin if I got a break from the kids.

Colby and her ex moved to Virginia. Whenever they came back to Pennsylvania to visit Colby’s twin, I would try to hang out with Colby.

7 years later, Colby left her ex and filed a Protection From Abuse (PFA) against him. My ex’s friend and Colby’s twin went to court with her for support. I wanted to go, but was not sure she would want me there, because, like most victims of abuse, she was embarrassed.

Colby moved into a house in State College, but my ex and I were living in another part of the state by that time. Whenever we went back to State College, I would try to visit Colby.

About this time, Colby came out as a lesbian. I remember feeling very protective of her, and not liking her girlfriend at all. On one visit to Colby’s I remember wanting to make her girlfriend jealous — wanting her to know that she should not take Colby for granted. I kissed Colby on the forehead and made a big fuss over her.

Then Colby moved to North Carolina with that girlfriend, and I was immersed for many years in the misery of living with an untreated bipolar husband. On a visit back to State College in 2005, my ex confided in Colby’s twin about some of his issues with our relationship, and she immediately called me to tell me what he said.

In 2006, Colby and her girlfriend broke up and she moved back to State College to live on her own. I filed for a no-fault divorce to make it as quick and painless as possible, but my ex did not sign the papers, so the divorce failed.

In 2007 I started emailing Colby and found her on MySpace. We messaged each other often and really enjoyed talking to each other.

In 2008, I was finally certain that my marriage could not ever be salvaged. I began to try to remember who Audrey was. And while thinking of what I wanted in a partner, I asked myself why I had limited my choices to men. I began facing the fact that I had always been attracted to women, and had major crushes on women in the past that I had refused to see for what they were.

As a very young child I identified most strongly with my male cousins, climbing trees and playing warfare instead of dress-up and make-up with the girls. I was proud to be a tomboy.

In middle school I had one or two crushes on boys, but it seemed that everyone else was more consciously aware of my orientation than I was, because people tended to think it was ludicrous for me to contemplate dating a guy. As a young teenager, I didn’t typically have crushes on the male counselors at summer camp, but I had a crush on a female camp counselor, writing her letters weekly and sending her presents — but back then I did not have the language, nor understanding, to describe what I was experiencing. It was not in the realm of the possible in the conservative, evangelical Christian world. Once I thought I was in love with the “bad boy” son of the Camp Director, but just did not know how to relate to him once we were actually dating. He was a lot of fun as a friend, but it just felt weird dating him.

In 2008 I suddenly remembered how I always blushed when I watched 2 women kiss on TV or in a movie, feeling somehow that it was an exposure of me – and I had repressed this. And why had the Indigo Girls’ music always spoken so strongly to me? Why did I feel such a close identification with the LGBT community all the while I was adamant that I was not really part of it? I would cry when LGBT issues were brought up in conversation.

So, in 2008, I finally allowed myself to consider women as potential dating partners. At first it was just fantasy, but eventually I found myself crushing on a woman friend. I talked to Colby about my feelings for this woman after I moved back to State College.

I got a job at Penn State in May 2008. I moved back to State College and told my ex he was not coming with me. After a month of heartbreaking discussions, he agreed to file a divorce.

As soon as I moved back to State College, I started hanging out with Colby and her twin again. Colby let it be known that she had, FOR YEARS, been telling people that I was the type of woman she would love to date. “If only Audrey was gay” she would sigh! I was initially only interested in her as a friend, but soon found myself falling in love with her. I discovered that she was my true soul mate.

In late May 2008 we started to date, and had our first kiss in early June. I was 40 years old! Within a month, we both knew that this was a forever love. We had a commitment ceremony in June 2009, and bought a house together. My kids are completely cool with it, and they love her as much as she loves them!

My dad, an evangelical Primitive Methodist pastor, is more okay with it than my mom, although he still claims to believe it is a sinful “lifestyle choice.” I really wish they understood that orientation is not a choice. My mom can’t accept us being together as a couple, but she loves Colby — she can’t help it! So we’ll see if they come around. My siblings have been silent on the matter, except for my closest sister, who is my strong ally.

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by Benjamin Golden

In the small eastern Pennsylvania town where I grew up, homophobic bullying was like the noisy freight trains that thundered daily along the tracks at the edge of town:  just part of life.  Everyone ignored the trains, I tried to ignore the bullying, and my politically conservative evangelical Christian parents seemed happy to ignore both.

My father was like the trains, sometimes loud and fast, others rumbling and plodding, always mercurial, unswervingly single-minded.  He and I were too much alike to get along and too different to understand each other, “strangers who knew each other very well,” quick tempered perfectionists with infuriatingly different ideals.  He spoke little.  I talked constantly.  He could fix anything.  I hated dirt under my fingernails.  We were both complicated and neither knew what to make of the other.  But when, after gathering courage for years, I finally came out to him in my mid-twenties, he betrayed neither surprise nor disappointment, only peaceful acceptance.

A few months later he slid into a coma during a Sunday afternoon nap.  Hospital tests that evening showed brain tumors.  He survived emergency brain surgery, gradually regained consciousness, and returned home late that week with a death sentence:  aggressive stage four brain cancer.  Another brain surgery followed four months later, then weeks of crippling chemotherapy and radiation.

The father I’d always feared and never understood became bedridden, confused, and slept around the clock.  He died shortly after 1:00AM one frigid February morning, three months before his fiftieth birthday.  Over three hundred mourners attended his funeral.  Only two were there just for him, another two just for me.  The last guy I’d dated had died suddenly a few months before, so I faced Dad’s funeral alone, mourning a paradoxical man I barely knew.

At the burial, a tent shaded the grave and cold wind whipped across the cemetery.  A family friend slowly played Ashokan Farewell on his violin.  Mom sat quietly on a folding chair near the grave, surrounded by my four younger siblings.  I leaned alone against the windward tent wall and hesitantly trusted the wind like I’d trusted dad.  The wind would have supported me if I’d let it.  Maybe dad would have, too.

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by Sean Berger

Strip away the flesh and bone
Look beyond the lies you’ve known
Everybody wants to talk about a freak
No one want to dig that deep
Let me take you underneath
- Adam Lambert

“Why do you dress like you do? Why do you make your gayness such a big part of your life? You are so much more,” my mom recently questioned me. Does she not realize this is who I am? I used to live a lie. She can’t understand. If she only could see my life as I do. If she had only lived the life that I had. That question would seem but foolish.

My name is Sean Andrew Berger. Born August 11, 1989, in a close suburb to Philadelphia, PA. Brown eyes. Light brown hair. I grew up a typical happy, and sarcastically funny boy. I loved matchbox cars, creating my own worlds of traffic on the living room couch. I loved to race people to the neighborhood fence where you could look through the cracks and see semi-trucks (a personal favorite) zooming by on the turnpike. I loved playing with neighbors and swimming in our little pool with slide. I loved to collect bugs and turn any day into a backyard adventure. Life was all about enjoying every moment of it. In my family, life was also all about Jesus. I grew up in a family where Jesus Christ and religion came first in everything. Praying before dinner. Praying before bed. Weekly church. It was standard. I memorized hundreds of Bible verses for church. It was drilled into me. In any decision in my life I was to put Christ first. I had no idea that very soon my faith would be shaken to its core, by a “choice” that I never made.

When I was around the age of five, I vividly remember an experience that would forever change my life. My mom received a phone call concerning my uncle. I would never, even to this day, find out the details of the call but they became irrelevant. The call brought my mom to tears for days. She needed counseling just to cope with its details. I was, as a young son seeing his mother in pain, very concerned for her and asked her just exactly what was wrong with my uncle. Was he dead? Hurt? Surely the reaction of my mother rendered something severe. “No, Sean, there is nothing wrong with him. I will tell you when you’re older,” My mom tearfully replied. She would however never need to explain. Piece by piece I put the puzzle together myself. My uncle must be gay. Being gay was a sin. Gays were to be hated. Gays went to hell. An unspoken understanding of the religion I grew up with. No wonder my mom was upset. Her brother was destined to eternal damnation. Soon after, I quickly became homophobic. I remember not sticking up for a gay student being picked on in the locker room. I remember not wanting to be around my uncle or respond to his emails. It wouldn’t be until the summer before middle school that I would find out that I was attracted to just guys. At that moment my memory of my mom’s reaction resurfaced. Surely, if my mom had this reaction about her brother, how much more she would be devastated by having a gay son as well. I remember one time questioning my mother about my Uncle in the guest room of our house. “Mom, can Uncle Phil ever change and marry a woman?” She simply replied not knowing its consequence, “Yes he can.” Right then and there I made up my mind what I was going to do. I was going to keep my attraction to guys a secret and somehow change my sexuality. They would never need to know. I would keep it a secret. Forever.

And I did. I regret my middle and high school years entirely. They are a missing decade of my life. Gone. Never to be gotten back. I have still never fully recovered. These years were nothing but silent suffering. Quiet pain. No one knew what was going on underneath. On the surface I was doing just fine. On the outside no one ever questioned me. I merely played the part. I excelled at playing three sports. I mastered two different instruments. I was actively participating in clubs and was getting straight A’s in school. No one ever knew there was a battle on the inside that was slowly killing me. No one knew that I never ever felt any happiness at all. I was viewed as just the quiet, shy kid in school. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I was simply holding back on the real me while screaming inside. I was scared to death that someone would find out that I was gay. I constantly felt guilty. Even about things that were out of my control, I would apologize. Many nights I could be found on my knees, begging God to change me, tears running down my face. I would attempt over and over again to get myself to be stimulated by girls but I never once succeeded. I would punish myself. Something was wrong with me. I needed to change. It would. Just not the way I had ever anticipated.

Eventually during my college years, my parents one night decided to investigate my computer while I was at work. What they found shocked them. Neither one of them expected to find guy on guy footage on my computer. They were devastated. I still remember coming home that night from work. It took all of a minute to know something was wrong. “Mom how are you?” No response. She just continued to wash the dishes. “Mom? How are you?” I said much louder so that she had to respond. She muttered something inaudible as she still didn’t even look up from washing the dishes. My heart sunk. My secret was out. I knew even before it was acknowledged. I would be brought to the basement as my sister was sent to bed. I had to pray on my knees to Jesus. I agreed to get counseling, scared. I had my phone and computer taken away from me. The next three days I lost over 10 pounds doing nothing but crying, throwing up and laying in bed.  My world came crashing down. My parents suggested that I drop out of college to focus on changing. I regretfully did. I became increasingly depressed, some days not being able to get out of bed. Less than a year later, I would come so close to committing suicide and ending my life.

Since almost killing myself, I have begun to slowly rebuild my life. I stopped going to the Christian counseling for my homosexuality, realizing that I cannot change. I have moved out from living with my parents and being surrounded by their ideals. I have come out to all of my friends and the rest of my family. I live proud, unashamed. Right now I am back in college working toward my major in communications and minor in business. I am building toward the future. A future that involves a husband someday. I am currently a volunteer in five different organizations trying to give back as much as I can. I want to turn my story of pain, isolation, silence into one of giving back, rejoicing, and hopefulness for others. I live to make the world a better place for LGBT individuals of the next generations. Why? So that they don’t lose a decade of their lives in painful silence, shutting down to the outside world. So that they can live vibrant lives celebrating who they are instead of crying themselves to sleep. So that they don’t live with regrets of not coming out sooner. So that they don’t feel as though they should end their lives. In the words of Harvey Milk, “I know that you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living.” I want to show people the hope that I have found. Hope to someday get married. Hope to someday raise a family. Hope of being accepted. Hope of being proudly me. “You gotta give ‘em hope.” And that is in the end what my life story has become. Hope.

So why do I make homosexuality such a big part of who I am? Mom, simply because I am proud. After years of hiding. After years of pain. After years of denial. I have learned that I am not a sin. I am not a mistake. My sexuality was not a choice. I need not be ashamed of who I really am. I need to let people see that my biggest scar, is the one that I am most proud of. “Welcome to my world of truth.”

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