Strange time to be in northern Colorado. I made it through the whole Meet the Parents week which included an open house and a Thanksgiving dinner. I could feel the scrutiny, every move and non-move being analyzed. Most of the time, I think I passed muster; a few times, I came off as disinterested or passive. Although Americans and Canadians are similar, there are subtle differences and my classically Canadian reserved nature, mixed with neither wanting to intrude nor being able to shake bouts of introversion, seemed a potent recipe for baffling friends and family who so love my boyfriend. Evan has no problem filling a room with his sense of style and his ability to keep people engaged. So what could he possibly see in me? They may never get it. Still, Evan loves me and that’s what matters.
I was in my head a lot, not so much trying to figure out Evan’s upbringing, but instead trying to make sense of the current state of being gay in America once drifting beyond the Left/West Coast. As Evan’s parents drove us from the Denver airport to Fort Collins, I saw a sign for Laramie, a town in Wyoming, only known to me as the place a young, gay man, Matthew Shepard, was beaten and left tied to a fence outside of town. He died six days later at a hospital in Fort Collins. This was a notorious hate crime before anti-gay attacks could be designated as such under federal legislation or Wyoming state law. That was long ago, I told myself. 1998. So much has changed.
Two days later, however, news broke of the shootings at Club Q in Colorado Springs, another town not so far from where we were staying. In an instant, it felt like not much had changed at all. Queer people remain the object of hate for, not the majority of Americans, but still for millions of them. Politicians and news personalities play up hate, fueling fear with misinformation comprised of vial lies and cheap shots.
I wanted to go to a vigil. I wanted queer people in Colorado Springs to feel supported and loved. Selfishly, I suppose I also wanted to feed off that communal love to push me to call out hate and shake the complacency I’d fallen into, holding hands so freely with Evan when we’re in Seattle and Vancouver. Our obligations didn’t allow time to attend. We hadn’t left space on the social calendar for events following a mass shooting. Go figure.
After a couple more days, we took a break from Evan’s family and friends, staying at a place in rural Wyoming, not far out of Cheyenne but, under the circumstances, feeling too remote. During a morning jog, the cold wind whipping my face as I headed along a road leading to a hamlet, I wondered who was in the pickup trucks that passed me. Was my stride too gay? Maybe my blond highlights were a dead giveaway. Rather than peer into the trucks, I glanced at tumbleweeds caught in wire fencing that paralleled the road. This wasn’t Laramie, but it was the same state. Matthew came to mind again.
When we left Wyoming and pulled back into the driveway at Evan’s parents’ home in Fort Collins, I noticed a sign in the front yard. Had it been there before? Had I grown too accustomed to the message so it hadn’t registered?
More EQUALITY
More HOPE
More HUMANITY
More PRIDE
More ACCEPTANCE
More LOVE
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
--MLK
The next day, I did another run, this time noticing a more common sign, one that I’ve seen in Bellingham, Seattle and Portland over the past several years. While initially heartened by its display in windows and on lawns of homes and shops, I’d gotten to a point of taking it for granted just as I do a security sign sticking out of someone’s front garden, a rainbow sticker on a store’s door or a going out of business banner dangling below a rug store’s awning. When something nears the point of being omnipresent, it becomes meaningless.
Until its meaning feels urgently important once again. These were positive signs in Fort Collins.
I suppose I’m an alarmist. There was reason to be more aware of my surroundings, but I’d been too infected by the culture of hate that plays in the news and on social media from the state that turned away from Liz Cheney and the land of gunslinging Lauren Boebert. Colorado was fine, Wyoming was fine. In fact, everything was better than fine. While Evan and I walked the relatively empty streets of downtown Cheyenne, we stopped for a selfie under a shop sign that depicted cowboys riding horses. As I stretched and strained, holding out the camera to get everything in the frame, a real cowboy rushed toward us. “Do you want me to take your photo?” he said. It was a simple gesture, offered in the friendliest tone. Kindness trumps, well…Trumpism. If anything, people I came across during my stay were more openly warm than in either Vancouver or Seattle.
In Canada, we rarely talk politics and certainly not with acquaintances. I don’t know who my friends and relatives voted for in the last municipal, provincial or federal election. We stick to other mundane topics like traffic, weather and where to get a good cup of coffee. (We mostly agree that it’s not Tim Hortons.) I feel things would be better in the U.S. if people’s political views were kept more private as well. At present, it’s a reflex action to shun and even ridicule people who align with The Other Party. Humanity takes a back seat to the blood sport of political potshots.
Unfortunately, there is no sign of Americans turning down the volume on politics. As long as anti-gay rhetoric is spewed, it must be challenged and refuted. Hopefully, we can forgo responding to hate with our own hate. Queers coined Love Is Love. Let’s spread the sentiment beyond marriage equality. We can be thoughtful and strategic in working to make hate crimes a thing of the past, once and for all.
