LINGERING ON LABELS

We’re a product of our environments and the times in which we grew up. 

 

I grew up in an industrial city in Ontario, Canada at a time when smoking was absolutely fine—ashtrays were in every room. Tattoos were scary markings on members of motorcycle gangs and long hair on guys represented something nebulously radical or a complete lack of direction. “Retard” was a common putdown. First Nations people were reduced to caricatures. (I recall it being funny to assume a crossed-legged sitting position and raising a hand to say, “How” while jumping off a diving board.) Polack (derogatory for people who were Polish) and Newfie jokes (about people from Newfoundland) were shared without any thought of a filter. Fat people were mocked. Kids with glasses were made fun of. Same for redheads (like me). Sometimes hateful things were said about Germans, Italians, Jews, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Basically, any group that made themselves noticed as being different and “not like the others” could be disparaged. In an oh-so-white community, race couldn’t be used to rank and hate others so people went with whatever differences stood out. 

 

Pretty much every ridiculed factor mentioned in the preceding paragraph either no longer registers as a negative or is at least no longer something to joke about in most groups. Heck, Newfoundland, formerly abbreviated as “Nfld.,” is now Newfoundland and Labrador (N.L.). Eskimos are Inuit. The Northwest Territories is now smaller after part of it became Nunavut. Change happens. We accept. We adapt.

 

I’ve often wondered if there will ever come a time when we’ll run out of groups for which to be intolerant, when John Lennon’s “Imagine” will no longer be just that, when our seeming need to sort and assert false superiority will end. 

 

Ah, but I suppose that’s a Woke dream which when you think of that as an expression is inherently paradoxical. If that’s not to be, then I wonder what group will be next on the list to mock. Who will be the new punchline? What kind of discrimination will divide society next?

 

As I wrote in last week’s blog post and in several others in recent years, the T in LGBTQ is under attack, not just among homophobes but by some who claim to be L, G or B. For them, the community has gotten too big and, I suspect, too hard to keep up with. There are tantrums and then there are people who can’t or won’t cope that drop to the ground, cross-legged, eyes closed, hands over ears. 

 

No more! Make it go away. Make it stop!

 

The world does not stop. Every generation seeks to define itself differently from the ones before. New looks, new terms and, yes, new identities—or at least newer—seek awareness. Language and the way we exist is supposed to evolve. And yet, there are always groups that fight what seems foreign. “Why can’t THEY just shut up and be more like us?” 

 

History repeats itself, even if the characters change.

 

I’ve often thought the current resistance to transgender identities and rights is a last frontier for conservatives. With gay marriage and adoption now legal, with antidiscrimination laws protecting queer people in housing and employment, homophobia is losing ground. So politicians and many citizens are going all-in to fight against trans rights. This, in turn, causes alarm for some who identify as L, G or B. Just when things seemed settled—protected, safe-ish—the pushback against trans, pronoun choices and everyone else who identifies as any other rainbow/Pride label threatens lesbians, gays and bisexuals anew. It’s like all these “new” sex and gender identities are mucking things up and, well, hello resentment.

 

Much of what people do who go out of their way to identify as “LGB” with nothing else allowed to tag along is argue about how lesbians, gays and bisexuals are DIFFERENT from all the other labels. It’s sexual identity versus gender identity, as if those lines can be so clearly delineated. To them it’s clear, long-established labels versus new gobbledygook.

 

I view their position as conveniently limited and either overtly hateful or implicitly so by means of its intentional efforts to set themselves apart. You can define yourself as narrowly as you want so it’s all about you and you don’t have to advocate for anyone else. Indeed, there has been a backlash against white cisgender gay men based on the fact many gay bars of the past glory days were dominated by them, any racial differences either shunned or fetishized. But it went beyond that. White cisgender gay men was too large a group. There was a sorting system in which “fats and femmes” were funneled out and tops were higher esteemed than bottoms. Basically, gay men, who’d been discriminated against and bullied by straight men, perpetuated the ideals of masculinity even when in spaces free of straight men. We weren’t as “free” as we purported to be when we were in our own bars. 

 

I’ve heard groans of older white gay men. They don’t like the rainbow flag getting “cluttered” with BIPOC and trans representation. No, please go back to being quiet. We see you well enough. You’re equal as long as you’re quiet. 

 

Yeah, I get why that’s a hard sell.

 

I’ll say it again: terminology will continue to change. It’s expanded the numbers in our “community” to a degree but many in younger generations who might have come out as “gay” or “lesbian” in our day are finding more specific labels better represent them. How is that a bad thing? How is being clearer about your identity an affront to those of us who went with what were the only labels available to us. A younger First Nations person today might identify as gay or lesbian but might find that 2-Spirit better embeds a cultural connotation woven into gender and sexuality. 

 

One of the first “break-off” labels was queer. When I first started hearing it, I was uncomfortable. There was something abrasive about it. It wasn’t the conventional, gym-going, bar-hopping, dance-the-night-away gays who were calling themselves queer. Instead, it seemed to be some of the outliers who didn’t fit the mold as a status gay hottie or as something passable. It seemed to be a more politically active group. People more inclined to align during the AIDS crisis with ACT UP instead of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis or AIDS Project Los Angeles.

 

“Queer” was antagonistic. It brought on negative attention. It felt like calling yourself a fag. Why embrace a term of hate and repeat it? I wanted to work within systems rather than against or around them. Of course, I grew up repressed and, despite often describing myself as hating or ignoring rules, I was a conformist. 

 

Obviously, I get what “queer” people from thirty-five years ago were doing. I thank them. I don’t see the word as having any negative association whatsoever anymore. I prefer “queer” to “gay,” which was once the all-encompassing term, often consuming lesbians when used in a broader context. Saying “gay” was less of a mouthful than always saying “gay and lesbian” and maybe tagging on “bisexual” when feeling both generous and verbose. But “gay” meant a male-oriented word was the default term in accordance with more general societal practices. In writing classes, I often wrote “he/she” when speaking of a hypothetical person but it was discouraged by instructors. When unknown, it was a he/him world. So, it’s not just the “gay community” that’s become more nuanced.

 

For many, pansexual better represents sexual orientation than the technically gender-rigid bisexuality. Take your pick. Go for it! To stick to “LGB” and put one’s head in the sand is an obstinate way of saying, “It was good enough for me so…” 

 

Somewhere in that same dinner conversation, I’d expect to also hear any or all of the following sentence starters: “In my day and time…”; “When I was young…”, and “Back in the day.” Yes, things were different. Life twenty years ago is not the same as now. Thirty years ago, perhaps more different. Fifty…you get the point. Some things come back into fashion, but other things just evolve, for better or for worse. 

 

I could go on and on. I love the label “Questioning.” Maybe it feels safer, but it also recognizes there can be an evolution or fluidity in one’s own identity in terms of sexuality and/or gender. Welcome! May some of the older members of the “community” be looked to as mentors instead of scoffers who use words like “rubbish” and “hogwash.” 

 

But trans is still the biggest sticking point. That’s the group that people who put themselves in a “LGB” compound take most offense to. So many straight people they can align with! New mixers to attend! Look at all of us. We are not alone! Maybe “LGB” is itself a nuanced offshoot. The Log Cabin Republicans of old come to mind. If you’re mainstream lesbian, gay or bisexual enough, you can fit right in. Let all the others whose sexual and gender identities are less conforming be damned. 

 

It's the age-old sort of intolerance I saw directed to other groups when I was a kid. Why do you have to be so different?

 

Not everyone fits so neatly. That’s a foundational aspect of the rainbow symbol and its permutations. I suspect that many of the people who make a conscious decision to refer to LGB instead of LGBT or LGBTQ+ fit more comfortably and, to themselves, more clearly in the L, the G or the B. Sexual orientation was the only issue. They felt 100% cisgender. That’s why they are able to so conveniently say that T is about gender so it doesn’t belong with LGB. 

 

I want to harken Dana Carvey’s Church Lady (a drag character, incidentally) and say, “Well, isn’t that special?!” 

 

For me and for many, sexuality and gender blur together. Rejection has come from both. The kinds of discrimination, the forms of hate, the official planbooks against varied sexual orientation and gender are the same. Freaks. Perverts. Out to get your children.

 

Gays and lesbians have seen this played out fully for decades. We’ve seen how being more open and fighting back changes minds. Not the minds that are too entrenched. For them, the fighting back itself is mocked. Oh, look at the gays getting all rattled up. 

 

Again, the parallels are many. Why wouldn’t we want to unite? Why wouldn’t we join what some in the “community” may see as a broadened battle? It sickens me that a gay man or a lesbian would think, Well, I got my rights. I’m done. It sickens me more that they might think, Those trans folks and those who are diddling with gender pronouns are bringing us down with them. Yes, that’s happening but the blame goes to the haters on the right. Breeding hate in our “community” is not what I ever expected when politicians and school moms went after transgender people.

 

“I’m not like them” just doesn’t work for me as a reason to hate.

 

Again, I chose to come out as gay because I had a man’s body, I was sexually attracted to men and not to women. In truth,  I struggled from my earliest years about having been born a boy. Penis? Present. But I never ever felt like a boy. I couldn’t tell anyone and there were no public figures I could look to in order to process my frustration and confusion, but I had a strong sense I’d been born with the wrong body. I felt I was a girl in every way. I felt my life would have been so much easier as a girl. There wasn’t any part of me that aligned with boy thinking, boy feeling, boy being.

 

If I were a young person today, I would identify as nonbinary or, more likely, trans. I would make the medical decision that I chose, rather than that society expected, to live trans. Hormones, yes. Surgery, I’m not so sure. I’m extremely medically squeamish. I view most medical procedures as invasive, including last week’s blood test. (Didn’t faint—though I have in the past. My anxiety was obvious to both the attendant and myself.) Any change would have had to happen when I was much younger, when my conviction was greater, when I had more time to work through a change in gender identity.

 

It’s never too late? Oh, for me it is. And I’m okay with that. I did the best I could, getting through my younger decades with what I knew at the time. I’m mulling over pronouns and whether I want to label myself as nonbinary. Those changes make more sense, but I’m still on the fence. What I do know, however, is that gender and sexuality have always been intertwined with me. The LGBTQ+ umbrella makes perfect sense to me. There are spectrums for everything. There are grays between blacks and whites. The grays actually make life clearer than the absolutism of black and white.

 

So, I’ll restate what I thought was the obvious: LGB with the T.

 

LGBTQ+. Differences within and among, yes, as it should be, but let’s work on building that community into something authentic and affirming.

 

 

 

 

 

A "COMMUNITY" FORUM

I’ve been avoiding writing this post for a year. The topic felt like a downer…even for me. I sensed that, if I delved into the subject, I’d get riled up. I’d feel anger and shame toward part of my “community” which went against the much-hyped marketing machine promoting all the love and joy of #Pride. 

 

Truthfully, I’ve always felt “community” was a generous, aspirational term, perhaps even nothing more than The Emperor’s New Clothes…nothing at all. 

 

Gimme a “G”

 

When I was coming out in West Hollywood in the early ’90s, I questioned the term as applied to gay men. I rarely felt any connotative sense of closeness with the other gays packed into Rage or Arena. It seemed more like a competition and I didn’t even register as a contestant. Gay humor of the day was referred to as “camp” and, from what I could tell, it involved invoking names of actresses from old Hollywood movies and putting down every other gay person in the bar, including the “friends” you came with. Barbs were hilarious. The sad gays—the non-contestants—were easy butts of the jokes but so were the hunky men blessed with biceps and bubble butts. They didn’t notice the commoners in the bar so they had to be dissed. Jokes about IQ, penis size and those miserable acting auditions that meant they had to hang on to their catering jobs. 

 

I learned a few semi-snappy lines, but I couldn’t keep up whenever two people in my group got on a roll of tearing someone to shreds, all in good fun. I could see the cleverness, but the tone never sat well with me. So many of us had gone through our entire public school experience being bullied or desperately trying to pass as straight, perhaps proving our vulnerable masculinity by joining in on bashing the girly boys who had no hope of passing.

 

We’d survived, damaged for certain, but the worst was supposed to be behind us, not behind our backs in our “safe” spaces where we could swoon over Janet Jackson’s newly sculpted body and that video of hers with even swoon-worthier Antonio Sabàto Jr, now an unrepentant Trumper.

 

As gay men, our “community” required significant consultation and restructuring. Not that anyone ever asked me.

 

Add the “L”

 

The “community” seemed even more tenuous when factoring in lesbians. The first out person I knew was a lesbian, a roommate and co-worker of mine. She’s still near and dear to me in my heart even if we haven’t seen one another in decades. I never seem to find myself in the Tulsa area, go figure. I met many of her friends and I swore I was meant to be a lesbian. More down to earth, yet somewhat guarded. Like me. I felt safer and more welcome among lesbians than among gays. Part of that, of course, was lesbians weren’t judging—and rejecting—me for my looks. I could just be me and they could be themselves. Life was comfortable.

 

But the more I stepped into a world of gay men, the less that space seemed to include lesbians. Our “community” seemed to mostly operate on parallel paths, supportive in the abstract, but the gays seemed to think the lesbians were too serious, too settled down and, gosh-darn, too outdoorsy. My take: too much substance. Gay men were more into “lite” and fluffy…and six-pack abs. My life would have made much more sense as a lesbian.

 

How ’bout a “B”?

 

Then there was that B of folklore, the bisexual. I didn’t feel a sexual attraction to women, but I loved the idea that someone could fall in love or have sex with either gender. (It was a two-gender world back then. I love the notion of being pansexual even more now.) This was so egalitarian. Love any, love all. This seemed evolved. It just didn’t fit me. 

 

Bs were uniformly mocked by gay men. Worse, there was disdain and resentment. We gays had done the hard work in coming out, but bisexuals were still trying to have it both ways which clearly couldn’t possibly be a thing. It was cowardly. Only “out” when it was convenient. Someone needed to grab them by the ankle and pull that other foot out of the closet. Part of the “community”? Puh-leaze. Come back when you’ve figured it all out. Yeah, the hostility was palpable.

 

Teetering with “T”

 

Ts. Oh, dear. This was the toughest. Trans was about gender more than sexuality. It was a distraction. Bringing them into the “community” made things more complex and gays didn’t like much complexity, nothing more than spirited debates about whether Jack from Will & Grace was TOO gay, whether Ellen was funny and whether it was still okay to ogle Milli Vanilli videos even though they were straight lip-synchers. Gays struggled with accepting the more feminine among us. What a leap to come to terms with gender changes whether FTM or MTF! Couldn’t we all just order another martini and ogle the go-go boy’s thong?

 

It is “LGBT,” right?

 

But we’ve all come around, haven’t we? Surely we’re closer. We’ve gone from a Pride weekend to a whole #PrideMonth. Doesn’t that bring on more familiarity? Doesn’t exposure lead to understanding and acceptance? Isn’t that what Joan Baez or some other beloved sixties icon tells us? Is that what Britney’s “Stronger” is about? (Really, I’m more about that “Oops!...I Did It Again” ditty.) If not Britney, than Gaga with “Born This Way.” How many times did I hear that last month. Surely, it’s sinking in.

 

But, no. Not for everyone. There are gay men, lesbians and bisexuals who are firmly anti-T. I was coasting along, surviving COVID, avoiding JK Rowling hogwash and openly wondering how many transgender girls—just girls, really—were building trophy cases for all their track meet medals. Apparently, “real” girls would no longer have spots on the softball team, in golf or in the pool. People were changing gender to get a massive collection of high school ribbons. My god, what a coup! 

 

Quite by chance, I came upon a tweet with the hashtag #LGB. It looked funny. A typo. 

 

If only. They publicly claimed to be LGB. The T omission was intentional.

 

I then saw tweets denouncing proponents of “LGB without the T.” Were we really doing this? Were we still fracturing “community”? “LGB” didn’t mesh with rainbows, glitter, acceptance and inclusion. I can tell myself “LGB is a hate group—a rogue faction—not a hate “community.” I need to imagine it smaller, something containable. 

 

It’s time to cut the backbiting and belittling under the rainbow. How do we excommunicate a vial part of the “community”? 

 

And, for the grand finale, cheers to LGBTQQIP2SAA!

 

Let me unpack that: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Pansexual, Two-Spirit, Androgynous and Asexual. [That’s from one source. I’m not sure about “androgynous.” Is that “A” supposed to be for aromantic instead?] 

 

I saw that…some eyerolls. 

 

Not a good look among mean girls in high school and a worse look among supposedly evolved adults who want their own love and belonging without necessarily adapting to allow others to find a term that facilitates their own sense of identity.

 

There are various versions of the expanded acronym. It’s visually A LOT. That’s to be expected when it comes to diversity. I personally accept “Q” as in queer as the broadest term to refer generally to all of us, but I’m fine with people who cringe at Q or who don’t want to be swallowed up and unseen yet again with a big Q. Same for when LGBTQ or LGBTQ+ is used. It’s a fair point. When our “community” is referred to as capital-Q “Queer,” most people see the gays and lesbians first and foremost. For those who don’t identify as either, Q can have the effect of erasing everyone else, reducing them to “M” for miscellaneous. 

 

Think about that…Nobody wants to be miscellaneous, a word rarely even spelled out. Misc., akin to Etc. That doesn’t feel like accepting a person’s identity.

 

Full disclosure: I don’t have a longer acronym memorized. I will get some of the other letters wrong. I will inadvertently leave something out. The slight to whomever identifies with the forgotten letter will always be unintentional—but it will understandably offend. 

 

I can handle being corrected. 

 

I can even allow for the fact I may not be able to keep up. 

 

I try. I continue to listen and read. I’ve been intentional about seeking and reading books—both fiction and nonfiction—that center on letters for which I have less familiarity. As an introvert, I stick with a few close friends, whether near or far, and, now that I’m not working, the chances of meeting someone with a less common or new-to-me identity are slim. Reading makes my world bigger and, yes, more diverse.

 

I don’t ever want to shut down when it comes to learning about our growing or changing “community.” If I do, let me step out of the way. The world evolves. Change happens. Let it.

 

There are many changes in other realms I don’t know much about. TikTok. What generation is supposedly in its prime now. Bitcoin. That’s okay. I can be uninformed; just don’t let me be misinformed and, if I feel I am, let me have the sense to shut up. 

 

I’d like to hope that #PrideMonth has emboldened younger queers and enlightened more of the older ones. I’d love it if we crossed some bridges together. Let there be less ageism in our “community,” too! Let the younger generations accept us older queers with the labels we selected based on what was on the coming out menu du jour. 

 

I suspect that some who are advocating for greater recognition, respect and rights for people who identify as trans, ace or pansexual may at times come off as strident or obnoxious. For trans people, in particular, they are under attack by politicians, by conservatives and, as noted above, by people who are supposed to be part of their own community. 

 

We are not our best selves when under attack. We may be angrier, less eloquent. For those who are younger, there are also developmental issues of having less tact and having a sense of knowing more than is actually the case. Younger people will always have a tendency to rub older folks the wrong way and, unfortunately, be dismissive of “out of touch” oldsters. Context regarding age, external agitation and the stakes should help the more “mature” among us to see some of that stridence as passion and conviction. There’s no need for it to be a personal affront or to dismiss the core message.

 

The “community” can itself grow, learn from its past (and current) examples of intolerance and become more welcoming. Let the real work behind #Pride continue throughout the year. 

FINDING VALUE IN SCREEN TIME

Here’s the really great thing that’s arisen during the pandemic: I’m feeling more linked to the LGBTQ community than I have in the past two decades. This old dog is learning new things, too. Thank you, Zoom! It would probably be different if I had to connect with coworkers on a screen during most workdays. If that were the case, I’d probably be cursing the platform. Get people off my screen! Mute yourself! Stop posting questions! Let’s end this session!

For me, Zoom is a choice. It’s offers comfort and connection. I don’t have to put on shoes or change out of my shirt with the brand new coffee stain. (If this were a Rorschach test, I’d say it’s a horse’s head. And, no, I’ve never seen “The Godfather.”) Any anxiety is slight. Could I possibly get the time wrong? What if the link doesn’t work? What if they can see me and I don’t know it? (If only I’d changed shirts!) An event moderator appears on screen and, whew, all is good.

I lost my Zoom virginity relatively late, maybe mid-June. A children’s author talked about her new book and her writing process. Can’t recall a thing about it now.

Apparently it was satisfying enough that I Zoomed again a week later. This time it was an LGBTQ alumni event from the school where I got my undergraduate degree. Texas Christian University. My friends in British Columbia always crinkle their noses when I mention TCU. With both Texas and Christian in the name, they assume I was surrounded by Jerry Falwells and Ted Cruzes, the Bible on the required reading list for every class and a pistol as a basic school supply. Just because. (Hold on to your rights!) In truth, I had great times at TCU. It never felt all that religious, aside from a school prayer that kicked off each football game before we broke into cheers like “Give ’em hell” and “Kill ’em!”

Of course, I didn’t come out during my time at TCU. It was the early ’80s and I’d heard talk of some news article that the school had the highest proportion of gay students in the country. (Purple and white were the school colors, for god’s sake!) Article or not, no one was out. Not. A. Single. Person.

And so it was astonishing that, in 2020, there was such a thing as an LGBTQ alumni group and that the event came through as a regular TCU post on my Facebook feed. Turns out the Zoom session, a talk by a gay professor—Mexican-American, no less!—about the history behind one particular panel of the AIDS quilt, was the group’s inaugural event. As far as I can tell, there was no uproar. A second Zoom talk is set for next week.

Feeling fully Zoom-comfy, I’ve since attended several other LGBTQ events online: a talk with author Garth Greenwell, a discussion with Canadian artist Keith Monkman about his exhibit at Vancouver’s Museum of Anthropology, three literary events sponsored by Word Vancouver and another put on by the Victoria Festival of Authors.

These are focused talks on LGBTQ matters—mostly, the arts—that go deeper than anything that comes up with my two gay friends I still see as the pandemic drags on. During our socially distanced coffee chats or talks during hikes, we’re more apt to talk about what everyone seems to talk about these days: the coronavirus and Trump’s latest appalling Tweet or stunt. (I look forward to a day when people can go back to whining about the weather.) Zoom offers an hour of gayness. More importantly, I’ve listened and learned about parts of the “community,” going beyond the G and, more particularly, the white G. The most recent event introduced me to four queer writers—one lesbian, two trans, one gay—who also identified as QTBIPOC (Queer and Trans Black Indigenous People of Color). Lots of letters. Terms like “cis” and “non-binary” were also thrown in the mix.

It all goes a long way from the L and the G that I grew up with, when the B was often challenged and mocked and the T was sometimes embraced, sometimes cause for distancing. At times, all the extra letters have confused me. In a post from January 2019, I favored LGBT or LGBTQ as the outer limit for non-hetero spoonful of alphabet soup. All the variations can be assumed to fall within the general G, the broader interpretation of gayness that goes beyond just men attracted to men. In the alternative, Q might be the catchall letter. Easy for me to say as a white gay man. In North America, I fall within the majority of the LGBTQ minority. G works for me. It offers me a sense of place. But now I’m learning how a gay Syrian refugee needs to identify and connect with BIPOC as much as he needs to come to terms with his place within LGBTQ and that he can find even greater validation when sharing thoughts and experiences with its subset, QTBIPOC. There are nuances in identity that a predominately white society doesn’t always pick up on, acknowledge or understand.

Some (presumably white lesbians and gays) will find all of this as too politically correct, too attention-seeking. (I cringe whenever someone says “too woke.” It drips with smugness and derision.) I get that all the extra letters can sometimes seem to create distance instead of community. By themselves, the letters do that. I’m just G (and I suppose I’m okay with the Q now). But, clearly, I’m not L, not B, not T and none of BIPOC applies. I suppose I could lament this. I could say it’s hard to find myself in this evolving community of Pride. Isn’t that what certain white Americans are doing when they begrudge new immigrant waves and the rising voices of people of different skin colors? This doesn’t look like the country I grew up in. Why should it?

It’s difficult for me to grasp that some people who come to embrace the rainbow flag fight for their own acceptance and then are content with calling it a day. I’m “in.” Let that be enough. Everyone else should assimilate. In our own community, I wish we all could dig deeper. We share a common yearning to be understood and accepted, but for that to happen for many of us, there are extra layers. For now, LGBT or LGBTQ will be the default label in print and in conversation. Still, if some Pride seekers want to and need to shine a light on an asterisk or an extra letter so that they feel their own sense of place, I can welcome that. I can seek to understand why that makes them feel more represented and more included. It takes nothing away from my identity as a gay man.

I’ve always valued diversity. It fascinates and excites me. In practical terms, however, my understanding has been somewhat naive, a bit too much like a flower child imploring folks to hold hands and sing, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.” (Favorite commercial ever. Even if I’ve never been a Coke drinker.) These Zoom experiences have put me in touch with people I didn’t get to meet and listen to in my pre-pandemic comings and goings at the gym and at my favorite cafe writing hangouts. I could see diversity, but there was never engagement. It was as if there was more plexiglass around myself (and around them) then than now.

Even if all these events were held in a physical space a block away from me and the coronavirus never happened, I probably wouldn’t have attended any of them. I might have had good intentions but, as a socially anxious person, I’d have found an excuse to stay home.

This very strange year has offered unique opportunities. I am invigorated by the thought-provoking moments of connecting that have emerged through a landscape that, at first blush, appeared to be so isolating.