As an openly gay clergyman, Rev. Greer uses his unique perspective to bring two long-estranged communities—the church and the LGBTQ community—closer together.
“What is the queer community’s role in the #BlackLivesMatter movement?”
- Question submitted by Anonymous and answered by Broderick Greer as part of Everyone Is Gay: Second Opinions*
When I visited Ferguson in late August 2014, I went because I was helpless. I was embarking on my third and final year of seminary and had never felt as lost, confused, or displaced as I felt in the days and weeks following the lynching of Michael Brown. As I joined 40 other young adults on the 28 hour bus ride from Washington, D.C. to Ferguson, MO and back again, I was allowing my body to be, in some way, transported to a place where I – a queer, cisgender, black man – could be in solidarity with the death of a straight, cisgender, black teenager.
Nearly a year before Michael’s death, the queer black women – Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi – penned a “love note to black people” when they created the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter. This hashtag was created in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s – a straight, black cisgender teenager – lynching in 2012. So when you ask about the queer community’s role in this movement, I have to take pause, because queer black women are the collective genesis of this movement. Further, queer-identified black people like Alexis Templeton, Brittany Ferrell, Larry Fellows III, Darnell Moore, and DeRay McKesson have used their platforms and activism to center the stories and voices of queer and trans folks.
When black people are lethally targeted by law enforcement officers and vigilantes, those officers and vigilantes don’t see queer bodies, they see black bodies. They see another threat. They see another menace. They see “enemy forces”. There is no discrimination of gender expression or sexual orientation when it comes to state-sponsored violence against black people. This indiscriminate disdain for black life is, therefore, a clarion call for us to bring attention – in the spirit of writer Zach Stafford – to people like our brother Dionte Greene, a gay black man killed in Kansas City in 2014. If the United States government and local law enforcement officials won’t properly investigate and prosecute in the case of deaths like his, Rekia Boyd’s, and Tamir Rice’s, then we must pressure them until they do.
On Twitter, a number of us have asserted that, at this critical juncture in American history, our nation needs an intersectional human rights movement that will confront and transform the systemic realities of racism, white supremacy, sexism, heterosexism, transantagonism, income inequality, and educational disparities. In the words of Audre Lorde, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle, because we do not live single- issue lives.” Since none of us suffer alone, none of us will be liberated alone. If I am oppressed for being black and gay, then I will not be liberated until I am able to operate in the world as a whole, integrated person. And since my identity cannot be parsed, I will either be affirmed for who I am or not at all. You cannot affirm and celebrate my blackness without affirming and celebrating my queerness.
Thankfully, in Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometi, and so many others, the movement has voices who understand that our common liberation – whether it be as trans people, people of color, women, queer people, or a combination or cross section of all those ways of being, existing, and identifying in the world – is something deep, broad, and complex. Too many of us are dying due to unchecked, state-sanctioned racism, heterosexism, transantagonism, for us to not see the ways in which the violence waged against us is interrelated.
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"I came out of the closet last month as a gay male. Since then, I’ve heard nothing but positive words. However, I’ve come to feel very alienated around my male friends. It seems like every day they mention my sexuality in a lighthearted way. I mean, I appreciate being a hot topic, but I hate being objectified and viewed as "the gay guy" (which I have actually been called several times) Is this a phase or will I be dealing with this the rest of my life? And how can I prove to them that I’m normal?"
- Question submitted by Anonymous and answered by Broderick Greer as a part of Everyone Is Gay: Second Opinions.
Dear Very Alienated,
You are a courageous soul. Coming out of the closet as a gay man is one of the most important, life-altering claims you will ever make in your life. To claim your place as a sexual minority – especially when you don’t have to – sets you apart as a person of deep integrity and thoughtfulness. Unfortunately, this integration of self will not be appreciated by everyone. Whereas you have done the necessary work to disclose a reality you know to be true in your innermost being, many people you interact with on a daily basis have never done such intense self-evaluation. This difference in maturity might be at the root of your male friends’ “lighthearted” mention of your sexuality. If they can’t deal with your being gay, they need to grow up. The time is over for joking about sexual, racial, ethnic, and gender minorities, especially when we’re nothing but respectful of our majority counterparts.
When you made the bold step of coming out as a gay man, you sacrificed the privilege and convenience of being assumed as a straight man. As you know, straight male privilege is the comfort zone that keeps so many non-straight men from disclosing their sexual minority status. There are numerous gay men who marry women, become fathers, and settle into suffocating lives of closet-dwelling. You, however, have chosen a different path. You have the fortitude to be honest with yourself and the people you love about the beautifully complex person that you are and that is a true gift. Anyone, I mean anyone, who cannot accept you for who you are doesn’t deserve your time, attention, or thought. If the time comes to escort them to the exit door of your life, walk them there with all of the assertiveness and gentleness you can muster.
But before you escort them to the exit door of your life, tell them that you feel objectified when they mention your sexuality in a lighthearted way. Let them know that your sexual orientation is not something you are ready to make light of and that if they are your friends, they will respect your desire to be treated like a human being, not a sideshow. If they continue to belittle you, do just as this wise child did to his playmate: assert your needs. You cannot live your life pressed under the unrelenting, insensitive social urges of people who do not care about your emotional well-being. It doesn’t matter how you make your feelings known to them – a Facebook message, a handwritten letter, a face-to-face meeting – as long as you make your feelings known. Like Zora Neale Hurston said, “If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”
Will you have to deal with being called “the gay guy” the rest of your life? I do not know. I am an advice columnist, not a medium. I do know this, however: Being yourself is always the life-giving road to travel. Will there be unpredictable twists and turns on the path of authenticity? Yes. Will you find yourself, at times, unsure of your decision to disclose your sexual orientation to the world? Most assuredly. But there will also be moments when you can’t even remember what it was like to not be an out gay man. There will be moments when you know that the act of self-disclosure far outweighs an alternative of fear-based isolation. And through committing to being yourself, you are embodying a new kind of normalcy. A normalcy fed by transparency and genuineness. And that, my friend, is normal enough.
Yours,
Broderick
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"Some of my younger cousins are being raised pretty religiously as Christians… One of them said that gay people make her feel sick, I’m really afraid to come out to them, what if they don’t want to be around me anymore?"
- Question submitted by Anonymous and answered by Broderick Greer as a part of Everyone Is Gay: Second Opinions
Dear Friend,
I am tired of people using religion as an instrument of physical, emotional, and psychological violence against other human beings. I am tired of this becausereligion comes from a word that means to re-ligament. Religion, when practiced with human flourishing and the Divine’s glory as the end, it makes humanity, and the cosmos itself, more whole. The way your cousins are practicing religion is not re-ligamenting our fragmented world. It is, in fact, fragmenting it further. It is tearing our ligaments of shared humanity apart. With this in mind, I would like to offer a handful of observations that you may or may not find helpful on your journey toward wholeness.
1. You don’t make your cousin sick. Her sickness is prejudice-induced. We live in a world full of variety. There numerous kinds of species, linguistic families, academic disciplines, and reality shows (Ok. There’s only one kind of variety show: tasty trash). Variety in sexual orientations and gender identities is no different. Some people are asexual. Some people are straight. Some people are queer. Some people are transgender. Does seeing a person with a different color shirt than hers make your cousin feel sick? How about people of a different eye color than hers? Your cousin must learn to let difference empower her, not nauseate her. Her prejudicial posture toward you has nothing to do with you and everything to do with her inability to differentiate her emotional capacity to embrace difference from her weak stomach.
2. Fear is crippling and unsustainable. You stated that you are afraid to come out to your cousins because you disclosing your sexual orientation might cause them to not want to be around you anymore. This is a legitimate feeling. You don’t deserve to live your life afraid of the responses of people who supposedly love you with no strings attached. The fact that you are willing to wonder aloud about your about your relationship with your relatives is proof of your deep courage. You are not defined by fear. You are defined by the life you so desperately are embracing, question by question. Keep asking questions. Keep wondering about your flourishing and the relationships that matter most to you. When you stop asking those questions, your quest will come on to an end. Fear does not define you. Let your inquisitive, curious spirit define you and your courage sustain you.
3. God longs for your (and creation’s) wholeness. Since I am a Christian, I can’t help but speak as a person who believes that the God disclosed in the person of Jesus Christ is wholly love. Wholly. There is no fear in love. In love, in God, there is a deep longing for the flourishing of humanity. This means that God longs for not just your wholeness and flourishing, but the wholeness and flourishing of communities, nations, ecosystems, and the cosmos itself. Any feeling of fear, condemnation, or shame does not originate in God. It is from somewhere else. Any affirmation of your unique, beautiful humanity originates in God’s overflowing love and affection for you. Dwell on that affection. In Christian parlance, that dwelling is called contemplation. In contemplation, God invites us to be completely absorbed in the love that Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the one whom Jesus calls “Father” share among themselves.
Throughout history, God has reached out in dramatic and subtle ways to share this love with you. Soak in it. Bathe in it. And, however difficult it might seem, invite your cousins to do the same. You, and they, will be better for it.
Though I have approached your question as a person firmly rooted in the Christian tradition, I readily acknowledge that compassion is not unique to Christianity. Anywhere a person or community is actively engaged in the difficult work of compassion, inclusion, and love, there exists true human flourishing. I encourage you to surround yourself with the people and communities that will embrace you with you compassion, empowering you to be the person you want to be, in deep and rich ways. Compassion knows no limitation. It is not bound by race, class, national borders, socio-economic immobility, or sexual orientation. Offer it freely and receive it freely.
Yours,
Broderick
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“How do I deal with homophobic (and sexist and slightly racist) colleagues? I’m new to the job and so can’t really speak up. It wouldn’t go down well. Especially when it’s a small company with no HR department, I’m still in my probationary period, and the boss shares that horrible viewpoint. Should I just let it go? Because I really need this job.”
- Question submitted by Anonymous and answered by Broderick Greer as a part of Everyone Is Gay: Second Opinions
Dear In-Need-of-Job,
Your question isn’t complicated at all (I’m joking).
It’s actually consistent with a lot of the social difficulties I face on a daily basis. Here is my typical inner-dialogue, “Is this the right time for me to address what I perceive as a homophobic/racist/sexist statement? How will my speaking out about this perception impact my currently peaceful relationship with the verbal racist/homophobe/sexist standing in front of me? When is Happy Hour?” One of the challenges of being a sexual, racial, or gender minority is the constant reality of counting the cost of when to advocate for one’s self and when not to. There is no clear way forward at any given time. There are, however, a few ways of seeing yourself and others that might bring you peace in the midst of interpersonal chaos.
As you are probably already aware, there has been quite a bit of work done around micro aggressions, those subtle verbal indignities that take place in the everyday. Microaggressions can be racist, sexist, and homophobic in nature. No matter the frequency with which microaggressions occur, they have no place in your workplace, home, or relationships. It is within the best of the common good for those kinds of statements to be recognized for what they are: splinters in the fabric of human flourishing. This recognition, though, does not have to happen in a staff meeting or in the office of your boss. This recognition can occur on your terms. Be creative. Be proactive. Counter your office’s culture of microaggression by practicing microaffirmations.
Microaffirmations can range anywhere from silent phrases like, “I am enough. I beautiful. There is more to me than the eye can comprehend,” to verbal pronouncements like, “The joy of this day is shrouded in negativity. I will find the joy in this moment, no matter what.” To break out of the negativity of your coworkers and supervisor might make you look like a square, but it puts you in a respectable position. You will be letting the people around you know that you are a force to be reckoned with, a bitch of sorts. This self-differentiation is important. Push for clear boundaries. The point is not to be the bigger person. The point is to be the better person. When you encounter your offenders at staff meetings or around the water cooler, smile and nod. Your unwavering kindness is your best friend in this situation. To practice kindness in the face of injustice might be seen as a weakness, but it’s not. It takes immense strength to shower others with love. Just ask Martin Luther King, Jr.
The way you worded your question indicates to me that you are a thoughtful, introspective person. Guard your thoughtfulness and self-reflection. Do not allow your humanity to be stripped away by the thoughtlessness of others. Oppression, in whatever form it takes, does not happen in a vacuum. It devours the soul of the oppressor more than the oppressed. It damages relationships and tears down bridges. The reversal of that culture of oppression and aggression is in your hands. Remember that the people being waging these verbal assaults are not waging them against you alone. They are instruments of racist/homophobic/sexist systems much larger than any one person or group of people. We are all complicity in some way to these complex systems. With that in mind, I advise you to be patient and merciful as you sow seeds of a more gentle, kind future.
Your Fellow Struggler,
Broderick
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