as we all celebrate adam rippon and his brilliant performance this past week for the figure team competition at the winter olympics in pyeongchang, i want to remind the universe of the fabulous rudy galindo, a latinx HIV positive gay man who queered the figure skating world more than 20 years ago.
after winning a few junior championships, rudy got a taste of national success skating with kristi yamaguchi, when they won the US national championships in both 1989 and 1990. their partnership soon ended as kristi began her very successful career as a solo skater. rudy’s solo skating career was quite the opposite.
although surviving extreme poverty, rudy’s family had sacrificed everything to support his dream as a figure skater. during the late 80s and early 90s, rudy struggled personally as two of his coaches and his brother George succumbed to HIV. his sister laura became his coach.
after taking 8 months off from competing, the 1996 US championships were taking place in his hometown of san jose, california. rudy decided to give his skating dream one more shot and decided to compete. he would skate one of the most beautiful and most remembered long programs ever.
with thousands of people cheering for him, rudy became the oldest US national champion. he became the first out national champion. he became the first mexican-american national champion. that night, rudy became a gawd damn legend!
rudy would go on to win the bronze medal at the world championships. he retired from competing soon after but still skated professionally and chyle, he gave you performances! in april of 2000, he disclosed that he was living with HIV. he skated to “ soon in the clowns” soon after.
“HIV/AIDS is not a death sentence. you can go out there and do what you want.” rudy galindo. he has become an HIV advocate and now coaches kristi yamaguchi’s daughter. and despite not initially having the support of the skating world, rudy is now celebrated as a pioneer.
fun fact: when i was in the hospital w/ a t-cell count of 100, the woman i shared a room with, in an attempt to make me feel better, said, “you know who rudy galindo is? he is so lovely. like you, so lovely.” that shit still stays with me. “if he can survive this, so can you”
much like rudy, i survived and found that place over the rainbow to shine.
Dyke power move: manspreading next to a man to show him who’s the boss (you)
But closing your legs for when a lady needs to sit
true power is maintaining the manspread. the lady sits on ur knee: it’s your beautiful wife in your lap as you both laugh in the face of the man next to you
omg i don’t even know what this show is but the idea that we have this on tv is kind of amazing to me. There was nothing like this when I was a kid. At all. Ever.
when i was a baby gay i had a huge crush on Darlene from Roseanne
they really tried to pretend this character was heterosexual
Didn’t we all? Also, Sara Gilbert realised she was a lesbian while dating her on-screen boyfriend, Johnny Galecki, so in my own head canon that’s what happened with Darlene, end of. Gay forever after. Like Steve Rogers has been claimed by the Bisexuals, Darlene Connor is forever of the generation of wlw who had their first big gay awakenings listening to Melissa Etheridge, Jill Soubule, and Sarah McLaughlan, wearing plaid and black nail polish, writing poetry and songs, and watching Daria in the afternoons.
I’m from the position where I didn’t grow up in Provo or a town like it, I grew up in Australia, where Mormons are a Christian minority, but that separateness still dictates everything. Everything is about us and them and the line between. I don’t think I had a single teacher that my mother didn’t make me give Books of Mormon to. Every friend that visited my home, my mother pressured me to bring to church. LDS members buy from other members, hire other members, socialise with other members, and glory in that isolation. But at the same time, there’s the incredibly toxic fishbowl of church culture. If your parents separate, for example, shunning is a very real thing. I had mothers refuse to let me touch their babies, as though family dysfunction was catching. And I was a child at the time.
Nothing was secret, either. I was abused, and all my school teachers were quietly informed, so that I was given an easier time of things. All but one. Why? He was a church member, and my mother knew that if he knew, his wife knew, and if his wife knew, the ward and even the stake knew. Anything told to the bishop was told to his wife and circulated through the congregation. Women, in particular, were ruthlessly policed, not only by the men but by each other. Anyone who couldn’t keep up with church callings, work, home and family while keeping a permanent smile pasted in place was obviously sinning somehow. All you had to do was trust in God, and that was easy, right? I read somewhere that Mormon states in the US have the highest per capita anti-depressant use. I don’t know how legit it is, but I believe it. I was medicated by sixteen, and no matter how hard I tried, I was never enough. We had one pregnancy in my high school in my age group, out of 150 kids. Our young women’s group, 25 girls aged 12-18, had about a 50% teen pregnancy rate. Hypocrites and liars and smile, smile, always smile.
And that isn’t even touching on the unspoken spectre of what would happen if you were anything but cishet/straight. In Australia, there wasn’t Evergreen, but there was always the understanding that kids who were wrong went somewhere to be fixed. I read Saving Alex last year, and all I could think was that this was what the new face of cure culture was. I knew someone online years ago who’d been through Evergreen. Out of the dozen or so who were there at the same time, he was the only one who hadn’t yet killed himself.
“For me, though, it all came down to the people I met with–the actual human beings who were coming to my office. They would come and sit down with me, and they would tell me their stories. These were good people, former pastors, youth leaders, relief society presidents, missionaries, bishops, Elder’s Quorum presidents, and they were … there’s no other way to say this. They were dying. They were dying before my eyes. And they would weep in desperation—after years, decades, of trying to do just as they had been instructed: be obedient, live in faith, have hope. They would weep with me, and ask where the Lord was. They would sob. They would wonder where joy was. As a practitioner, it became increasingly obvious: the way the church handled this issue was not just inconvenient. It didn’t make things hard for LGBTQIA people. It became more and more clear to me that it was actually hurting them. It was killing them.”
And yes, that’s what Church policy is meant to do, it’s what it’s always been meant to do. It’s meant to kill us. If we die, then we’re a sad story, designed to spread a message. We were weak, God meant for it to be, and isn’t it better this way?
The only way to win is to stay alive. Eat your anger and let it burn in your belly. Stand in that field without walls and scream long and loud, and don’t smile for anyone else’s comfort. Wear rainbows like armour and love like you’re throwing grenades. Survive, and seek happiness, and prove the bastards wrong. And that, that is why this book is so important. It’s a story so normal, so sweet and simple, about two people finding love and finding themselves, and the happy ending isn’t the one the church says is the only way. There are many roads to happiness. You might have to look long and hard to find them, but it isn’t one-size-fits-all. It isn’t predetermined. It’s individual, and unique, and beautifully, wonderfully average. That’s what the church doesn’t want queer kids to know. That’s what this book reveals, so beautifully. And I’m just so blown away that it exists, in my lifetime, and that I got to read it. It’s wonderful.
Just requested five purchases from my local library: Autoboyography, Beneath the Sugar Sky, When the Moon was Ours, Not Your Sidekick, and Dreadnought.
They bought Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel and Down Among The Sticks and Bones for me last year, so. *fingers crossed*
Reminder that you can request items for purchase, and then, not only do you get to read them if the library buys them, but you’re making them available for others, for example, closeted queer kids who can read them at the library under the guise of study if their home isn’t a safe space. Be the change you wish you had when you were a kid.
❤ ❤ ❤
Wait, Dreadnought by April Daniels?! It’s so good! I mean, gonna warn you that it has hella transphobic characters (including an emotionally abusive father) that you’re supposed to hate, but it’s really good if that’s not an issue for you.
I actually own it already – I bought a second hand copy from BetterWorldBooks – and I love it and think it’s super important. I know the transphobia in it is hard to read, but it’s not sugar-coated and it’s an #ownvoices writer describing a very common transgender experience through the lens of science fiction. I don’t think there’s anything quite like it in my library’s YA collection yet. Thanks for the warning, though.
Just requested five purchases from my local library: Autoboyography, Beneath the Sugar Sky, When the Moon was Ours, Not Your Sidekick, and Dreadnought.
They bought Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel and Down Among The Sticks and Bones for me last year, so. *fingers crossed*
Reminder that you can request items for purchase, and then, not only do you get to read them if the library buys them, but you’re making them available for others, for example, closeted queer kids who can read them at the library under the guise of study if their home isn’t a safe space. Be the change you wish you had when you were a kid.
knitting in the dark 