Way Back Wednesday- Pride addition!

In honor of Pride week here in the Lou this week I have decided to dedicate today's Way Back posting to Pride's gone by. This will be my 5th year celebrating and I absolutely cannot wait!

My very first gay pride with my sissy in June of 2005!

My shirt says I love my gay sister!

Pride 2006, gotta love the shirts. Mine says "Got Dick?" my sister's says "Got Pussy?" My mom came with an "I love my gay daughter t-shirt".


Nick and Ray samich- Pride 2007 Pride 2007, Ana and I with Kari's gays. Not sure where Kari and Brad went off to.

Pride 2008, early drunkeness and mayham. Ana and I were wasted by parade's end, as you can clearly see here.

And my best butch lesbian for you all to see. In 2007 I got a fake arm band tat...that really did the trick! I can't find the damned pic!

Anastacia and myself after the downpoor of the parade to drunken monkey madness at noon!

Hubs and I sitting on the stage at Novak's...this is a first

Making out with gay men...happy PRIDE!!!!!

This picture pretty well wraps up the evening, I think

Just a reminder on how we truly ended it. Hubby with my bra on his face claiming "I smell nipples" Here's to another great Pride STL, bitches!



Happy Pride 2009!!!!!

Hag samich, me and my mens. Anastacia on the left and hubby on the right

H8

Once again, the events of this week have sent me almost over the edge. I am reaching out to the blogosphere for some guidance and support. It all started with Perez Hilton being punched in the face by management for the Black Eyed Peas over the weekend. Long story short, Fergie Fug and Will.i.am asked Perez to not post about their band on his blog and Perez said, “Ummmmm, no”. Fug and i.am followed Perez from party to party. Perez gets angry and in an attempt to make BEP’s angry, he calls will.i.am a faggot. I do not condone that language in any way but Perez is a clear bottom in my mind so it’s ok for him. Kinda like I can say my sister is a bitch but if you do, you are getting punched. Anyhoo, eventually BEP’s manager ended up sucker punching (Sucker Punch- This occurs when someone hits someone else from behind, usually when the person being hit doesn't know it until afterwards. Usually considered shady or a "bitch move".) Perez in the eye…repeatedly. I don’t really care about any of this…it’s really just the back story.

So today it seems the news has saturated the minds of Americans. After some time and hard consideration, we the American people defend the attacker and blame the victim. People have tried to make it a gay issue saying Perez shouldn’t have called Will a faggot. I agree but being as Perez himself is a big flaming homo, I don’t really see an issue with this. Then there are others that say well, he blogs nasty things about people all day long so he should expect what he gets. Lots of people have talked about my good friend, Karma. Perez himself addressed this opinion best: "Karma would be me losing my site and going bankrupt or what have u...Karma is not getting punched in the face." Even Newsweek is weighing in: http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thehumancondition/archive/2009/06/23/john-mayer-perez-hilton-and-the-politics-of-victim-blaming.aspx

I honestly could not agree more with their opinions as far as blaming the victim. It is kind of like Jodie Foster’s character in The Accused (circa 1988). If you haven’t seen it, basically Jodie’s character is dressed up for a night out, ends up in a seedy bar and gets gang raped by a group of men. I remember watching this movie for the first time with my dad. Prepare yourself for what is coming next but he actually said “well, she shouldn’t have gone into that bar dressed like that if that wasn’t what she wanted”. Really? You really thing that? And you are really going to say it out loud to your 10 year old? My parents didn’t shelter me from anything. They wanted my sister and I to see the world for what it was. My dad made me realize how one-sided and cruel the world can be. I, of course, turned it around and said, “so if that was me, dressing like that, you think I would deserve it?” And that is how you change someone, one conversation at a time. I am still appaled when I think of that conversation today. What if I had been a weak little girl who believed what her daddy said? What if I had identified with my dad and the attackers instead of the victim?


Matthew Shepard

How about Matthew Shepard? Matthew was a young gay man figuring out his life. He lived in Wyoming where gay people and gay issues were seldom talked about. Small fact I learned while on vacation 5 years ago in Laramie, there is not a gay bar in the great state of Wyoming. I am sure there is some seedy joint that has to keep quiet but not one we could find through much internet research but I digress. Matthew struggled with his sexuality and found it difficult to deal with on his own. He attended a few out-of-state universities and took class trips that allowed him to see outside of the closed minds of Wyoming. He became more comfortable in who he was and what he was about. And then he went home to Laramie. On October 7, 1998 two men, Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, lead him to a remote area east of Laramie where they demonstrated unimaginable acts of hate. Matthew was tied to a split-rail fence where he was beaten and left to die in the cold of the night. Almost 18 hours later he was found by a cyclist who initially mistook him for a scarecrow. Matthew died on October 12 at 12:53 am at a hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado. His entire family was by his side for the last few days of his life. His funeral was attended by friends and family from around the world and gained the appropriate media attention that brought Matthew's story to the forefront of the fight against hate. The Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act was introduced to the House 5 times from 2001 up until this year. In 2009 it was finally passed by the House and is pending with the Senate Judiciary Committee. It has taken tireless years of service, time and money on behalf of millions of volunteers, parents and gay-lovers to make this happen and it still is not done! I guess if Matthew had not had the audacity to be gay in Wyoming he might still be alive.

Another example sighted by Newsweek is the recent media circus surrounding Rhianna and Chris Brown. I was enraged when the news broke of the alleged beat down that took place before the Grammy’s. Seeing the photos of RiRi’s bruised and battered face made me think about the inner scars that would last much longer that the ones outside. The first thing media speculated on was “What did she do to make him do it?”. It was assumed immediately that the victim was at fault. She read his texts, she was jealous, she was to blame. No wonder battered women look for ways that they were responsible, that is what the rest of society is doing!

Angie Zapata

I think the reference that cuts me the deepest is the one made to Angie Zapata's story. Maybe because my wounds to this particular hate crime are still very raw. Angie was a transgendered 18 year old with her whole life ahead of her. She was born a boy and realized at 12 years old that she just did not identify with that gender. Her family (God love them) was very accepting and supportive. Due to heavy harassment and constant threats of violence that were never addressed by the school, Angie dropped out and moved to be closer to her family. She got her own apartment, watched her nieces and nephews and intended to start school for fashion. On July 17, 2008, Angie Zapata was brutally murdered in her Greeley, Colorado apartment. Two weeks later, Allen Andrade was arrested. Andrade has been charged with first degree murder, aggravated motor vehicle theft, identify theft and a bias motivated (hate) crime by the Weld County District Attorney. You can do your own research of the case. I am sure there are many opinions but to me this beautiful young life was cut short over hate, plain and simple. People say it was her fault. She had a social networking site that said she was a straight female. She lied so she deserved to die? I guess that is the logic. Correct me if I am wrong but there is not transgender box on MySpace, Facebook or any other social site that I am aware of. Perhaps she would have checked the box marked “Chicks with Dicks” if given the option. I guess we won’t ever know. The case is actually in a jury’s hands as I type this. The big argument on this case is WHEN she came out to her attacker. Did she tell him in the 700+ correspondences that they had via e-mail or text? Did he know days before that she was a man living as a woman? Or did he find out when he showed up at her apartment? You might be wondering but why does that matter? Well because if she didn’t tell this man she was transgendered then it isn’t his fault for killing her, is it? He flipped out and killed her, that’s all. Part of Allen Andrade’s statement reads: "It's not like I went up to a school teacher and shot her in the head, or killed a straight law-abiding citizen,".:Jurors were shown partial transcripts of tape-recorded jail calls in which Andrade allegedly told his girlfriend that he "snapped" and that "gay things need to die." Andrade was arrested July 30, nearly two weeks after Zapata's sisters discovered her body under a blanket in her apartment. Andrade told investigators that he struck Zapata twice in the head with a fire extinguisher and thought he had "killed it" before striking her again as she struggled to get up, the arrest affidavit said. Andrade is believed to be the first person tried for a hate crime under the sexual orientation section of Colorado's hate crime law, according to the New York and Los Angeles-based Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. Colorado is one of 11 states to have such designations in their laws. Andrade has five felony convictions, according to court records.

"Killed it", can you imagine that "it" as your child? I bet Judy Shepard and Maria Zapata couldn't fathom it either. I will be watching this case and I hope you do too. I hope you talk to your kids about hate and hate crimes. I hope no mother ever has to endure what Judy Shepard and Maria Zapata have and will continue to for the rest of their days.


“We have seen a man dragged to death in Texas simply because he was black. A young man murdered in Wyoming simply because he was gay. In the last year alone, we've seen the shootings of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish children simply because of who they were. This is not the American way. We must draw the line. Without delay, we must pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. And we should reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.”
Former President Bill Clinton

I like my beers cold and my homosexuals flaming. ~Homer Simpson

Homo-sani (homo sandwich)



When I decided to take time out of “The Game”, the dating game that is, I was afraid that I would want for male interaction and attention. I used to say, “If I could just find someone to curl up on the couch and watch a movie with me, I’d be happy”. When I first started working at Culpepper’s (AKA: Hell-on-earth) there was this bitch that started right around the same time as me. I say bitch because I have never seen a man throw so much attitude in my life. He made me laugh to the point of crying and never let me down when I needed to hear someone get bitch-slapped with words. This bitch was more caddy, outrageous and downright over-the-top than I was and I fucking loved him. And so that is the story of how I met my husband. We slowly moved from co-workers, to client/hairdresser to husband and wife. Originally, he was my gay boyfriend. We went out almost every weekend and got crazy wild. I was tired of straight bars and straight boys trying to stick it up my booty when I danced. The Mr. showed me that while a gay man may hump me on the dance floor, the last thing he wants is his junk near my no-no. For years this is how we did. He did my hair in his mama’s kitchen sink, we danced and got crazy on the weekends and we gossiped like school girls through out the week. I was his date and he was mine to any weddings or other stupid occasions where a plus 1 was required. His grandmother actually commented once at his cousin’s wedding that maybe he wasn’t gay after all. Maybe we would get married one day. Even hubby’s mama laughed at that. Needless to say we were nice and settled into our relationship. Before a wedding once, I took off my panties in his car so I could put on panty hose. I will never forget how he clung to the driver side door saying “Oh my God, it’s open in my car”, like my va jay jay was a can of tuna. Another time I got wasted beyond drunk and he told me he wanted me to sleep between he and his ex, who wanted to come home with us. I complied. That was the night I tried to pee in his oven and he will never let me live it down. We have broken the law together…ok, many laws and made it through some serious family drama and friend drama. We met each others friends and family and became a part of one another’s lives. Even my daddy loves my gay hubby. So how did he go from my gay boyfriend to my gay husband you ask?


(The one and only Anastacia Beaverhausen)

Well, along came Anastacia Beaverhausen. Hubby and I were both working at Culp’s as a 2nd job. He was still in hair school, I was a big bad bill collector at the CS of I. We worked harder than most of the people who were working this as their primary gig. We were kind of snobs in dealing with those folks because frankly, they sucked and we didn’t have time for them. So along comes Anastacia; and behold, we have found our 3rd musketeer. From day one, I loved this bitch with my whole heart. I feared at first that my first bitch and my 2nd would hate each other, which commonly happens with my gays. But alas, there was instant love between the 2 of them as well. We immediately clicked. Ana is a dancer and one of the only people in this lifetime that can truly hold up against me in a cage dancing showdown. Tried and true, my friends. This bitch has what it takes. So we go out clubbing pretty much every weekend and Ana and I frequently end up in the cage. Hubby is left to hang with his buds, which is ok but I sense his feeling left out. I am not sure when it really happened but one day we were all sitting around at work and I said something about my gay boyfriends and hubby pipes up that he used to be the only one. As I extended my circle of gays, I also extended my love to new men. I can see he is upset and being a Sex and the City fan, I realized why:

“I'd been so preoccupied by my gay boyfriend, I kept forgetting about my gay husband.”-----Carrie Bradshaw.

Right then and there I asked hubby if he’d like to be my gay husband. No ceremony, no rings just a couple of shots and a lot of love sealed that deal.


(Just married!)

So we went on like this for years, partying and having a great time. Slowly we started to get older and the weekends out became less and less. Every weekend used to be a gay weekend out for me, now I have to book them in advance. Hubby bought a house, boyfriend settled into being an adult as well. It was hard to handle for us all at first. We do date nights at restaurants now and dinners at home. I guess I finally did get my someone to curl up and watch a movie with.


(My 3 favorite boys, hubs face is like "whatever new guy, this bitch is ours!")

Sometimes hubby, gay boyfriend and I will go months without seeing each other now. Although neither of those bitches are ever far from my heart. I will never forget the love, comfort and support that they provided when I needed it most and still to this day. Either of them could call me in the middle of the night for anything and I would be there. Last year Ana and I took our usual trip down to the Tower Grove Park to enjoy the annual Gay Pride festivities as we do every year (it is our tradition together, hubby is not a fan of crowds, heat or people, lol). I started to miss hubby and I called to see where he was and homegirl was AT HOME. I said “you better get your queer little ass down here right now or I am revoking your homo card the next time I see you”. Revoking of the homo card is a threat I use often and it usually gets attention immediately. So bitch (hubby) acts like it’s nothing but a G thing and hangs up; well I must have put the fear of Richard Simons in her because not half an hour later bitch is calling me talking about “I’m at the park entrance, where are you?” Yeah, I still go it. We had a blast…just me and my gays. I have frequently thought of writing a book about our experiences. They truly are some of the best of my life. I am really just waiting for my sister to pass the bar exam so I can find out how legally liable we are if I divulge our secrets:-)





So thinking back on the past always makes me think of the future, if I ever get married 2 of my bridesmaids will be men. The dress will be optional for them. My kids, if I ever pop them out, will have Guncles (gay uncles) for life. I will always have these 2 fantastic people with whom I can share my thoughts, my feelings and my life. More than anything though I will have a daily example of what it means to live as your true self, to be genuine to you and to not let anyone take that away from you. I find these boys to be a huge inspriation to my life. When I think of them it makes my glass half full, even if it is empty.



I feel like I have been seeing life lately out of a very small key hole. Once I opened the door the abundance was so much easier to see. I am a lucky girl. I am loved and I have so much love to give. I know there will be hard times and obsticles in life. As long as I have my gay’s, my girls and myself…life will always be full. This month is gay pride month. To me it should also be gay awareness. Everyone knows a gay, weather you are related, you work together or you just see some flambouyant tart on the street. These hearts are goldmines of love and acceptance. The world is missing out by trying to suppress something that is so beautiful. I believe that in my lifetime gay people will truly have equal rights. I am not just talking about marriage. I mean:

The right to insurance for partners and children
The right to adopt
The right to visit your partner in the hospital and have rights over their care
The right to own your home, should your partner die
The right to raise your children, should your partner die
The right to work in any state and not be fired for your sexual orientation
The right to walk out on the street AS WHO YOU ARE and not fear for your life
The right to tax benefits and options that straight couples have
The right to be who you are
The right to wear glitter, rainbows, feather boa’s, make-up, dresses and stilettos

Expect another Big Gay Post before Pride weekend, which coincidentally is June 27th and 28th. You can visit: http://www.pridestl.org/pridefest.html for more information.

(Hub's b-day this year)

(Dean and I with cream puff, no pun intended)

("I smell nipples")

(Gay Pride 2008 Ka-ka-ka-kaaaaa)

(Random hot fireman, another good reason to attend Pride, shirtless hotties!)

(He loves these shoes. Would have bouht them for himself if they were his size.)

(Random gay night)

HOTNESS!

“I like someone who is a little crazy but coming from a good place. I think scars are sexy because it means you made a mistake that led to a mess."

Forgiving Love
Forgiving Me
Forgiving You
Forgiving We

"I don't know if I continue, even today, always liking myself. But what I learned to do many years ago was to forgive myself. It is very important for every human being to forgive herself or himself because if you live, you will make mistakes- it is inevitable. But once you do and you see the mistake, then you forgive yourself and say, 'well, if I'd known better I'd have done better,' that's all. So you say to people who you think you may have injured, 'I'm sorry,' and then you say to yourself, 'I'm sorry.' If we all hold on to the mistake, we can't see our own glory in the mirror because we have the mistake between our faces and the mirror; we can't see what we're capable of being. You can ask forgiveness of others, but in the end the real forgiveness is in one's own self. I think that young men and women are so caught by the way they see themselves. Now mind you. When a larger society sees them as unattractive, as threats, as too black or too white or too poor or too fat or too thin or too sexual or too asexual, that's rough. But you can overcome that. The real difficulty is to overcome how you think about yourself. If we don't have that we never grow, we never learn, and sure as hell we should never teach."-----Maya Angelou

Way Back...

Wayyyy the hell back to 8th grade on this one. This was about a year into my friendship with Leigh and already we were humiliating all of the boys that dared to come near us. I remember that we wanted to be gangster girls but we just wanted to weart the suit jackets with no pants. The parents were not going for that one at all. This was before Julie Yacovelli's party way back in 1992! Oh, and I will buy a drink for the first person that came name that boy in the pink wig!


Happy Hump Day!

So in love...

Holy MOTHER of tall-drink-of-water. Mama needs a wet wipe as well as a plastic cover for my chair after this. I could not resist posting this beautiful image today. Ladies, meet my new boyfriend, Christian Ronaldo, showing off what his mama gave him. Why don't soccer players in the US look like this? I would watch freaking soccer if they did...everyday. That shit does a body good. Somebody call David Beckham and let him know he gots a run for his money today, boy!

Here is another because I just can't resist. Homeboy got my motor running fo sho. I hope yours too. Mmmmm, mmmm good!



Sweet dreams with this under your pillow tonight. Praise to the baby Jesus for helping me find a smile today:-)