Your Story Matters

Recently, I had an interesting exchange with a writer friend of mine who lives in a progressive bubble in the Pacific Northwest.

She was remarking on how accepting everyone is now of the LGBTQ+ community.

"They even paint the streets with rainbows during Pride!" She said of her hometown.

I get why she felt that way. I used to feel that way too, curled up in my liberal bubble in the northeast, comfortable in my privilege living as a straight, white woman.

I gently reminded my friend about what's happening in Florida and many other states.

About the fact that Target pulled Pride garb from its shelves after a protest.

About the fact that we are living in two Americas—one that embraces and celebrates the LGBTQ+ community—and another that wants to annihilate it.

Queer folx need to raise their voices and write their stories. These stories matter, y'all. Representation matters. ‍

That's why during Pride Month, I'm centering the stories of queer writers who...

I had two polar opposite experiences last week that convinced me that queer people need safe spaces to raise their voices and write their stories more than ever.

First, I read in the newspaper that the Pope declared that being gay isn’t a crime—sure, it’s a “sin,” but not a crime. So comforting.

I haven’t had time to unpack all the feelings that exploded through my body when I read that headline, but here are a few:

• I spent 50+ years of my life with the privilege of not worrying whether people thought my identity was sinful, let alone a crime.
• My heart aches for my queer siblings who haven’t experienced that privilege—whose lives have been traumatized in the name of the church.
• I fear for queer people who live in countries where their very identity is considered a crime—and I fear for the path our country is on where sodomy laws are being reconsidered and where people can’t say "gay” in public schools.

I am more...

Maybe you’ve heard it’s impossible to get a book deal for a memoir if you aren’t a celebrity or you don’t have millions of followers on TikTok.

You’re not a celebrity (yet) and you don’t have millions of TikTok followers (yet), so maybe you're thinking “why bother” writing a memoir at all?

After all, it’s a big commitment.

It will take time—and require a lot of emotional energy.

And, if you’ve never written a book before, there’s a steep learning curve ahead of you.

So why bother writing a memoir?

That’s a great question and one every writer should ask themselves before they say YES to writing a book.

When I ask my LGBTQ+ memoir clients why they want to share their story, many of them say—”This is something I HAVE to do. I HAVE to get this story out.”

Why bother? Because:

• YOU need to tell this story for YOU.
• There are readers whose very lives depend on hearing your story.
• ...

Today is National Coming Out Day, a day I didn't even know existed when I was living as a straight woman in a mixed-gender marriage.

Back then, I was oblivious to the struggles of LGBTQ+ folx and the history of that community. I "knew of" gay people, but I didn't have a single LGBTQ+ friend. Or at least I didn't think I did.

This isn't an uncommon experience.

In fact, it's one of the main reasons why National Coming Out Day exists.

Robert Eichberg, one of the founders of NCOD, said in 1993:

"Most people think they don't know anyone gay or lesbian, and in fact, everybody does. It is imperative that we come out and let people know who we are and disabuse them of their fears and stereotypes."

It wasn't until I made a pilgrimage to Iona, a tiny isle off the southwest coast of Scotland, that I realized I did have an LGBTQ+ friend after all.

The year was 2001, and I was a forty-year-old stay-at-home mom searching for my purpose.

I'd left a toxic work environment as a corporate...

I'm in a conference room at my wife's workplace, Temple University, here to celebrate the investiture of the university's new president and go to the homecoming game.

Every so often, Wendy pops her head into the conference room to introduce me to one of her colleagues. She's proud, I think, of me, and excited that she has a wife to show off. :)

She's finally in a workplace where she doesn't need to hide who she is or who she loves.

That wasn't the case when we first met.

Back then, Wendy was working for a Christian college where it was technically okay for a community member to be gay but only if they didn't act on it.

WTF?

Wendy, on faculty for 20+ years, could have been FIRED for holding my hand in public.

Yep. In 2017, this was the case, and it remains the case today. And firing Wendy would have been completely legal.

I hope someday she'll let me help her write the story of how she ended up being subjected to...

Beck came to me last spring with a vague idea about the story he wanted to write.

Snippets of experiences from my childhood living as a girl and moments of parallel in adulthood, as I re-experience firsts as a man.

Okay.

I knew there was an important story there, and I also knew that "snippets" weren't going to do it justice.

"What are you most afraid of?" I asked. I figured the snippets approach was a way for Beck to protect himself, to guard his heart from further trauma and judgment.

Snippets! So light and breezy!

Because this is a writer who has been abandoned over and over by the people who are supposed to love him most.

"Oh, I'm afraid that people will think my book is a narcissistic journey into nothingness," Beck said.

I chuckled, not because this was funny but because I hear a variation of this fear all the time from writers.

Being afraid that people will think you're a narcissist if you write your story really means you're afraid that no one will...

"We had a protestor at our wedding," my wife tells anyone who will listen. "I consider it a queer badge of honor," she always says, with a smile.

Maybe she's right, but a year ago when I spotted a man on a step ladder blurting obscenities through a megaphone at our wedding party, I felt horrified—and afraid.

Would he follow us through the streets of Lancaster? Were there more people like him around every corner? Would a fight break out? Would my wedding day be ruined?

I had no such worries on my first wedding day, thirty-five years earlier. The day where I wore my mother's Priscilla of Boston wedding gown and my father walked me down the aisle of the Wellesley College Chapel to my soon-to-be husband.

The man I would build a good life with. Have two sons with. The man whose heart I would eventually break when I came to terms with my sexuality late in life. The man who let me go with grace and compassion. The man who continues to extend both to me.

No, that...