Lipstick Lesbian

As seen in

2011-04-14T15:08:00.000-07:00

Happy Holy birthday
H. Rachelle Graham

The Mormon Church and I went on a date. I mean we share the same birth date.
I used to brag to anyone who would listen that not only did I share the birth date of the one true church but I also was born on what many members believe is the birth of the most important human/spiritual being who ever lived.
Now I know the truth.
   The Mormon Church as the only true church is about as realistic as purple aliens landing in Salt Lake City the same year I was magically conceived.
   That year, 1978, is also the same year African Americans were granted the priesthood. Way too many years after the rest of the country deemed them equal and worthy.
   Kurt from Glee said my words exactly, “The reason I don’t go to church is that most churches don’t think much of gay people or women or science.”
   It is a shock I now strongly worship Kurt’s words, since my Mom used to brag that out of all her daughters, I’d be the one, the only one, who would go on an LDS mission. I did seriously consider the idea on my 18th birthday, when I chose to spend it in the temple. Not a surprise as I spent a lot of time in the temple ducking under holy water for ghosts, who most likely don’t want to belong to a church that excludes anyone who is in the rainbow.
   Then I never could imagine I’d be in sin city on my 21st birthday, enjoying free drinks and penny slots. I hated disappointing my Mom, but in the long run she still found ways to be proud of me. Ultimately, all that matters to her is that I care about other people and stand for what I believe in, even if it is different from her.
Recently, I impressed a friend of mine by remembering the exact date of the church’s restoration. His eyebrows raised and jaw dropped as if I’d just told him I was an angel. He doesn’t know the other side of me. Many don’t anymore. I read and re-read the triple combination about 50 times. Obsessed didn’t even begin to describe it.
   Not until my last year’s birthday did I realize my spirituality was good enough. Nature turned into my church. Equality turned into my core belief. Pure love and acceptance of self and others are what matter.
   The quote I wrote on Facebook said it best, “I imagine a world where people don’t debate health care, where suicide isn’t common. And all temples are open to everyone, especially the homeless. A world without brainwashing, where family is love. And all hate crimes are sentenced, no matter the victim.”
   Even though it is widely accepted Jesus was born in the spring, and not a specific date, I still feel my birthday is special. The only others are Jan. 4, April 20 and Nov. 13. Why? The most important spiritual examples in my life share those birthdays. They are family members who go way beyond the simple definition of love.
   I can’t stand on a pulpit and tell my exact testimony beyond a shadow of a doubt, but I can tell you without question, I’ve seen Jesus in these three people.

I Ruff

2011-01-22T09:43:00.000-08:00

As seen in Q Salt Lake

My former bishop compared me to a dog; my puppy hated that so much she went in for the bite. Fortunately, neither of them ever pressed any charges.
   While it’s true that I’m close to my dog, Faith, definitely beyond the normal realm of connection between a dog and their human companion, I have not asked Faith to marry me or exchanged rings with her. Besides, whenever I even try to touch her fingernail she nips off mine.
   With this in mind, I can’t understand how my former bishop and so many other “religious” leaders actually say this with a straight face: “If you’re going to ask a woman to marry you, you might as well ask your dog, too.” Oh, excuse me; I should ask my dog instead of the woman I love because that would be the same thing or, to use their terminology, equally as “morally-wrong.”
   First of all, it must have been an acid trip that led him and so many others to jump from a woman to a dog. Contrary to popular belief, shape-shifters are not real, just like vampires or werewolves. While, sure, it’d be nice if Vampire Rosalie and I could dance off into the twilight together, that’s only what happens in the movies. I just can’t figure out why a person asking a dog to marry her is somehow just as non-fictional as same-sex marriage.
   Second, the worst consequence of marrying a same-sex partner might be that we’d have to deal with people comparing our love to bestiality Well, there’s also the not going out in public without being tackled by nine men in penguin suits, or the fact we have next to zero rights desepite paying taxes like everybody else. But these things are not our fault. Same-sex couples will not hurt others; no lonely plural wives or half-human half-dog offsprings.
   No one is abused or taken advantage of in a mature same-sex relationship. Can we say the same of all heterosexual relationships, especially since most of the religiously-dominated ones still adhere to strict patriarchal values? Where the woman’s feelings come dead last in the family, even though they do most of the housework and child-rearing on top of holding downcareers?
   It may be true that two men or two women can’t physically procreate together, but so what? Neither can a significant number of straight couples, but they can raise, support and provide love for a child, while fostering an environment that doesn’t breed hate, ignorance or how to use God as an excuse for their bad behavior. It’s no wonder the first study of its kind done by Bos and Gartrell found that children of lesbian couples have higher self-esteem, more confidence, do better academically and have fewer behavioral problems.
   It would have made more sense to have my bishop reward me for having the courage and strength to use my own free agency and judgment; to stand up for what I believe in and live in a way, in the only way, that can make me truly happy and healthy. Instead of bringing me to tears many times, the church could have used their power and money to help a “cast out” and “abused” group of people by accepting them for who they truly are: a kind and benevolent people.
    I hope the day will come when my bishop will not compare my orientation to bestiality, but will want to bring me back to his ward with pure acceptance and unconditional love. When he will look on my heart and not my orientation. When he will remember the moments I spent in his family room, or served the people in his ward. When he will remember that we are “brothers” and “sisters.” Then he will not see me as a monster, a person who would marry my dog and take advantage of the being I love so much I call her a child, but he will see what my dog only took seconds to see: the pain he caused with his words.

Alternate Dimension

2011-01-18T09:55:00.000-08:00

As seen in

‘It’s the most miserable time of the year.”

   While I shopped at a few superstores for Christmas presents, the exact song played on the loud speaker, making me seriously consider shoplifting for the first time in my life. I needed to get the hell out of there before I screamed alongside the kids of the large family in front of me. Somehow the obnoxious kids managed to stop throwing a fit long enough to keep changing their minds, delaying their parents for as long as humanly possible.
   Meanwhile, the redundant words of “It’s the hap-happiest season of all, with those holiday greetings and gay happy meetings,” brought me to plug my ears, praying to go back in time to when ‘gay’ meant happy; before super-stores and over-population.
   But then it dawned on me. There’d go my Prozac.
   Also, I’d probably be locked somewhere in an asylum. Then again maybe the sanity level would be higher there than in the real world. This way I wouldn’t have to deal with ‘trying to act normal’ when I feel anything but. The grunting and monosyllables could turn into complete catatonia without anyone batting an eye.
   Numerous studies confirm depression is at its highest during the Christmas/Hanukkah season. Yet suicide rates go down, as few actually have the energy required to successfully take their lives.
   As someone who’s spent over 10 years with a black cloud over my head, holidays morphed into something I dread more than going out on a blind date. I spend weeks on my leather couch, in my pajamas, with my laptop in front of my face, trying to avoid everyone and everything that reminds me of the pesky thing called life. Marathons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Vampire Diaries turn into my alternate hell dimension.
    The only real escape I get from the blues is when I’m asleep, in the form of nightmares and dreams. Sleep is my best friend and my dog is my second; having no energy to deal with ‘other’ personalities, employment searches or high-pitched kids.
    I read an article recently in Psychology Today, claiming depressed individuals literally see the world as ‘more gray.’ This doesn’t surprise me in the least bit, as depression tends to destroy both the physical and internal worlds. Like seeing through a distorted looking glass, without the blue caterpillar or white rabbit, but with the Mad Hatter trapped inside your own body.
    It pisses me off that people actually fake having a mental illness, as in Brian David Mitchell’s case, when people are suffering for real and don’t have access to treatment because these creeps are spending the needed money or are making mental illness out to be a charade; something one can turn on and off. Believe me if I wanted too, I’d turn my frown into a smile any day.
    On a side note, I get that some people want to blame every LGBT suicide in Utah on the Mormon Church, but mostly suicide is just the result of a severe untreated or sometimes, a long-treated illness, that eventually kills all hope inside you, leaving you broken and weak, to the point even brushing your teeth is too much effort. You really start to believe everyone around you would be better off without you.
   Sure, it can’t help to be raised in a church or society that tells you that you’re evil for something you can never change. Or having friends, society or family turn their backs on you; all of these things can be triggers or can help push you off that cliff.
    But all in all, a person who dies of suicide is really no different than a diabetic who ends up losing their battle with the illness. It doesn’t make them weak or to blame; neither are the people or community around them at fault. Sure, there are exceptions. Most to blame are insufficient health care and ignorance surrounding the reality that mental illness is really no different than physical.
   Every day is a struggle for someone with a severe mental illness, like me. It can be more painful than a physical illness because our problems are not noticeable and therefore, easily dismissed and labeled as ‘crazy’ or ‘nuts’ or ‘psycho.’
   I fight the exhausting battle of depression every day, but I live through the fire, finding ways to reduce my symptoms. The simple things are what make all the difference. I wanted to punch the crisis workers through the phone when their only advice for my suicidal ideation was to ‘take a walk.’ But now I know a little goes a long way, especially if that’s all you have left to do.
    The last time I was in the hospital the Twin Towers were being attacked. Getting the help I need through Valley Mental Health, covered under Medicaid, brought energy and hope back into my life, ultimately saving the state thousands upon thousands of dollars.
   I went from being a zombie to being a human again, and even during the holidays, at the most miserable time of the year, I see light at the end of the tunnel. For the wave will hit again, bringing me back up. It always does.

Cursed; young adult novel

2010-12-19T16:15:00.000-08:00

Well, I got some 'good' rejection letters. Its hard to believe that exists, but it does. They are any kind of response from a busy editor/publisher/agent that is more than three simple words, "No thank you." or a standard Dear John form letter in the mail or e-mail that is sent to thousands upon thousands of other wannabe's or rejects. Based on the advice I've recieved, I'm re-writting my entire novel. Only made it to chapter four so far, including the final chapter, but it's coming along like a fast-moving snail. Here's what I have so far, feel free to rip into it, tell me what you hate or hopefully love. My audience is targeted to mostly high school teens, but hoping older lesbians, like me, would enjoy it too. Wondering most of all, if my character, Lisa, is believable and the story so far feels real. Thanks for reading!

Chapter One

Desire

Inside a coffin wasn’t the place I thought I’d end up at sixteen. Media’s number one culprit would point at the town’s homophobic religion, one actively fighting even the mere existence of the L word.

Surprisingly, in my case, the knives that cut the deepest were held by other so-called sinners because they attacked me right where it hurt the most, in the heart. They first pretended to love and accept me before the ‘real’ truth came out in the form of lies and rumors; the main culprit, my first girlfriend, a sociopath at her best.

A burning desire for her lips cursed me in, like a seductress wolf she bit into my heart, eating and changing my flesh forever. Ironically her first name, Eve, and her last, Blood. She captured my innocence and with it came my youth.

The sun descended slowly into the night, leaving a reddish-yellowish burn on everything it touched; including my normally peach skin, covered in runaway freckles. A tug on my scalp caused me to tear a few runaway strands of my long hair out of the chain of my half-moon pendant; a gift from my parents as they said I was always half in this world and half where the spirits roamed.

I drowned when I was five, ever since then I could hear spirits. Nobody else knew, and it was mostly just random chatter. But, sometimes a broken, howling voice from a lost soul kept me up at night. I usually only heard sprits who hadn’t crossed on, who were trapped in purgatory, but there were exceptions. Usually when loved ones were in trouble, their screams haunted me, spurning me to action.

Sometimes all I could do was listen. Listening was the art form I did best, but at the same time, it was the thing I sucked at the most.

A peppy song blared on my satellite radio the music droning out the incessant dull chatter. I sang at the top of my lungs, the only place I could sing in public, well when it was night out.

When the song died, I picked up the remote and changed the station, ending up by accident on Sounds of Sunday. If there were one more ‘Jesus’ song, I was going to scream. Throwing the remote out the window of my cherry-red Buick Skylark, it shattered on the gravel road. A surge of control relaxed me momentarily, until I realized I’d have to replace it with my own barista money. Minimum wage with the occasional tip didn’t go far, especially since ‘cute’ leather boots called out to me this morning. ‘Always acting before thinking’, something my older sister liked to remind me of constantly. Could she be more irritatingly perfect?

I pushed the button manually to change it to a hard rock station. Ahh! Heaven.

I was just so tired of the Catholic Church being shoved down my throat everywhere I moved and breathed and it seemed at times, even pooped. Living in Harper Grove wasn’t easy for someone like me, but then again, living here wasn’t easy on anyone. The high suicide rates weren’t surprising, despite the fact it was a town of like three thousand people at most, right smack in the middle of nowhere. If boredom didn’t kill you, the judgmental death glares would. I had to do something wretchedly evil in a previous life to get stuck here.

I stopped my car in the middle of the Harper Grove graveyard, in front of an industrial-sized cross gravestone of my dead relative, but I didn’t come to mourn my great-great grandfather. I came here for two reasons; one of them was to bury my Holy Bible once and for all and the other one was to study biology as the graveyard was surprisingly the quietest spot in town for me to do homework; the last place the recently dead roamed, not wanting to be reminded of their passing and preferring to be among the living. Not me. My favorite place was to be alone, with no one telling me what to do or judging me.

The darkness swallowed me up, as if warning me to turn back around. I didn’t listen as I closed the door to my Skylark. A lonely deer stood about ten feet from me, studying me like a hawk, ready to attack. It was so cute; I wished I could go up and pet it. My miniature black dachshund, Faith, rested on top of the back dashboard, without a single care in the world, except sun bathing her tiny stomach.

I scanned the graveyard, making sure no one was there. I was in the clear. Time to begin! I clicked my key chain button to open the trunk and retrieved a small shovel and my worn juice-stained scriptures. Finding a moist patch of dirt, I started digging. A part of me wanted to get busted so my sister and ‘former’ best friend would see me on the news; Local Teen Arrested for Grave-Robbing At least, that’s what they would think I was doing, as the real reason would sound like a poor excuse. And they thought me coming out was bad news?

“Put your hands up.”

Turning around, I tripped on a rock and fell into the small hole I had just dug. I prepared to bolt alongside the scampering deer, until I got a good look at who stood in front of me, Eve Blood, everything about her screamed New York City, from her jet black hair to her sculpted legs that went on forever leading to a flat, belly-ringed stomach. God, those narrow dark eyes had this way of looking through your soul and mocking you at the same time. But it was the thick glossy lips that really made it hard to stop staring.

Eve stepped closer; her proximity causing my blood to race. “Scared you into kissing dirt, didn’t I?” The single pimple on her cheek stood out because it was the only part of her olive-shaped face that wasn’t perfect. “Wow. Those are ill boots. Where’d you get them?”

“Huh? What?” I asked, sounding like the biggest freak on the planet. Of course, my luck caused me to run into the hottest girl in school while I looked like I needed to go to an insane asylum with my shovel still clasped firmly in my hand. “The store,” I finally managed to say, making it worse. Duh, might as well have said a garbage can.

Eve ignored my lameness, as she focused on the gravestone behind me, with my exact last name of Connor. She smirked. “I love visiting dead people. Sometimes they seem more real than regular people.”

Was she insulting me? In order to hide my flushing face and my real motive for being here, I tossed a patch of dirt over the holy books. Then again burying the Holy Bible would be saner than digging up my former relative. I stopped cold in my tracks, studying Eve instead. But looking at her didn’t help my calmness level.

“Isn’t that illegal?” Eve laughed, pointing to the shovel, seeming to enjoy my humiliation.

“Maybe,” I shrugged, cracking my knuckles, a nervous addiction. I stood up, trying to collect my nerves. “You going to arrest me?”

“I wish I had that kind of authority.” Eve stepped on top of the grave, formed a fake gun with her fingers and then spread out her legs. “You know I envy him, all of them.” She scanned the cemetery, wearing a scowl. A dark shadow checkered her body, as she stepped in and out of the lamplight, making her look scary.

This girl switched moods more than anyone I had ever met. “Salty much,” I said, feeling like a hypocrite as I clicked my trunk open and tossed the shovel inside. Instead I retrieved my biology book, ‘reading’ flashlight and yellow highlighter and moved over to an oak bench; expecting Eve to take off any minute in her midnight blue Geo Tracker, leaving me for someone more interesting to talk too. Maybe a dead person, perhaps?

Surprisingly, the tan girl stepped over to me in her high heels and sat down on the bench next to me. I wondered if I had fallen asleep studying and didn’t even realize it. “How can you study here?” Eve asked, bobbing her head at my biology book.

I glanced around, but there was no movement or lights coming from the mortuary, a white-brick building about five-hundred feet away. The place still as dead as can be. How do I explain to one of the most popular girls in school that I hear voices and this was my favorite place to be? I settled on pointing to my flashlight, as if that explained anything.

As if reading my thoughts, Eve said, “So what’s your secret, Lisa, isn’t it?”

I barely managed to nod, as fear swarmed through me. I decided to change the topic to something that wasn’t about me, “So how you liking Harper Grove so far?”

“A hick town where everything is forbidden, even Halloween, and everyone is so disturbingly innocent, it makes me want to gag.” Eve adjusted her black beret and then touched my arm, causing the hair to stand on end. “So what’s a good girl like you doing grave-robbing?”

Great, if this got around. My social status would go from loner to freak and fast.

Eve read the fear on my face as she lifted up her hand in surrender mode and said, “Chilliax, your secrets safe with me.”

“That wasn’t what I was doing.” I stared into my unopened biology book, afraid if I looked at her soulful eyes I would lose the ability to form a coherent sentence. I rambled on, still focusing on a purplish dissected plant on the cover of my book. As someone failing the class, I sure spent a lot of time studying. Lying, on the other hand, was something I did well, “Just had to bury a keepsake for my great-grandfather. Something he wanted with him when he died.” Hopefully Eve won’t notice the fact he died before I was born. I finally looked up and met her face, deciding to focus on the imperfect pimple, made her seem more human, not so mature and angel-like.

She nodded, not seeming to care if I was telling the truth or not. “Don’t have to explain to me.” Eve winked, before adding, “You’re not the only one in a graveyard after dusk.”

I drummed my fingers on the book, another nervous habit. I had about a century of those. “What are you doing here?” I asked, a little too quietly. But, noise drifted easy in the dead of night, the only other sound being crickets chirping away.

“My mom said she needed space to think, but what she really needed was the chance to spend time alone trying to pick up on rich men without the burden of a teenage daughter. So she shipped me to this Garden of Eden, excuse me Garden of Hell—”

I meant the graveyard, but didn’t want to correct her; too entranced by watching her lips move up and down. She kept talking, but I zoned out. I tried not to stare at her partially open breasts as she leaned over, the V-neck of her Hollister top showing more than she probably figured. Her laced Victoria Secret bra made me wonder how a sixteen-year-old could be so full, without the added enhancement of surgery. She could even star on one of those sexy lingerie commercials, how in this planet could she still be talking to me? The girl with stringy a million freckles and strawberry hair, with random green strands from swimming so much; a pool was my second favorite place to be. It was quiet, like a whole other world, the water drowning out the voices from above. I got over the fear of drowning rather quickly, just wish I could go back in time and never go in the pool that day, so I wouldn’t be cursed with hearing so much. All the time!

“You there?” Eve waved her scarlet red fingernails in my face.

“Yes, sorry. Garden of Hell.”

“That was like five minutes ago. Where have you been?” Eve sighed, leaning her back on the bench, her shirt going where it was supposed too, covering her breast. She continued, since I seem to be having mute problems again. Something I used to do in junior high, cursed with extreme shyness. Unfortunately, Eve brought it out in me again. The one person I wanted to impress more than anyone in this dead end town. And here I was making the biggest fool off myself. “You know people say you are always trapped inside your own head, I didn’t believe them, until now.” She picked up my tiny braid and played with it, sending shivers down my spine. “But, you are certainly cute.” ‘

I smiled hesitantly; worried my face was red as a tomato.

“And those dimples are adorable.”

Was it possible she was flirting with me? No way.

“You know what, I’m cold. Can we sit in your car? My heater is busted.”

I nodded, picking up my textbook and reading light, trying to focus on walking without tripping as I headed over to my Buick and clicked the car doors open. I wondered about holding the door open for Eve, but that would probably look moronic. It wasn’t like they were on an old-fashioned date or something.

I climbed in my car, immediately turning the car on, the heat immediately came on full blast. As someone who was always freezing. I didn’t realize I was shaking until the heater started working. I might as well be drugged for how unaware of my own feelings I was with Eve so close beside me.

Eve reached for the sunshield, but it was absent, lost in my parent’s garage somewhere, so she adjusted the side mirror, using that to check her make-up; applying more raspberry-colored lip gloss, something she obviously didn’t need more off. Finally, she placed her long legs on the dashboard and turned my way, studying me closely with her eyebrows uplifted, like I was some kind of cell specimen. “So who do you hang out with in school? How come I rarely see you?”

I could count the number of people who talked to me on one hand; especially after my best friend stopped talking to me when I told her I liked girls. Most of our friends were actually her friends. I quit the swim team because I hated it anyway; team sports were never my thing. I was a loner. Always have been, always will be. But Eve didn’t need to know that. “The theatre slash choir crowd mostly.” Well, my so-called gay boyfriend was in the crowd, sometimes I tagged along if I got really lonely.

“Hmm…Oh, the deer came back.” Eve leaned over me to get a better look. I couldn’t focus on the deer as the intoxicating aroma of Eve’s berry perfume and the soft touch of her skin made me melt in place. She pulled out her cell phone and took a picture, then sat back down in the leather passenger seat. “So when did you know …that you liked girls?”

Shit. Am I that transparent? Eve read the tense expression on my face so she held up her hands and said, “Chillax. Who isn’t at least bisexual anymore? It’s not like I’m going to announce it in the newspaper.”

I swallowed, fear running up my lungs. “Nobody reads it anyway,” I said, trying to recover, but my shaky voice betrayed.

“Then why the sudden heart attack on your face?”

“Just think a personal life should be just that.” There were only four people in my life who knew. My parents, former best friend and current best friend; my parental figures knew because my Mom felt the need to clean my messy room up, finding an issue of Curves that revealed the half-naked bodies of the cast of The Real L Word. Surprisingly, my Mom only said, “We don’t like it, but we love you anyway.” We’ve never talked about it since. I figured my Dad knew since he’s acted weird around me in the three weeks since.

My best friend knew because I was secretly in love with her and wanted to see if she felt the same way. I never got around to asking her how she feels about me because she called me a sinner and stopped speaking to me since I told her three months ago; but Hailey was more of a religious nut than my god-worshiping sister. Did I mention Hailey’s boyfriend is my twin brother, Trent? A whole other story, let’s just say Trent would fit in well with the cast of A-List.

“Want to go to coffee?” I asked, wanting to get to know Eve better, without the social dictates of school. Since she’s so attractive and interesting, Eve was swallowed up already by the Chosen Ones, the most exclusive group in school; the confident ones who excelled at something great and never worried about being purposely tripped in the hallway.

After Hailey’s rejection, I went from the athletic crowd to the bottom of the social food chain where the other losers roamed, with atheist, drama freaks and the like.

“Can’t,” she said, without any further explanation.

Trying not to show any disappointment, I forced a smile, focusing on the flashing car lights in the distance. Was she saying no because she didn’t want to be around me anymore? If so, why hadn’t she moved from my car?

My heart beat so fast I wasn’t surprised if Eve could hear it, but when I turned to look at her, she seemed faraway, lost in her own world. “Love the moon tonight. It’s a myth that stars are the actual objects needed to make wishes, the Moon is the most —“

A loud cry broke through, interrupting Eve. Only she couldn’t hear the painful, haunting noise, her thick lips kept moving up and down. My upper arm felt as if a sharp blade ripped into it as three words screamed as if right next to me, “Let me die.” The voice was muffled, making it unrecognizable, as if it came from someone’s painful thoughts, not words. I lifted up my shirt, blood dripped down my arm. I found the source from a deep cut, looking as if it had come from a knife. Only the non-existent object wasn’t stopping, the cut grew deeper, and there was no way of controlling it.

Gay Witch Hunt

2010-12-02T20:06:00.000-08:00

by H. Rachelle Graham
Lipstick Lesbian as seen in

With special thanks to Pagan and a straight military ally.

“Kick him out,” Lt. Orrin Hatchass screamed
“What’s he guilty off, sir?”
  “He looked at me. Must be a queer,” Hatchass said. “Queer. Queer. Queer.”
   It’s officially a modern day gay witch hunt as military officers spend $1.3 billion to investigate private e-mails, call friends to chat and go through closets to find the incriminating color pink.
   America keeps ex-convicts while discharging lawful men and women, who may or may not be homosexual. Any heresy can be grounds for starting an investigation. For example, if a guy drinks apple martinis and a girl likes football, their whole life secrets could be torn inside and out, due to anyone having a problem, even if it’s the janitor.
   Imagine having your dream job taken away from you for absolutely no reason other than you may look or act like you’re gay; 14,000 men and women had to face this harsh reality.
    I can’t understand why being yelled at constantly is anyone’s dream job, but I’m sure there might be some perks, as many people do join the military willingly. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t even join if a gun was held to my head.
   Since my military aptitude consists of only what’s in my worst nightmares, I had to consult expert witnesses.
   Like my friend Pagan, who was discharged for doing his job well. A lower servicemember, who is also a Mormon, asked if he was gay. Fed up with lying and being investigated he finally told the truth. An act so heinous, according to the military, that they told a loyal, intelligent and good-working man to start packing.
   Hardly seems just to find yourself losing your job and dignity because of something you can’t change. Imagine if the tables were turned, and a heterosexual had to hide his/her spouse, orientation, favorite actress/actor and kids.
   I feel better knowing most of the military puts the job first and doesn’t care about the orientation as much as duty to the country. With holding the country’s weapons at their disposal, it’s important they’re thinking with more than a few screws. This outdated policy never should have been enacted in the policy and according to a Quinnipiac University poll done in February, 70 percent of Americans understand this policy is homophobic and pointless.
    Even right here in this state where many tiny Orrins hatch from large conservative families think the policy is bogus.
    For example, a straight Mormon man I interviewed. Let’s call him Steve, is currently a military intelligent officer and has been since 1990. He always thought the policy had no basis in fact or form.
   “Every year in the guard, we have a sexual harassment brief, so arguments for Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell don’t hold water,” Steve said. “I don’t care what religion, color, gender, or orientation a person is if they do their job and they do it well.”
   People, like Steve, used to be in the minority but is now in the majority as DADT gets closer and closer to dead and buried status. Thank God. Unfortunately, the rotten policy took and destroyed lives in countless ways, by bringing lesbian, gay and bisexual members to suicide, rape or further harassment from their fellow officers.
   Just as the witch hunt’s insane nature was revealed; the cause chalked up to irrational fear. As the study to repeal DADT supports, gay military do not affect combat readiness and unit cohesion. The gay military hunt is soon to be revealed for its true nature, fear of different orientations.

Last Days

2010-11-03T11:05:00.000-07:00

Proud to be a Witch
H. Rachelle Graham

I'm an ass.
   Well, according to the last days, the Bible says good will appear evil and evil will appear good. Even though the Last Days were predicted thousands of times before, starting almost as early as people could talk, this must officially be the last days. Mayan calender is correct, we have a few more years left so start packing.
   For example, being a democrat or donkey is bad and being a republican or elephant is good. Older, exclusive, rich and Christian are somehow better while being poor, middle class, liberal or inclusive is 'witch-like or demonic. I'm glad I'm a blue-horned demon.
    I'm also proud to be a witch. If not being a witch means being the next Christine O'Donnell, where any type of pleasure is evil, women's rights are in the home and someone that believes it's a choice to be bullied non-stop and have everyone you used to love hate your guts.
    Since when was it 'good' to be Carl Paladino; death to all gays. And bad to be Obama; wanting health care for all, including babies. Where it is 'good' to let homeless people suffer and 'bad' to tax the billionaries to help the poor.
     "Wo unto them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" (2 Nephi 15:20 Book of Mormon)
     I personally know when I taste the sweet hot cocoa of life that it's not bitter. I know it's not right to bang down peole's doors whether you are a liberal or a republican and tell them to go to hell or that they are better off committing suicide. But I'm not so sure some of these people in power know what's light and what's dark. What's kind and what's not so kind. What's sane and what's plain mean.
     I worry about the United States of America because they don't seem to know what's good and what's bad. Many, especially those that took power on the tea party ticket, seem to only care how big their pockets are or about recognition and power itself. Not that there's not democrats guilty of the same thing.
As history shows time and time again; pure selfishness follows the last days of an empire. Are we at the last days? Is that what the GOP really wants? Death to health care, locking up the mentally ill instead of funding their treatment, growing homelessness, slaughtering immigrants and lack of equal rights.
    The GOP win of the House isn't a forward move. We are taking rapid steps backward for human kindness and Christ's most important lesson; love one another.
    I think its time to move to Canada!! Anyone with me?

Photo by Dick Layman, Public News Service

CURSED

2010-10-28T10:09:00.000-07:00

As seen in

Cursed

H. Rachelle Graham

Boyd K. Packer thinks I’m cursed. He has no idea how much.

I’m cursed with having the one talent in this messed-up world where only one in a million ever make a career out of it. Lucky me.

   I've gotten over my same-sex attraction issue and learned to accept it is only a shameful choice to those who believe Sarah Palin should be the next President. Writing, on the other hand, is not something I will ever get over. Especially since when I’m lost in the land of words, I could wear an adult diaper and not even realize I had an “accident.”
   As I market the first book in my life I’ve ever finished, it’s too late. I’ve already screwed up my chances by marketing with agents and publishers with lousy and redundant book ideas like sparkly vampires and a school of witches. I didn’t just jump the gun, I ran it into the Niagara Falls and then beat it up to post-death. Guess that’s what happens when a person publishes their first piece of work when they are post-adolescence?
   But agents never forget a name; any excuse to throw a query or manuscript into the nearest garbage can, whether that be on Times Square or in their penthouse office, and they will do it. Agents, especially those centered around New York City, which is 90 percent of them, have about half a second for you, and if you ruin it with them then you are doomed for the rest of your earthly-existence or until you decide to marry Lindsay Lohan. Then you can sell all the damn books you want and then some.
    Meanwhile, almost everyone and their kitty wants to be an author even with the crumbling book industries, the rise of e-books and the discovery of a poisonous Bush-called recession. Consolidation doesn’t help any; where most of the work coming out is similar, that’s a big shocker, since most of the books are being written by the exact same authors and family members.
   I just got a rejection slip from the second agent I queried for the book I finished. Wait for it … it is titled Cursed. Haven’t heard yet from the first or third agent or publisher I queried. By the way, if any of you are lucky enough to have a career that is actually booming or has any source of income, a query letter is a one-page introduction, covering a short synopsis, an author bio and marketing prospects.
   Anyway, the agent who gave me the rejection slip said these three simple words, “Thanks, we’ll pass.”
   I was offended until I looked deeper into that agency and discovered I had tried to sell my book with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender themes to an agent who represented well-know, anti-gay Christian authors. Not too smart on my behalf. That’s similar to trying to sell edible panties to Gayle Ruzicka.
   It dawned on me as I spent extra time in bed, being miserable and wondering what the hell I’m doing on the face of Earth, that I need to face my New York best-selling dream will never be a reality. In order to earn my sanity back, I need to forget about my closets full of rejection letters or the fact the amount of money I earned so far in writing could fit inside a piggy bank.
   I need to figure out what to do for that second source of income. Sell my soul, my eggs, or my cute puppy. No, I’ll never be desperate enough to sell the last one. Either way, I’ll have to figure it out someday. If not, I’ll just write about it.

Coming Out Day

2010-10-11T16:43:00.000-07:00

Little Mormon Girl

by H. Rachelle Graham

Ever since I was a little Mormon girl I knew how much words could hurt. In fact, beside the occasional hard push or spit in the face, words were the only violence I experienced growing up in the middle class suburbs of Salt Lake City.

I was accepted for my selective-mutism in Kearns, but when a moved a few miles to a wealthier neighborhood, the girls in my primary and Sunday school classes hated me. They thought I was stuck-up, a freak, too different and shy to relate too. They caught on to the fact I was over-zealous to the Mormon Church while at the same time hiding a secret that made it hard to look anyone in the eyes. Underneath my body was burns of self-hatred and shame that made me think I was below every other girl at my school, whether it was elementary school or high school.

High School was when I started coming out of my shell, but it was also when I started thinking seriously about suicide. The boy I was into, who was leaving in less than two years for a mission, didn’t want to kiss me or any girl for that matter until after his mission or on his wedding night. And maybe that was partly why I liked him or even loved him, I’d never have to be physical with him. When I came out to him about my same-sex attraction or more accurately, my sexual orientation, he sent me a letter back quoting scriptures and telling me I desperately needed to repent; adding that I wasn’t the person he thought I was and he could never see me as his future wife. His words hurt to the point it tore me up inside and my first years of college were spent in and out of hospitals.

I tell my story, not to get attention, not even to get paid. But I share my story in the fat chance someone, out of the four or five who read my blog, will read it and understand just how much words can hurt. Just how much Boyd K. Packer can hurt.

I blindly listened to the prophet every Sunday, raising my hand ever week to vote my life away. It almost cost me my life. If I didn’t raise my hand, I’d be taken out of Sacrament meeting and asked why I didn’t agree with the masses. Then I couldn’t see through the brainwashing and lies all in the name of money and power. I thought the only way I was going to get to heaven was to strip myself of everything dirty and shameful inside me; only no matter how hard I tried. Nothing changed. The bikini-clad women arouse me and the men, even if they were naked, did absolutely nothing for me. In fact, made me want to upchuck. Sure, I could sleep with men, but not without wishing they were Angelina Jolie and I’d always feel guilty with them and less of a person. Like I was selling them and myself short for being in a ‘fake’ relationship.

Now in my early thirties, as I listened to Boyd K. Packer’s words this last general conference I realized two very important things. First; the church I was raised in was actually no better than the bullies who spit on me, pushed me and said nasty words both to my face and behind my back. And second; that no matter what, I was just as important as the women in his congregation, some of which hated me and picked on me and that I have something important to say to these LGBT teens who are deciding to end their lives, here it is as follows.
“Don’t listen to the bullies, no matter if they are a 100 years-old or ten. Don’t listen to the lies no matter if they are written inside the most-quoted piece of literature or inside a blog. Don’t listen to hate, no matter if it comes from a religious man or a homeless one. And by all means don’t decide who you are by what anyone else says. Because God(dess) made you who you are and who you are is necessary and needed in the rainbow of life. And as the religious scholars say, this too shall pass and the most important commandment of all, is love one another as you have love unto yourself.”

World isn't flat

2010-10-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

Asher Brown, 13, shown in August, killed himself at home in Cypress on Thursday.

Brainwashing
by H. Rachelle Graham

Boyd K. Packer, president of the Quorum of the Twelve of the LDS Church, basically spoke in front of millions of people last Sunday and said the world was flat. Ok. Maybe he didn't say those exact words, but he did say everyone decides to be homosexual or heterosexual. Claims that are obvious lies and is as bogus as saying the world is flat, but yet many LDS faithful don't see it. Why?
(1) Never underestimate the power of denial. I denied my homosexuality for twenty-one years, lying to myself that the Victoria Secret commercials didn't arouse me or that I didn't have a crush on my best girl friends. But my deep grave of denial wasn't hard to fathom when Boyd K. Packer, the Mormon Doctrine and the New Era were my Bibles or more accurately my Book of Mormons, that was so wrinkled up from re-reading that it practically collapsed upon holding.

(2) Brainwashing is powerful, just as it was in the days the world was flat. No one knew any better. You hear something so many times that you just believe it, especially if the love of your family, friends and eternal life is at stake.

(3) Simplicity: People want to believe the world is simple; that there's one clear straight line to heaven. What people don't understand, they try to explain it away and make it simple.

Chris Detrick/The Salt Lake Tribune
Boyd K. Packer, at the 179th Semi-Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

(4) They use their own demented view of science and turn it around to justify their own beliefs.
It's highly ironic that Boyd K. Packer would use the laws of gravity as an excuse to justify why gays/lesbians/trans should not have rights or get married. His reasoning; gays can change when just about every single scientific study and common sense rationalization suggests otherwise. This is in the twenty-first century when Packer and other church leaders have the resources available to them to actually look things up but they don't. They still don't know better, they strongly believe the world is six thousand years old, fossils are imaginary and evolution is a myth.

(4) Repitition: Even as the world changes, the church often repeats; God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow and say their church has never changed. But that is a bold-face lie if I ever heard one. The church has changed drastically over the short time they've been around from their stance on slavery, African-American rights, polygomy and their involvment in politics.
But they need to continue saying; gays and lesnbans and transpeople can choose to be straight or happy in their original sex. No matter how obvious this gets to the rest of the world, not that it wasn't already obvious to people like me who have even tried time and time and time again to change thier sexual orientation and even decided suicide was their best option, the church needs to keep repeting the same ole' BS.

We can't sit by and do nothing. We as activist, as human beings, as fathers, as mothers, as Aunts, as guardians need to do something and call in question these religious people who are enocouraging their own grandchilden to bully and are exerting fear and shame on others.
As a result, many are turning to suicide. Asher Brown is one of these kids, as well as many others.
Dan Savage, a columnist and blogger in Chicago, said on CNN this morning, "the religious right would have us believe that Seth and Asher made a choice at thirteen to be gay, a choice to brutually bullied and could have easily chose not to be gay and instead it was somehow easier to blow thei brians out or hang themselves than choose to be straight...The religious right needs to be held accountable for their climate of hate, fear and bullying. This is what we're seeing for their efforts is dead children."
And dead children is exactly what were seeing. Sucide among LGBT teens is at an all-time record-breaking high. I have a funeral to go to this week of someone who committed suicide. This is a huge problem right here in happy valley; people and kids are taking their lives because they are in this oppressive climate where an actual leader of the largest church in the state has the cowardness to speak in front of the millions of viewers from over the world and say the Lord will destroy these kids for their shameful addiction.

Come with me to the City Creek Park this thursday at seven o'clock. You may not know anyone who is gay or lesbian but you do know someone who is hurting, who is told they are worthless because they are different. You may know someone who cries themselves to sleep every night because they are bullied at school. You probably know someone, even if you don't know about it, who has taken their lives because their preacher or family told them they can change. Attend for the kids who hanged themselves, attend for the women who took those fateful drugs, but most of all attend to ask for an end to REGLIOUS bullying!!!

Tierney Michele Pomo event page: wear purple!
These are all kids who took their lives because of anti-gay bullying

Everlasting

2010-09-30T15:28:00.000-07:00

Lipstick Lesbian Column for

Everlasting

H. Rachelle Graham
Reincarnation may sound like a weird idea. Maybe it’s the idea that one person can be Joan of Arc, a Generation Y teen and a Mormon mother of eight. I get the idea, but then again, maybe what’s weird is not the idea that a soul can take on multiple shells or bodies, but the idea that one white spirit-man with a beard can save us all if we say his name out loud and go to church every Sunday.
    Reincarnation is a valid theory. Here’s why: The Higher Powers are not found in outer objects like buildings, temples or synagogues just as who we are is not found in our skin, organs or limbs. This is why I’m baffled by the popular spiritual belief that God(ess) is found in a building and not in directly serving the poor (worthy or not), needy and cast out.
    Since this is the case, a lot of the reasoning used to say those with different outer shells (or bodies) are somehow of less worth than those who are male or white or just plain more attractive is just pointless. Here’s an example of how ridiculous that reasoning gets: a mom in one of the commercials in support of Proposition 8 said, “I don’t want my children to grow up in a genderless society.”
    So, either she meant that two women who get married will magically produce offspring that do not have reproductive parts, or if we let two men marry then suddenly every human will cease to be clearly male or female. Or it’s possible the Prop 8 supporters just made up lies for the hell of it.
    I have to go with the latter.
    Still, we can learn from the people who say gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people are the ones who fit under the psychiatric definition of bizarre. I’m not saying we should strip people of their private parts, but we could benefit by removing the stigma that creates the hell on earth that comes from judging people on their outward appearances.
    A body can be burned, mutilated, amputated, be-headed and hurt or destroyed in a lot of other ways. A soul is lasting and its value lies in feelings, thoughts and actions. For example, a gorgeous woman eventually turns into a shriveled old lady, but her knowledge and kind acts for others never dies.
    It makes sense that if we are to achieve Nirvana with the higher powers, then we need to learn from our mistakes. This is never truer than with the philosophy of reincarnation, which brings a definition to the idea that the rich will be the poor. The sexual predator will be the sexual victim. The solider who tortures will be a tortured war slave. The anti-gay Legislator will be the gay man with limited rights.
     So those who have ignored the pleas of their own shadows will remain in a constant flux of body-jumping and will take longer to get to heaven, whether that is a place with a bunch of dead white guys, a perpetual Mardi Gras or the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory.
   Over time, large houses will fall. Cars will rust. Temples will collapse. Bodies will turn to dust. Souls who rise will do so in love and harmony together, having full compassion and understanding for one another. Thank Goddess we will then live in a genderless society where the walls that separate us will die.
   Bodies will evaporate, making us truly naked together! Hey, it’ll just be another Woodstock without the wood. I’m there.

Eyes Wide Open

2010-09-17T20:08:00.000-07:00

Me with Jeannette Walls

Fall
by H. Rachelle Graham

It feels like no sooner than I get up on my feet and start to feel at ease smiling and laughing without waking up in the mornings feeling like a heavy brick or two is on top of me, that another bomb comes and sends me sprawling back down to the carpet or more accurately, my bed.
   My bomb last week was in large part due to letting someone into my house and life that didn’t have the same good intentions for me.
    Of course when it drops it shatters, resulting in me back in bed not knowing if the industrial-sized misery is coming from my body or my mind; whether I have a flu or allergies or whether I’m just plain depressed out of my gore. Again!
   So here I am at the bottom of a coffin, a large part of me wishing I was actually in a coffin and venturing out of my house only when it is absolutely necessary. When a random act of kindness shoots me back up out of the ground as a stranger does something so unbelievably unselfish, without wanting any recognition for it, even insisting I give him none at all. His huge heart restored my trust in the human species and helped me claw my way back up from the coffin and was able to breath easy again.
    He helped give me strength for another week. That was until this morning when I woke up wanting to stay in bed. But I forced myself to get up so I could attend the YWCA luncheon at the Hilton Hotel. As a writer of QSalt Lake I was able to go for free and didn’t want to miss out on hearing the New York Times best-selling author of The Glass Castle.
   She, Jeannette Walls, told her story of growing up homeless. Many of her powerful, heartfelt words shot me back up more than the Vitamin B12 shot I got giving me the strength to again write, dream and smile.
   The stories of her mom, who her second book is focused on, particularly tugged at my heart. She said her mother came into her house after having ridden a horse with a large smile on her face. When Jeannette asked her why she was so happy since she had just fallen off a horse, her mother responded, “I know how to fall now. That takes true talent.”
   Walls spoke of the eternal optimistic nature of her mother, who even though she spent most of her life on the streets, she never felt she didn’t have a home. Cause even if she was at the bottom of a New York State Bridge that became her home.
   Walls used to have to dig through trash cans at school and was often made fun of because she didn’t have nice clothes or anything really. But she fought against insurmountable odds and instead of having anger toward her parents for having to grow up homeless. She instead chose to be grateful because at least with her parents, they always made her feel worthy, and that her dreams were always valid. Walls embraced the shame she felt from her past and rose above it all.
    As I lie inside my coffins of turmoil, I tend to forget the beauty of the stories of those around me and forget the power of healing that comes from listening to other’s story, to other's pain and to other's unbelievable strength.
    For example, almost two years ago a wonderful woman passed away. She inspired me to give back to the community after years of needing social security checks, regular hospital visits, shock treatments and a day to day treatment center. From my severe mental illness, I was burnt out and used that as an excuse to not get out of my bubble and help anyone else out. But, I had to venture out. Ricki showed me.
    Ricki Landers was the type of person who spent her every last drop of energy fighting for those who couldn’t fight for themselves. She spent more time in jail then at home watching soaps. Her house was always full of donations and gifts she’d collected for poor children. As a person suffering from severe MS, she never considered herself a victim and never wasted any of the precious time she had left. She always helped someone else who needed it more. Even during her final weeks, she didn't stop smiling and caring about those around her.
   Landers taught me, as well as Walls and the unselfish stranger that it doesn’t matter how many bombs drop and how many times I fall flat on the ground. It matters if I get up again and fight with whatever precious time I have left, with whatever precious time my mental health will allow, to help someone else who needs it more.
    After all, I too know the right way to fall and that is to land with my eyes wide open.

Photo by Chris Sinclair.
Exercise Consultant Mark Snow helps Ricki Landers. He had previously conditioned her for the 144-mile Free Our People March from Philadelphia to Washingon D.C.

I Have a Vision

2010-08-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

National Equality March 2009 (AP/Jacquelyn Martin)

The Past is Our Present!
Many people probably don't remember the National Equality March last spring where about a quarter of a million marched on Washington D.C. In honor of the last remaining civil rights movement; equal rights for gays, trans and lesbian because the news stations combined spent less than ten minutes on it, even those with offices in the city itself.  I went in honor of homeless teens. I went in honor of my fellow humans. I went for equal protection no matter who you love. But without the media attention it was a hollow echo, so here is my speech, the one I will deliver in reality on the steps of the nation's capitol. One day when the news will listen, the people will open their hearts and the lines of segregation at last will be broken.

I Believe
published on August 28, 2010
by H. Rachelle Graham
    I'm pleasured to be with family today in the name of equality.  Family who loves one another and does not kick a single member out of our homes, workforces, churches and schools for the mere reason of being born differently, of loving differently or for being trapped inside a body that does not fit who you are on the inside.
     I believe the day will come when the last civil rights movements will be behind us.
     We will have full equality.
     Others will realize our hearts do break when our loved ones die and we end up losing everything else because we do not have the piece of paper. Our bodies do break when we are beat and left for dead while onlookers and police do nothing. Our minds crumble when we have to remain in the closets for fear of losing jobs, houses, and loved ones. Our health shatters, both physically and mentally when we are foced to live a lie of intolerance. Others willl realize when we come out finally free to be who we are, we are attacked with violence, death and brutal mockery in the name of a so-called vengeful God.
    God is not h8. God is not violence. God is not inequality. God is not pain. God is love. We fight for love!
     There are those who say, "keep it in the bedroom" or "stay in the closet.' We will not do that. We will never do that. Ever again.
     We are Queers. We will dance on your streets. We will worship in your temples. We will kiss on your streets. We pay your taxes. We attend your marriage ceremonies. We keep the same laws. We treasure our kids more than life itself. We love our spouses no less or more. We bleed the same color. We cry the same colorless tears. We breath the same oxygen. We are you!
     You may not want to see us. You may not want to know us. You may not want to share the streets with us. But there is little you can do. You can throw us in your prisons, we will escape. You can kick us out of our own homes, we will return. You can murder us, we will live on.
      In the name of Martin Luther King Jr, 'Let freedom ring." In the name of the Beatles, 'Let (us) be." In the name of every last one of us, "Let Love Survive.."
     Our soul will rise from the chains and bullets, from the finacial losses and the family betrayals. Our souls will heal from every last drop of hate if we don't succumb to an eye for an eye.
     My wish is that one day children from adults will not be judged Evil for being born to love differently or by looking differently. My wish is that one day, 'all humans will be treated equally,' for 'we are created equally.'
   Mathew Shephard spent long hours suffocating and tied to wood, ropes burning his bloody limbs; injuries declared too severe to operate. Harvey Milk; assainated in cold blood while his murderer went free.
    Those who have died before us live on in each and every one of us. We have all overcame similar hardships. We have all overcome similar forms of hate. But here we stand. We stand for equality. We stand for marraige. We stand for children. We stand in the hope that cops will protect and not just serve. We stand with the wish that no one will ever have to come out again.
      We are not criminals. We do not deserve to be in gas chambers.  We are people, we deserve to be treated as first-class citizens. We do not want to marry dogs, we do not want to marry kids, We don't want to marry multiple concubines. We do not want to marry in your churches. We want to love! We only want the rights that come with love.
  Shephard and Milk continue fighting today with their words and their past deeds, they live on!! We have come out, as Harvey Milk, wanted in every city in this country we call America.
    Let us get out of despair. Let us choose to get up off the floor. Let us step away from that bridge and let us choose life because its our lives to live.
     We don't care if you're black, white, purple, male, female, trans, rich, or poor. We need all the colors of the rainbow. Goddess loves rainbows because she created them everywhere. Inside each of us. In the sky. In every city, home or land. We were not meant to be the same. We were not born as only black or white, straight or gay, male or female.
     Each color lost will lessen the beauty and diversity of this place we call Earth. And we as queers are damn beautiful, both inside and out. The world will turn bleak without our fashion sense, without our children, without our creativity and without our hearts!!

    We have trusted those who've turned their backs on us, we have cared about others at the risk of what may happen to us. We have fought for and alongside our families and loved ones.   We have fought for justice. We have fought for tolerance.
    We will never back down because this is our life, this is about love
     This is who we are.

Dark shadows

2010-08-27T12:56:00.000-07:00

Harsh light of Day
by H. Rachelle Graham

"I can't be friends with you anymore, because you're not a Mormon." Words I spoke a long time ago.
Words that had completely escaped my mind until my friend from Jr. High shared them with me recently. Words that had troubled her so much, she'd remembered them 20 years later. I apologized for being so mean, but it didn't feel like enough.
      A psychic reader at Dragon Dreams in SLC told me that in order for me to advance spirtuality and emotionally I needed to confront my darkest shadows. She felt it was better for me to face my inner demons in this life when it could help me with some my writers block and inability to complete a full book, even though I'm close.
    As I've been digging inside myself trying to confront and remove my inner darkness though prayer, meditation and writing, My crappy memory made it difficult to remember some things so it helps having friends remind me of one of my dark shadows.  I had thrown a friend away, not for who she was or how she treated me, but for the way she worshipped.
     I asked the psychic how to confront the past shadows, involving other people. She told me all I needed to face was what I had done. ((Who needed a church leader when psychics do just fine?))  She said one of the Gossips of my past spreading lies and BS about me was not my shit to deal with because it wasn't true. It was there's. So I confronted me in the mirror and Only Me. No matter how difficult it was at times.
      The comment I'd made to my friend at the end of junior high wasn't something I could deny or laugh about. I had done it.I had dumped a friend for no other reason than I thought I was better than her. And I felt guilty. Looking in her eyes hurt me. But she had faced the pain and gotten over it, but I still had to deal with it. As well as all the other not so fabulous things I had done throughout my life and the darkness inside myself, whether it was caused by outside forces interacting or if it just came from inside me. I accepted the fact i was doing the things I had been taught, and that my ignorance had led me to make mistakes, similar to what I had told my friend. Of course, I made more severe mistakes as a human throughout the rest of my life, but i never deliberately set out to hurt others or make their lives hell. I overlooked their pain and selfisness on my way to get what I wanted.
     I didn't just look at the big things, getting away with smoking marjuanna or driving under the influence. I looked at the small things, because i know often it's the little cuts that go the deepest. Plus, the little things add up and before you know it you're causing others to break inside. Even as i looked at my dark shadows, I didn't ignore the light inside me. The love inside me and good intentions are powerful and bright. I loved to help people and I did it only becuause I loved it..
       I don't believe the same way as many in the Western Culture that a second coming is innemiate and that there is one final judgement. But I do believe in an after life and whether or not we say or do thing in the name of a religion, or on crack, or out of a just cause, or a chauvinist, or out of pure spite, we are going to have to face what we've done in the harsh light of day without our causes, organization or friends beside us or any blinders on our face. We will have to stare at the real people we've hurt or let down and feel what they've felt. "I'm sorry' will not be enough.

I'm somebody!

2010-08-23T09:52:00.000-07:00

Last names of the young adults have been removed due to privacy and some of the teens in this article are referred to by their street names. All photos are provided by David Daniels Photography.

Alisha, a homeless teen, is speaking to the crowd at the Operation Shine 2010 Launch.

We're Somebody
by H. Rachelle Graham

America is one of the richest countries in the world, yet it tries to throw away key members of their society, as if they were trash on the side of the road.
   "We're not just homeless, yucky people. We're somebody,” said Renae, a teen, at the Operation Shine event held at the Utah Pride Center. "It doesn't matter who or what we look like. (Only) that we're compassionate in ways others can recognize."
   Jill Hardman learned what it was like to live on the streets during Pride Walk, starting in 2008. Jill walked across the country with her friend and Founding Director of Operation Shine America Chloe Noble.
   Hardman said she lived through her personal hell on the streets, not knowing when or if she would eat or sleep. Many times she had to stay on the hard sidewalk. Her ‘taste’ of homeless life was so awful she said no one would choose to live like that. She discovered the teens weren’t homeless because they were lazy or didn’t want to work.
   “They left because they were so horribly abused, physically and sexually, that they felt safer on the streets,” Hardman said.
   Funsize, a homeless teen, shared her ‘painful’ story to the crowd last Saturday.
   “My daddy beat me. My momma would just sit there and watch. So I left,” she said. “My father told me my whole life the world was mean.”
   Funsize wanted to find out for herself if the world was a harsh place. In her journey thus far, she discovered some states and cities were more sympathetic than others. "In Iowa when you're in a shelter, they get you a job, they give you a place, a room key, some dignity," she said.
   Salt Lake City for her felt like being stuck back in high school. "When I came out here, people looked down on you and spit on you. Tell you you’re a piece of shit and get a job,” Funsize said, with tears flowing down her face. “How am I supposed to get a job when I don’t have a constant place to sleep?”

Homeless Teens

   Other teens feel the same way in downtown Salt Lake City, a place in Utah where most of them hang out partly because it is close to the teen resource center, a day place provided by the Volunteers of America where they can get basic necessities. There is no night shelter anywhere in the state of Utah for these homeless young adults, mainly due to strict state laws.
   “We sit there at the Gallivan center, trying to make money the only way we know how, they look at us like we're scum. But we do what we have to do to survive. We don't have a choice," said Ashley, a 21-year-old who's been homeless for four years.
   Ashley is in the middle of getting the aide to go to school and hopefully become a NASA engineer. She said she almost gave up a few days ago, but her “awesome” street friends, who are essentially her family, talked her out of it.
   "People who we thought we're our true families turned our backs on us." Renae said. "We as streeters know what life is about."
   Material possessions no longer matter to Renee the way they used too. Of course, she wants to have a place to live and the basic necessities, but her values have changed dramatically.
   Most of the young adults value work and want to have a steady job. Some of them even had a job before.
   Josh said he used to ignore the homeless because he thought everyone was capable of taking care of themselves. But when he lost his job and became homeless himself, he learned that living on the streets can happen to anyone.
   “I don’t even care if I end up back in a two-million dollar mansion for crying out loud in the future. I’m still willing to do this, to be an advocate,” he said.
    His goal is to get something with the Salt Lake City or even nation to provide a tent city where the homeless youth can go without being harassed ‘nonstop’ by the public health department and the police.
   Many of these teens, like Josh, said they wanted to better the community and make a positive difference in the lives of others.
   But, are they the ones who need to change? Hardman doesn’t seem to think so. She said it is a serious cultural problem that everyone needs to deal with.
   “If they can open up their minds and take a second to just listen to the (teens) stories, it can change everything,” Hardman said.

Signs created by some of the homeless teens

Show No to School Bullying

2010-08-16T13:11:00.000-07:00

Heart
by H. Rachelle Graham
(special thanks to two of my greatest heroes and friends; David James Bell-Fair and his beaufiul husband, Dan Fair)

Words do burn. Tiny hearts do break easily. Anyone different is ostracized in the elementary school yard.

A twelve-year-old boy with freckles begged his Mom. “Please, can I stay home?”

She gave him a sympathatic look, wishing that this year would be better. Her son would finally stop crying himself to sleep every night.

Shaking, DJ closed the car door and headed into school as slowly as possible. He quietly said a prayer as he does before every school day. He sat in a desk with his name-tag on the front in crayons. He breathed a sigh of relief as he opened his new set of colored pencils and blank notebook.

As he started to design a power ranger, hands tugged his hair, hurting his scalp tremendously as he was slammed into his desk. The pain was so intense his head burned. A migrane started to form as he ran from the classroom. A kid yelled at the top of his lungs as he passed, “Faggot.”

Inside the bathroom, he collapsed on the floor. His physical pain didn’t even begin to compare with his emotional heartache as he started to believe his name was now Faggot and his soul was worth nothing.

Boys will not just be boys. Girls will not just gossip. Kids do die. Kids hang themselves. Those who do survive often have unimaginable scars that don’t heal for years, if ever.

I know because I was one of these kids. At fourth grade to six; I was the one in the corner, who everyone picked on, left out and occassionally spit on. Always the last one chosen for a teammate.

Twenty years later, dating is stilll hard for me. I rarely go out on dates for fear of rejection because when they do I fall back to that time in my life when all my peers really did reject me and the tears fall like blood in the night sky.

Five suicide attempts later, I have survived and am still breathing. I do look forward to the days ahead. But the life got sucked out of me when I was young and it never fully returned.

I learned just like DJ did as a high school student that it didn’t matter what shallow people thought about us. It only ever mattered if we accepted who we were as a person and then others followed.
"I finally did realize my self worth and took control, but it took a long time… even longer for me to believe I was worth even more than that. I had to fake it 'til I made it.” DJ said.

DJ Bell-Fair with best friend, Megan Pedersen

Men will not just be men. Women will not just be catty. Adults die. Adults hurt so badly they die by their own hands. We tell our kids time and time again to treat others with respect, but actions speak louder than words every time!
Twenty years later, DJ is a full-grown man with freckles and long, reddish-blonde hair. It was in the middle of the night and he was settling down from hanging out with his friends at a club. He noticed his tabby cat was missing and searched at the neigbors, who were having an adult party.
    Hour or so later, Hands tugged his hair as they pulled him out of his house, hurting his scalp tremendously as he was slammed into the concrete wall. Others joined in, putting in blow after blow. Fist after fist. Pan after pan. The words, “faggott” and “Cock-sucker” echoed in his ear until he lost his hearing.
    His husband came to his defense, but he only suffered the same fate. They were both left for dead.
    The attackers invented a new defense when the police showed. Assuming he was a pedophile because he was gay the cops cuffed DJ. The detective took him for a brief hosptial visit and then off to jail, where he spent weeks for a crime he didn’t commit and years waiting for justice to finally be served.
    Tears ran with his blood as his physical scars mostly healed, but his emotional ones took more time.
   Even the most broken heart can eventually heal. The wounded soul can find release. Those who have suffered greatly can turn around and release others suffering just as greatly.
    Him and his husband struggle every day regaining their financies, physical health and dreams that were shattered to pieces that fateful night two years ago. But that doesn’t stop either of them from being the kindest people.
   David James Bell-Fair is the warmest person I know. He sings for ‘No More Homeless Pets.” He touches lives every day for his ability to spread jokes and smiles to everyone he meets. Him and his husband struggle every day reliving the worst night of their adult live but surprisingly they do not to succomb to hatred, vengence or inner bitterness.
  He still cries today when he thinks about the abuse he suffered as a child and the abuse he suffered as an adult. But, he never stops laughing and trying to help others laugh.
   Out of every school classroom their lies at least one bully. But he/she will never stop if we as adults are just as bad!
    Lucikly, out every school class there are those future heroes(heroines), whether they were bullies or bullied themselves or silently watched, who will overcome great obstacles and use what they have learned to better help others.

David James Bell-Fair with his husband, Dan Fair (2010)

DJ Bell-Fair wrote this when he was 14, explaining his hardships with not being accepted because he was different!
Rain

Single raindrops fall and hit, making me almost forget.
Hiding in the rain is good. No one sees me in this pit.
Many people come and go. Everyone brushes on by.
Thank the heavens for the rain. It hides the pain and tears I cry.
I sit alone on this park bench with shiny reaper tight in hand.
Rain won’t wash away my sin. From heaven’s doors I shall be banned.
Pulled from pockets in my coat, I draw out my tool of fate,
Place the cold steel in my mouth and do not stop to contemplate.
No more thoughts and no more tears. Reflecting on my wasted years
My finger tugs without a pause; I say goodbye to all my fears.
Warm, thick liquid fast flows out. My body slaps the earth in shame.
As the redness seeps into the ground, I thank the heavens for the rain.

Rally For Equality Speech (Utah State Capitol 8-13)

2010-08-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

Namaste

by Dominique Storni

I greet you today with an ancient greeting, Namaste. There are many connotations of this humble greeting. My favourite is, “The divine within me recognizes and honours the divine within you”. It is in the spirit of the divine that I surrender myself to you today in hopes that your spirit will hear and commune with my spirit.

In today’s political atmosphere, there is much discussion about marriage equality. I’d like to broaden the discussion today. I believe marriage equality is important. Many do. Many do not. As for marriage equality, I will only say one thing today. “Prop 8 was over turned and the sky still did not fall, Chicken Little.”

May we all please move beyond our own myopic viewpoints today and expand the vision of equality?
Today, I’d like us to think outside the boxes we have created in order to label ourselves and each other. In our human weakness, in our insecurity, we make feeble attempts to feel better, by fashioning false hierarchies of superiority by creating boxes of “other”… boxes of “you’re not like me”.

Dominique Storni
ot the steps of the Utah State Capitol
(Photo Courtesy of Heidi Shelton)

Instead of listing any boxes, I will simply refer to us all in the Lakota saying, Mitakuye Oyasin, which means; all my relations. We are all related and must find a way to respect an honour each other.

We have heard also too much about “activist judges”. I find it ironic that the term “activist judges” is only used by those who oppose a particular judge’s ruling.

We have heard much too much rhetoric about our Constitution, the intentions of The Founding Fathers, the original intent of the Constitution, whether or not our country is Christian, whether or not “they” are included or not. Who are “they” anyway?

Our Republic as three branches of government. The Executive branch administers. The Legislative branch writes laws. The Judicial branch interprets whether a law is constitutional. The Judicial branches job is to assure that no majority usurps or blocks the civil rights of any minority by a simple majority vote or by any law written by the Legislative branch. It really is that simple, my sisters and brothers.

The queer community has been scolded for singling out the Mormon Church. In like fashion, the Mormon Church has been scolded for singling out the queer community.
Within the heterosexual community, lines are drawn along colour, race, country of origin, sexual orientation, gender identity, rich, poor, etc. Even within the Queer community, lines are drawn along femme or butch, gay or bi, cisgender or transgender.
Every group points a finger at the others implying inferiority, not realizing that while pointing one finger, there are four pointing back.
Today, I’m asking for you all to join me in a little walk about. I’m asking for us all to walk a mile in one another’s moccasins so we can understand each other better. I’m asking for equality in all things. I’m asking for equality for all of God’s creations.
I am a transsexual. I was born male and am now female. Mine was a long, difficult journey, but that is a story for another day.
I’ve been asked to address the topic of gender and the inequities of those perceived less than because their internal gender identity does not match the binary societal definitions. What I mean by that is… someone, somewhere started to define what is blue and what is pink, what is male and what is female, what is so-called appropriate behavior for each person defined by whatever gender moniker is stamped upon one’s birth certificate.
People are deemed less worthy of equality based upon their gender, their perceived gender, and/or their gender behavior. You don’t look like a boy. You don’t look like a girl. You don’t ACT like a boy. You don’t ACT like a girl.
Transgendered people, and indeed transsexuals, are the least understood and most maligned minority. We are hated, despised, persecuted, misrepresented, hunted down, beaten, and killed. In the United States of America, one or more transgender persons are murdered every month simply for not fitting in.
We are called many names. Among them; freak, pervert, sissy, pedophile, faggot, sinner. Rumors, innuendo, conjecture, lies. These are the adjectives that describe how you talk about me and my people. You don’t take the time to get to know me. You don’t take the time to learn about me. You simply repeat propaganda you’ve been fed and you hunt me down. I know you’re afraid of me. I was afraid of me. But please, take some time to know me before you revile me.
I have scores of information, documentation, research, and evidence of why I exist and why I am what I am. Instead of trying to convince you of my worthiness to be equal with facts, permit me to open for you a window into my soul.
I’d like to talk about the cycle of abuse with a personal story.
There was a young lad where I grew up who was born with a cleft pallet. His childhood was miserable because the way we teased and taunted him because of his looks and the way he spoke.
He found out about me when I was seeking information about attending my high school class reunion last year. “Look who’s the freak now,” he emailed me.
I responded, “I find it fascinating in my life’s journey and in my spiritual path, that those who are among the persecuted… find it so easy to become the persecutor. Please permit me to explain that.
My memories of childhood in Brigham City and the Box Elder North Stake are mostly unhappy memories. There were good times, to be sure… like the Stake plays and the Road Shows.
Along with those few good memories, are a plethora of memories of being picked on, bullied, called names, being emotionally, physically, and even sexually abused. Whenever I’d play with the girls at school or church, I’d be called “sissy” or “girly” or “fag” or some other name. I soon learned that being who I felt inside meant getting the shit kicked out of me…. either emotionally or physically. So it was be a macho asshole, or get a licking.
I was the persecuted.
As that cycle of abuse works, the persecution brought shame. The feelings I’ve had since earliest recollection of wanting to be a girl, brought more guilt and more shame and feelings of being unworthy, even though I was a valiant Christian. The sad part is, that I learned that to take the attention from me. It was oh so very easy to make someone I perceived as less than me feel bad by persecuting them. That would draw the attention away from my shame, and onto others.
The persecuted became the persecutor.
I do remember taunting you for your birth defect. It took a long time to pull back those horrid memories. How awful you must have felt. And I’m sure it was worse being singled out among peers and friends… and even enemies who, I’m sure, joined in as they also found it so easy to persecute one perceived as “less than”.
The cycle of abuse rolls on and rolls on and rolls on. I felt abused and persecuted for being a “sissy”. I turned that fear and sadness on you and I abused you and persecuted you because you were “less than”. Now you have perceived me as “less than” and persecute me.
It is a sad cycle that we must learn to stop in our lifetimes. We were the generation who wanted to stop senseless war. We are the generation of “Make Love, Not War”. We were the generation of Saturday’s Warriors.
For all the harm I caused; for all the shame I brought upon myself mocking and persecuting you; for all the hurt in your heart and the sadness I caused, I apologize. I apologize and humbly ask for your forgiveness.”
----------
The history of enmity between Mormons and non-Mormons is also fraught with this same cycle of abuse. Mormons were first chased out of New York and move to Kirtland, Ohio. Their sacred temple was burned down and the moved to Nauvoo, Illinois. They were subsequently chased out of there as well. As they watched their new temple burn, they fled across a frozen river, and eventually to the Salt Lake Valley. They were persecuted for their beliefs and for their chosen lifestyle.
In a very similar fashion, the officials of the Mormon Church now persecute those they perceive as less-than or less-worthy than themselves. The persecuted have become the persecutors.
Hear me. Hear my spirit. I am not saying this to point fingers. Rather, I am saying this to illustrate that we all fall into the trap of this cycle of abuse. It is time for us to move past the rhetoric, past the propaganda, past the hurtful ways, and into the spirit of light and love. It is time to find Common Ground and move forward together.
People in my transgender community are very much like you. We want to work. We want to have homes. We want to have families. We want to love. We want to pay our bills. We want to be productive members of society. We want to worship according to the desires of our hearts. The only difference is that we don’t feel comfortable with the gender marker we were given on our birth certificates.
Adding protection for Gender Identity does not just protect people who identify as transgender. Research by “It’s Time Ohio” revealed that 80% of anti-gay or anti-transgender violence was perpetrated because the attacker perceived the victim to be gay or gender variant. I blame that on the “Jerry Springer Effect”. People hear gender identity and immediately think of the fringe element exploited by shows like Jerry Springer. That element is not only a very small part of the transgender community, in the majority of shows, Jerry hired actors to behave in a most egregious manner to solicit crowd reaction. They weren’t real.
There is one incident from a true story of Transgender hate crime violence. A heterosexual married man was murdered because his attacker perceived him to be different. He was dining with his wife and a friend who was blind. On their way out of the restaurant, they stopped at the restroom. Another man saw this gentleman was holding his wife’s purse while also helping his blind friend find his way in the bathroom. He was perceived to be transgender and the other man verbally attacked them and made threats. They were able to get out of the restaurant, but the man who had assaulted them in the bathroom found them in the parking lot and killed the man holding his wife’s purse.
So men who are perceived as effeminate would be protected by legislation inclusive of gender identity.
And what is wrong with a man being effeminate anyway? Or a woman being masculine? There are many women who work blue collar jobs or who are family farmers. Most are straight women who are perceived as lesbian and called names and attacked simply because of how someone perceives them.
Protecting gender identity isn’t just for transgender people. It protects everyone equally.
Gender variant people have existed throughout time and across all borders and cultures. There is a plethora of historical and physical evidence. In Jesus time, these people were known as Eunuchs.
Because I was reared in a Christian home, I have a fondness still for the scriptures. I’d like to read two passages. The first comes from Matthew 19:12.
For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb: and there are some eunuchs, which were made eunuchs of men: and there be eunuchs, which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.
The second comes from Matthew 22:35-40.
Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked Him a question, tempting Him, and saying, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?”
Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
Those two great commandments did not come with a list of conditions or exclusions.
The greatest distance in the existence of humans is not from here to there nor from there to here. Nay, the greatest distance in the existence of humankind is from one’s mind to one’s heart. Unless one conquers this distance, one can never learn to soar like an eagle, and realize the immensity within.
I knew since at least 5 years old that I was different. I didn’t know how to define me until I was 27 and I had no idea that I could actually do anything to correct my birth defect until I was 30. It took another 16 years for me to decide that I could become on the outside, who I felt I was on the inside. I fasted and prayed, I served and honorable mission, I married and together we had 6 children. I was a Gospel Doctrine teacher and a Home Teacher. I aspired to nothing more.
I still felt incongruent. I thought I was the most hideous, ugly, unlovable creature in the world. Whenever I looked in the mirror, I only saw ugliness and the most unlovable and horrible monster ever imaginable. It wasn’t until I saw the sheer horror and fear in the eyes of my firstborn, after my 2nd suicide attempt, that I decided that I could walk the path to living as my authentic self.
My path did not come without huge hurdles… public opinion, righteous indignation from people who purport to follow Jesus but have no idea how to love unconditionally as He taught; family disdain, medical problems, a huge system of medical and psychological gatekeepers who required months of inpatient psychiatric “reparative therapy”, the loss of family and friends, loss of jobs and apartments, and self hate and self loathing.
If you ask those who know me now, you will know that I am Dominique. They will tell you that whether a son or a daughter, I am a beloved child of both Father and Mother in Heaven.
They will tell you that I serve those less fortunate; that I serve those who are perceived as “less than”; that I am in the service of my fellow beings, and thus in the service of the Lord.
They will tell you that I am above board, walk in integrity and honesty, that I love and am loved by many.
May we start a discussion of equality for all?
May we open our arms across all lines, aisles, and borders?
May we learn to respect and help each other?
May we begin to honour the splendor of our diversity?
May we love one another, as He loves us?

Dominique,
Thank you for your beautiful words. I'm proud to say I know you as a true friend and a beautiful woman both inisde and out!!

Prop Hate Overturned!

2010-08-05T23:21:00.000-07:00

Lipstick Lesbian
By Honey Rachelle Graham

                                                                Prop Hate Overturned!!

I thought I got over my hatred to everything Mormon a few years back, but I guess I was wrong. On my way back from the march around the Salt Lake Temple in celebration of the judge’s landmark ruling declaring Prop 8 was unconstitutional, I flipped the bird and honked at the gigantic Church office building; who had most of their office lights on, probably frantically getting ready for their next attack. I was disappointed in myself because I like to pride myself on being a “recovered” Mormon instead of a ‘Broken’ or ‘Spiteful’ one.
    For instance, I no longer hurt inside every time I see cars at church buildings or bicycle missionaries. And I stopped telling the home teachers that ‘Honey’ no longer lives there. I refused to punch the Bishop out when he told me bestiality was essentially the same thing as me loving a woman. But as with anyone in recovery, we all have our relapses and last night was one of them.
    Sure I was deliriously happy at both the victory in my home city and the victory for the country over same-sex rights. But still a part of me wanted more than anything to shove a ‘told you so’ pie in their faces. Since eight or ten security men or missionary women, hopefully the later, will jump on my ass before I could even get inside the building. I choose to flip the “in your face’ middle finger. They probably didn’t see me behind their hundred-foot gates and skyscraper buildings, but I did it anyway. Not that it helped but the happiness from the victories still lingered inside me and wasn’t destroyed by that slight mishap.
     The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints finally lost big in their hateful battle against same-sex rights. They inspired their members to form National Organization for Marriage, The Sutherland Institution and other underground organizations. BYU, a Mormon owned religion rounded search parties at gay bars to kick out or torment them by forcing them to undergo electroshock therapy in the worst way. Not to mention the countless other ways the Mormon leaders and many of their members have hurt their gay, trans, bisexual or lesbian members by showing them they are inferior and broken; that WE are not worthy to exist and the only sin next to murder in Heavenly Father’s eyes.
     Scribes thousands of years ago probably didn’t think a civilization would base their entire moral foundation on customs that are pointless (insane) in today’s world. They couldn’t even fathom a society where with a few buttons could see anywhere in the world. In fact, the Christ in the Bible was actually pure plagiarism of three thousand years ago about an Egyptian God named, Horus; a modern-day version of a teen buying a ten-page paper off the internet and only changing the author’s name
     Well, it’s high time the religious opponents stopped quoting bible verses to justify a Constitutional right. Religious opponents of Equal Marriage, like the Mormon Church, needs to stop counting how many steps they take on Sunday and focus instead on the deeper meaning behind their own code of ethics.
     For example, the Mormon Church waits to baptize kids until they reach the age of accountability. (age 8) They believe kids seven and under are innocent. Why? Children rarely look at appearance to judge someone; it is all about the heart. They don’t care about your sexual orientation or the color of your skin only if you’re mean. They ask questions and take everything in; without editing everything around them in the world. A child asks, ‘Why?” While an adult doesn’t rarely listens at all, usually closing the door if it doesn’t support their existing (religious) viewpoint.
    I remember hearing in Sunday school that God would only accept me if I was ‘like a child’. Well it’s about damn time they started to take their own advice. They need to repent before the judgment day or they will approach Heavenly Father like a stubborn pig-headed adult with their arms crossed to anyone who is different from them, proving to God they never learned the true meaning of LOVE.

Lipstick Lesbian; Messy

2010-08-05T11:42:00.000-07:00

Lipstick Lesbian
As seen in

Messy
by H. Rachelle Graham

I woke up with my ass hanging halfway off the bed, courtesy of my 12-pound dachshund. I then jumped on Facebook, well not literally. Squinting to see the smudged screen, I searched for my glasses in my purse and under my bed, and then I tore apart my closet with no luck.
    Afterward, my basement apartment was a bigger mess than what a seven-point earthquake would leave behind, I went back to my computer. A chat message from my friend said my glasses were at her house, as well as my hat.
    Just an average day in Honey-land. But I guess that’s how any person would turn out if they shared the same name with a breakfast cereal and a graham cracker.
    Taking a long sigh, I headed upstairs to my parents’ dwelling to fish my cell phone out of a container of rice. When I plugged it in a few sparks crackled, almost electrocuting me. Damn, next time it might be better not to let my phone take a dive into the Tavernacle Social Club’s toilet.
     And speaking of toilets, there went another 50 bucks down one, leaving my checking account on the big, fat zero when I had a week left until I was paid by the big man in the country.
     Needless to say, I slid back under my covers as my dog surrounded me with kisses. I went to sleep, forgetting to set my alarm for the anxiety group.
      A few hours later, I took my morning Paxil and then headed to the shower, hoping the warm water would make me feel better. It did a little, giving me enough energy to attempt yoga. When that failed, I went to writing and lost myself in my YA novel. Until a migraine seeped into my brain and girl cramps became so strong that I collapsed on the floor.
     My depression and anxiety constantly makes me feel like an industrial-sized knife is being jammed into my insides, so when you toss in physical pain it’s like adding a chain saw and running it all over my body. The pain joined together to swallow me up whole until I couldn’t separate the mental from the physical. It was all the same to me.
    I kneeled down to pray as tears enveloped me. “Please, help me. I need some help.”

My parents were in Oregon and all of my friends’ phone numbers were fried. And since it was already seven o’clock, I thought everyone probably had plans.

As if on cue the home phone started ringing. My older sister, Angie said she had a phone for me, giving me enough energy to take a few Tylenol and head out to West Valley with my doggy in tow.

“Aunt Honey.” Young voices encircled me before I even closed my sister’s door behind me.

“Hi, Hannah banana,” I said to the littlest one, as she pet my dog. Then I plopped down at the table.

My 12-year old nephew sat down. “Who opened the Oreos?”

I pointed to his younger sister, who wore half of a cookie on her face.

He laughed. “Duh.”

“Here’s the phone,” Angie said as she gave it to me.

Angie with one of her Harley's

I thanked her and stayed a while to visit with her family, getting lost in their happiness. My niece with the Oreo mustache let me hug her briefly before taking off to do a few twirls. The older niece hugged me goodbye, saying she liked my Hello Kitty steering wheel cover. The huge smile on her face became contagious. I thanked her, and then my sister for giving me the cell phone. My stomach pain and headache had disappeared. I was surprised because Tylenol never helps. It’s like taking a sugar pill since I used to swallow them as if they were candy.

On the way home, I let my dog get high by hanging her head out the window. At home, I watched the little doggy run around the house at top speed as I tried to shove my SIM card into the Sprint phone. After trying about five times I noticed there wasn’t a place for it.

Back in my messy bedroom, I turned off my light, ready to face another day. My dog planted herself in the middle of the bed, and pushed her tiny legs against my side to get more room. Closing my eyes, my niece’s sweet face with its messy mustache reminded me life didn’t have to be easy to be beautiful.

Burning Bras

2010-07-08T15:48:00.000-07:00

My newest column piece as seen in

Burning Bras
by H. Rachelle Graham

Recently I asked the Gods and Goddesses for a time machine so I could go back to the 60s and burn my bra forever. But that’s not going to happen — mainly because of the pesky time thing.
      And the fact that the other day, my doctor told me my chronic chest pain might improve if I wore a bra 24/7. I gave her an icy look that could have melted the Wicked Witch of the West. She then offered pain pills as another option. I drove the hell out of there with a bottle of them, wanting to never return again.
      Bras are suffocating and binding and they really need to stop being designed by men — especially the non-drag queen ones. Then again, I’d take a bra over having my clit removed and my vagina sowed shut, a custom that is still practiced Africa and all over the world, really. Surprisingly, a lot of the world hasn’t gotten completely away from the idea that a woman has one fewer rib, or a lot of other bad ideas inspired by the Bible.
     Women were nothing but possessions during Biblical times, and it’s ridiculous that people still refer to this holy, out-of-date book of wars and genocide to limit women’s power and our choices. This book is a big reason why we have so many toxic ideas about gender—like the fact that calling a man a woman is a grave insult. Maybe its time we ditched and burned this rusty old book or at least put it in its place.
      Feminism needs to fire up its grill again. Because as long as our society continues to devalue women, gay rights — or as I prefer to call it, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights — will never be fully realized. Also, if we could make society more equal for everyone, women might stop being five more times likely to attempt suicide, especially in the Beehive State where prescriptions for anti-depressants are common.
      The fact that the term gay rights leaves out women is also a huge problem. As a pre-teen and teenager with the high bangs, I read and re-read the Book of Mormon twenty times. I didn’t think the references to ‘he’ and ‘men’ had anything to do with me because I was a ‘she’ and a ‘girl.’ The same goes when I hear ‘gay’ pride or ‘gay’ rights. I wonder if I’m really fighting so hard for me, my rights and my freedom to be a lesbian, or if I’m merely fighting for gay men. Don’t get me wrong. Even if it was only gay men, I’d still fight. I want equality for all, but I want the feminist movement to be included. I don’t want to keep feeling like I belong to an invisible gender — and it has got to be worse for individuals who don’t clearly fit in either the ‘male’ or ‘female’ categories. There’s nothing worse than being blatantly ignored, disrespected and degraded.
     Until it’s OK to be a woman it is never going to be OK to be a feminine gay man. If being called a woman is still an insult, after all, it’s also an insult to be a man who sleeps with another man (you know, like a woman should), or a man who has any feminine characteristics. And that hurts all of us.
    Women need to have the opportunity to be president, partners and founders. We can’t just step in or fall in line as the general patriarchy community of Utah has trained so many women to do, and so many men to encourage. For example, I had a man tell me recently that I need to keep my mouth shut and step in line. He wasn’t OK with me having a mind of my own about the progressive political movement. We need women who will speak up about what they need, too: not more Gale Ruzickas, but definitely more Claudia Wrights.
     In order for the fight for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights to further move along, we can’t leave key members behind, even if they can’t dance, and God has not blessed me with the pleasure of rhythm. I tend to move to my own tune and, really, there’s nothing wrong with that. I want to jump in another time machine to see the day women have all the same choices as those with certain other parts.

Summer Affective Disorder

2010-06-29T13:30:00.000-07:00

This is my first posting on my other blog, Women's Mental Health Matters. I wanted to share it on both blogs for a few times. And I'd encourage anyone to submit work they may have regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, race or age. Go to other blog for more information by clicking on the title above.

Summer Affective Disorder
by H. Rachelle Graham

My doctor just diagnosed me with summer seasonal affective disorder. I didn’t even know there was such a thing. And maybe there isn’t. Maybe, I’m just so out of my mind that they have started inventing new terms to describe me.
    I found myself the other day in the bathroom with a knife, slicing it against my shoulder. Wondering how the hell I got there? When for years now, I’d never tried to hurt myself or even ended up in the hospital since around the times the twin towers collapsed.
     My group therapies, staying on my meds and regular individual sessions had sent me into recovery. Sure, I’ve still had symptoms, but it was rarely hard to smile. Now even though I’m still content and at peace with who I am, the days are starting to feel like they did a decade before. Like, life isn’t worth living and that the world would be better off without me in it. I even went as far as making sure one of my editor and closest friend would finish my YA lesbian novel for me if anything would happen to me.
    As I look over the past few months, I’ve noticed some Rocky Mountains and crooked hills I’ve had to cross, like my thirty-something birthday. Birthdays make me think of the future and old age; where my physical health will start to deteriorate to where my mental health already resides; a lot of damn exhaustion and a lot of damn pain. I’ve lost friends and relationships in disastrous, misunderstood ways. A so-called friend just a few days ago told me if I went back on my teenage suicide kick, that I’d do him a favor.
   Unfortunately, making people angry is one of my talents. It may come in handy to be honest and blunt in my writing, but in the real world it is frowned upon. And those boundaries I’ve leaned so much to protect myself from have only created spiteful people who’ve I’ve chosen to cut out of my life. And as political conflict began to take its toll on me to the point I wondered if the only community I felt I could be myself around actually didn’t want me around at all. I felt like the most hated women in Utah, not realizing most people didn’t give a shit about me at all. But, my paranoia present in my severe depression told me lies.

Also maybe because I’m from a family of deep Oregonians, the rain and misty weather is comforting to me. But, the sun is my worst enemy. After the temperature hits eighty or above, I start to collapse. Each degree leaves me one step closer to wanting to go to suicide rock or sleep forever or maybe just 18 or so hours a day. It took me four hours to get out of bed this morning.
Luckily, more sessions with my therapist, groups I will be starting at Valley Mental health this week and true friends and family I count on will lead me through my summer funk. But, it doesn’t change the fact I have five close friends who are going through similar things. It doesn’t surprise me at all Utah is the number one prescribed anti-depressant state. Its just what are we going to do about it? Besides let the Republicans cut more and more funding because they believe mental health is not as real as physical.

Reality Fiction

2010-06-09T12:08:00.000-07:00

Lipstick Lesbian
Reality or Fiction

H. Rachelle Graham
My column seen in

TV may be a life-sucker, but for me coming out of the closet, it became a large part of my salvation.
    As a member of the generation X club, I had grown up as an adolescent watching reruns of The Brady Bunch and Family Ties. As a teen, I watched every single episode of the original Beverly Hills 90210 with my eyes glued to the screen, but I didn’t find a single portrayal of a lesbian or bisexual character.
    And I noticed their absence. My closest friends were the characters on the television screen. Scared of my own shadow, I rarely went out during my teens and especially preteens. I rarely talked to anyone outside of my family for fear they would find out the real me.
     I didn’t realize then how attractive and personable I could be. A gigantic mole on my back echoed the mole that existed on my soul that made me less than everyone else around me. I carried the excessive guilt and low self-esteem with me everywhere.
     My deepest secret remained hidden in a media world of limited to non-existent coverage of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals. It was hidden in a society that consisted mostly of church-goers who recited the same broken record; homosexuality was a sin and sexual crimes were second only to murder.
      I was a 17-year-old trying to find solace in a world I didn’t relate too — on screen or in the real world. I didn’t find healthy ways to deal with my growing depression or even the slightest media exposure for my evil secret except for MTV’s The Real World and the news surrounding the Salt Lake City School Board’s choice to ban all non-curricular school clubs in order to stop the creation of the first gay-straight alliance in Utah .
      Unfortunately, unlike on television, my problems didn’t get resolved by the end of the hour. After a few semesters at LDS Business College, I downed a bottle of Zyprexa and my heart stopped. It was my first suicide attempt but definitely not the last.
      I prayed hard every day through the end of elementary and until after graduation that I could be someone else. Someone not evil. Someone not diseased. Finally, seeing the first main teen character I could relate too happened right after I left my teens. His name was Jack and he appeared on the teen TV series Dawson’s Creek.
       For someone who didn’t even cry during ET, I started bawling as Jack read his poem about a boy and couldn’t stop for hours. Part of my tears were out of relief. Through the brilliant writing of Kevin Williamson, at last I understood that I was not just a freak, destined to burn forever. I now understood I could be both happy and gay.
      Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Willow and Tara were also a lifesaver for me. Finally, I got to watch not only an actual lesbian character, but one who had liked and even dated men before. She reminded me of me, except for the full red hair and the adorable facial expressions. I liked her, better yet I related to her. That was, until Tara died and Willow decided to go on a murdering spree and attempted to destroy the world. But even then I understood Willow’s pain because my own pain was so deep.
     After a long road of medication changes, attending Valley Mental Health’s adult program called Pathways and going through intensive therapy, I gradually became better. But, I never became straight.
     A few weeks ago, I drove home from a West Valley City Council meeting with a wide smile on my face. The non-discrimination ordinances that covered lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people passed, thankfully due to Equality Utah, the city council and Mayor Mike Winder. Even though I witnessed a few slams from people there about how my sexual orientation was a bad lifestyle choice, my mood didn’t dampen because I knew they weren’t right. In fact, they were dead wrong. My sexuality wasn’t a choice, a disease or an evil curse.
      I sped home and ran into my house. I said hi to my Dad and hugged my dog before storming downstairs to rewind Glee on my DVR. I sang along to the beautiful music and ate a big box of Cheetos. When it was over I turned the projector off, picked up my dog and laid her on my bed. Then I brushed my teeth and took my medication. I kneeled down to pray, but this time I thanked the Goddess I was me and not anyone else.

Angel Wings

2010-05-27T08:40:00.000-07:00

Lipstick Lesbian
My column as seen in

“I’ll be straight for you,” I tease my breeder friends, neighbors and family after they complain how rough it is to be in a relationship with someone who communicates on an entirely different wavelength. It’s hard to feel that bad for them when these people don’t know what it’s like to be on an entirely different wavelength than the majority of society. I say, “Oh, poor baby, I’m sorry he forgot your six-month anniversary.” Meanwhile, I lost my job, got kicked out of my apartment, and was arrested for the crime of kissing my girlfriends’ cheek.

     Despite all that, even if I could go back to the pre-existence, I’d tell my guardian angel the same thing: “I want to be a lesbian.”
     A huge shocker, I know. Especially since, for 21 years of my short life, all my dreams consisted of a large brick house with an indoor swimming pool, a grand ceremony in the multi-million dollar Temple, a fancy BMW and children who looked just like me. Luckily, the stars I wished upon and the pennies I threw into fountains didn’t posses any semblance of magic.
     I’d be lying if I said I’d trade a fancy BMW for my beat-up Chevy. I’d also be lying if I said I would trade an indoor swimming pool for the chance to fly to Washington, D.C and be part of the largest rally ever for equal rights for all families and individuals. And I’d just be making shit up if I said I would trade a gigantic brick house for the opportunity to spend time with the homeless gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning youth.
     Also, I’d be acting absurd if I said I’d rather have spent my time in the Temple than locked in a hospital bed; than traveling through depressed hell dimensions and digging through my soul for spiritual answers when religious patrons told me I was evil, unworthy and better off dead. I prayed over and over for an angel to take away my lesbianism, but of course, that proved to be impossible.
     But the jewels of people I’ve met in the past few years are better than any magical coin or commercial product. The knowledge of experiencing firsthand the unyielding, courageous power of people who un-brainwashed their hearts and minds and stood alone while the raging floods and storms of the community at large threatened to tear them apart. Who fought time and time again not to take that overdose when, in that darkened room, they felt no one loved them as they are. The unbelievable sweetness of knowing there is more than one side of Utah.
     I’m glad to have escaped the prison of which entrapped me as I attended church on Sundays, Seminary on weekdays and traditional dances on Saturday. Church was a prison for me because I let it be my one and only source of people I loved and understood. It became the tunnel vision of how I saw myself, life and others, until it almost killed me.
     I thank my guardian angel every day for letting me learn there is more than one story and to experience the fun, laughter and tears of another side of Utah: bingos led by Cyber Sluts; yearly pride celebrations; candlelight vigils on Mondays; volunteering daily for the ones, like me, who have seen hell and come back; and being in the same courtroom while a loving man who was brutally beaten finally experienced some justice on Friday.
    So even if the returned missionary I’d wanted to marry 12 years ago came back to me and offered me his soft hands, I’d turn him away. No matter how cute his kids, sexy his wife, deep his pockets or large his house, I’d tell him, “I’m different now.”
    And that I am.
    I can’t wait to play with my guardian angel’s wings again soon. She won’t care what car I drove, the color of my credit card or where I got married. She won’t even care who I got married too or even if the only being I gave birth too was a dog child. But, she will care who I caused to cry, who I ignored out of fear, who I turned away and who I truly loved for who they are. And she’ll care the most if I cared about those who felt the worst and had the least.
   So, I’ll still tease those around me by saying, “I’ll be straight for you.” But, in my heart I’ll know it’s a lie.

Car Hell

2010-05-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

Lipstick Lesbian
My column seen in

Car Hell
by H. Rachelle Graham

Several years ago when I worked in an office on the other side of the valley, I had a near-death experience on my way home from work. I thought that day would be like any other day spent in office hell. But who could be that lucky?
      I woke up twenty minutes before I had to be at work. That would have been OK, except work was located as far east as the freeway goes while I lived as far west.
      After a five second shower, I collected my Book of Mormon and my brown paper sack containing a Ding Dong, Doritos and a ham sandwich. I grabbed a Twinkie for breakfast. (Oh, the good ol’ days when pastries, chips and nachos were my essential food groups and I still stayed 110 pounds.)
With half the Twinkie hanging out of my mouth, I started to put my sandals on.
    “You don’t have to go in today,” my mom said. As a school teacher she was on break for the summer.
    “Huh?” I dropped a sandal and lost my balance at the same time. I finished the shoe job.
    “I just hate you traveling so far to work.”
    “Huh?” I asked again. Mornings were not my academic high point.
     She raised one eyebrow. “It’d be OK if you didn’t show up today. I hate you driving when you’re in a hurry.”
     When was I not in a hurry? “I’ll be OK.” Sure, I’ve had more accidents in my short driving record than the rest of my family combined, but this was the first time she’d said anything in the three weeks I’ve been going to work.
     I ran out the door before she could say anything else. I needed the money for another Jack Weyland book and Hansen concert tickets.
      A peach Toyota Tercel with more dents than car waited on the curb for me. I turned the ignition and started driving, forgetting to close the passenger door. My purse fell out on the driveway. I put the car in park and picked it up. This time I closed the door before driving.
       Heading east, I closed my visor to get the blinding rays out of my eye. A picture of a smiling Charisma Carpenter in a cheerleading uniform from _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ stared back at me. (It’s quite a shocker the lesbian epiphany didn’t reach me until two years later.) I made it all the way across the valley in less than ten minutes, going 80 in a car that only went to 85.
      After four hours of monotonous filing and as long a lunch as possible, I headed back to my car. Moving between the cars at the same speed to get back, I figured if I was going with cars, I wasn’t breaking the law. My Tercel and a fancy sport car maintained the same speed as I sung along to a Spice Girls song. Suddenly, the engine made a grumbling noise that frightened me. I pushed on my break but it was too late. The car moved without me, spinning like a tea cup at Disneyworld. My front bumper barely missed the red Mustang as it swerved around me. Before I could blink, a giant semi-truck headed straight toward me. The driver wasn’t stopping. I closed my eyes because there wasn’t anything else I could do. My brakes and steering wheel were not working.
     Half the car fell off and abruptly stopped on the gravel. I reached behind me and kissed my Book of Mormon. This symbol of faith, I thought, must have been why I was saved today.
Three cars pulled over in sync. I climbed out of my car and sat on the gravel, trying not to hyperventie. One woman in a station wagon came out and approached me carefully.
     “Are you alive?”
      No, I’m dead, I thought.
     Wait, maybe I was. “I think so,” I said taking a few steps toward her.
     She looked at me as if I just walked on water, not gravel. “You can walk?” She cushioned my back with her arms.
     A bearded man stepped out of his pick up truck and came our way. “I’ve never seen this before and I’m a mechanic.”
      It’s not possible,” the 50-something-year-old in a blue Pontiac agreed. “I think I saw a cop a while back. Hopefully, he’ll stop.”
     “Oh, he’ll stop all-right,” the bearded guy finally picked his jaw up off the floor and then continued. “Hell, if this axel thing hadn’t completely fallen off, you’d be dead right now.”
       A vision of being trapped underneath a coffin with my worst enemies throwing dirt and black roses on top of me flew threw my brain. I wasn’t ready to die. I hadn’t even had sex yet. Not that I ever thought about it or anything. It was wrong to think about things like that.
      The cop car did, indeed, stop. Since it was the days before cell phones, he called in a tow truck on his radio.
      “Are you invincible?”
     “Huh?”
      “Don’t worry about it. The ambulance is coming.”
      But, I didn’t need an ambulance. As I watched the tow driver scrape my car off the gravel, I realized I had forgotten to retrieve my scriptures.
      Either the guardian angels watched out for me that day or my car was a preview for the 2010 Toyota recall. I’ll never know. I could say I learned a valuable lesson from my near-death experience, but then I’d just be making shit up. In fact, it wasn’t even the last time I drove eighty on a freeway. But, it was the last time I had to work all summer. No more office hell. I was lucky!

Happy Mother's Day

2010-05-09T09:10:00.000-07:00

May 9, 2010 Dedicated to my Heroine of all!! My mother! Thank you so much for all that you do!

Perfect
H. Rachelle Graham

I came in less than half an hour

barely missed birth inside a pinto

I walked before I ran

I wrote before I talked

You took the sugar away

Raw food sent my way

You slowed my energy

as it drained you down

A stunning miracle

the loving and conscientious

care you took of me

my three sisters

and an overflowing class of fifth graders

Under-appreciated

Under-paid

Master-educated

But you did it all with grace

Way more than I could do

Way more than many could do

Growing up in extreme poverty

constant hardship & even abuse

never knowing the

name of your real dad

but you climbed

above it all

No matter how many times

I lost my keys, my shoes or my mind

You spent the countless time

To search everywhere with me

When the bullies threw spit balls on me

& the girls in class excluded me

You wrapped your arms in mine

never dry of love

said “I’m ok, just the way I am.”

even in your weariest moments

The week I did not sleep

tossed in my hospital bed

I could not hear your

sleep-less tears

But I could see

the bags under your eyes

I knew they

mimicked my own

And I was

not alone

giving me the strength

to climb to health

In your appearance, work, church

community, wife, grandmotherhood and mother

You try to be perfect

without knowing you already are.

I love you just the way you are

Happy Mother’s Day

My Father's Tears

2010-05-01T12:04:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to my male Hero!!

My Father’s Tears
H. Rachelle Graham

When I was a kid
You turned me upside down
and threw me on the couch
As I grew up
you turned my life upside down
every time you lifted me up off the floor

As a child,
you patiently let me cry it out
till my tears ran dry
As an adult
you listen
erasing many tears

When my friend's fathers
turned them away
for so-called 'lifestyle choices'
your doors remained wide open
and your heart never closed

You came to see me daily
in the psychiatric hospital
You never said,
"It's your fault"
You only hugged me
told me to come home soon

When other fathers
were leaving their wives
you never stopped
being kind to my mother
Faithful as the first day
you shared rings

When co-workers betrayed you
for political power and money
You never forgot
the people without voices

You sit in your blue chair
hidden behind hanging computer screens
history channel blaring
A non-alcoholic beer sitting on one side of you
five different remotes on the other

I wish I could give you
everything you gave me
But, that requires
more than I have today
So I wait hoping that future day will come
When I can dry your tears