 There were no role models, there was no discussion. There was of course some pejorative use of the term fairy or fag or something like that, but that applied to anyone who was particularly different, not so much a question as to what your sexual preference was. I get there the first day and they call me to the office and the principal tells me, he says, in order for you to go here, you have to look like the rest of the young men. How about, how do you do that? I've always felt like a woman, I never felt like a guy or a man, and I started living as a woman when I was still in my teens and in the beginning I didn't know how or what I was going to do, I just knew it had to be so. In the streets with my friends, hanging on the corner with them drinking and messing with the girls, something that I was doing just to fit in, then at night I would get dressed, go in and get dressed, about 12, one o'clock at night, go in and change clothes and go out in the streets because I knew what was going on out in the streets after one, two o'clock in the morning. My mother discovered me embracing on our porch and I was at that time 15. She dismissed me, the guy who was about five years old in the program, and she brought me into the living room and said, it's an accident, and she asked me the question, is that the way it is? And I said, yes mama, that's the way it is. What does it mean to be an African American and gay? Who makes this choice and what does it cost them? The answers to these questions can be seen in the lives of gay African American men living in Philadelphia today. Men who exhibit a wide range of personal styles, but who are united by their race and their sexual preference. This is the story of a part of the African American community that after years of silence and persecution is stepping out of the shadows to help save themselves and their community from destruction. I think that black gays need to do more personal integration of their race and their sexuality with the other components of their life more so than the white community. And for that reason, there probably needs to be a special bonding among black gays because it's simply more difficult for us to be gay because we are black, because we come from a community that doesn't want to deal with this issue at all except in very specific, stereotyped ways. The family lies at the heart of African American culture. From the family grows the individual, the church, the community. Yet for many black gay men, acceptance of their sexual preference by their family represents the first obstacle they must overcome. Ashley, to tell the truth, I haven't talked to my family about it, only for two reasons. I don't believe in true confessions. I think for me it's important to tell people things that they are equipped to deal with. I want someone to know who's going to be supportive of me. I don't want to go through that combative thing where I have to fight with them about who I am. Also, at the same time, I don't think that my sister needs to justify why she might marry a man or why she's a heterosexual. So for me to try to give an explanation of who I am, I think sort of betrays really who I am. My mother didn't want to accept me at first. And when she found out, she wasn't sure, she didn't want to believe it. Then she asked me, why? I don't know. It's just something that I feel. We went through a thing, a serious thing about my being gay. And I think it's easier for them to think of me simply as their son who is doing various professional and civic activities and think of me as a person that they are very proud of for those reasons, rather than thinking of me as a gay person who was doing the things that I do professionally or in the community. At the time, I didn't understand it. I don't think, at first I thought it was that the fact that she just hated it. But as we've got, Avaz got an older and I talked to my mother, she says it was just, she knew how other people felt and she didn't want me to be hurt by what other people say and how they acted towards me. Being the only son and being the only boy, being the oldest, that was a bit much. I knew how she was going to react once I told them. It was just hard coming out and telling them because the guy was supposed to be the one to keep the family growing. You're supposed to get the mother, the grandchild. When Gary really told me that he was gay, I felt relieved because I knew inside he didn't want me to know and I thought he would hurt himself if I would find out or when he did tell him I said, well at least one thing, I can accept that, at least you're not out here killing anybody or hurting anybody and I will always love you for what you are, no matter what you are, and we can really talk now and work things out and he cried and said, mommy, I just didn't want you to know. From the beginning I mean I was against it, I mean I strongly felt that this wasn't it. And when I came to realize that this is what Whitney wanted and this is what she felt comfortable with, I mean let's put it this way, it grew on me, it grew on me and I feel that she handled it so why couldn't I handle it? In the isolation of the family, black gay men in Philadelphia often grow up with no idea about the gay life in the community at large. It was exciting because I never imagined that guys who were gay actually got together and talked and lived and breathed and did all the things that they did. We curled out here and we didn't dress in women's clothes though, but we curled out here and put on makeup on occasions, you know and went out and flaunched it. There was a defiance in that time in my teenage years. Being gay in Philadelphia was, I thought it was very exciting, it was very exciting. We had more places to go, although I wasn't of age to go, but I'd sneak in or bought some like age cards to get in. To me the most terrific change has been, it's not a feminine deity, it's just I'm a gay man. It's the assertion of saying I like another man with my mustache, with my beard, with my airing in my ear and he can have his mustache, his beard, his airing in his ear and we like each other. Historically, the gay scene in Philadelphia divided along racial lines. The gay sexual revolution of the 1970s and 80s was almost exclusively white. Few black faces could be seen in the gay pride demonstrations of that time. Today, almost 20 years later, a second gay revolution has begun. African American gay men are organizing to defend their rights both as black men and as gay men. In August 1989, a group of black gay Philadelphians met to found Unity, a political and social organization of gay men of color. One of Unity's founders, James Roberts, read a statement of the organization's purpose. And form an organization for and by gay men of color. This organization will undertake concrete action and social change within the gay and lesbian community and among peoples of color. This organization would unite men of color, whether they're gay identified, bisexual or simply men who love other men. There would be three purposes for the existence of this organization. The primary purpose would be to encourage positive self-esteem among gay men of color in this general area, the city of Philadelphia and the surrounding counties. The organization would also protest the racism in the white, middle-class, male-dominated gay and lesbian community. And it would deal with the homophobia and heterosexism that exist among people of color. The barriers, the discrimination, the prejudice that confronted black gay men in Philadelphia began within the African American community itself. Even though coming out as it were is politically effective, especially in the white gay community, still in the black gay community is other taboos that they have to deal with. Religious taboos, which will be very strong in the black family. And then the taboo of the black society in general, where being exclusively homosexual is frowned upon because you need to increase your numbers in order to increase your status as a minority and improve your status. There's a lot that comes into play when you start dealing with this great black community who wants to walk around and worry about taking an ass-kicking every day. I was called names. I was bottled and stoned and bricked and all those biblical things. Naturally, the other kids at some point in time, they'll be lost, made, slurs, thrown. And invariably would end up with somebody getting punched out, because we weren't taking that sort of stuff. We had a group of fellas that were going around actually, how can I say it, taking money from you, running you off the street, they actually had girls boarded up in their houses afraid to come out. If there were cause with being gay in the African American community, they did not compare with the oppression black gay men faced within the larger community. I think it was particularly difficult in the first two or three years that I was practicing law because I was in a very large corporate law firm in Philadelphia where homosexuality was something that simply did not exist as a topic to be discussed except as a topic to be ridiculed. You learn to be quiet except in those instances where you think you can actually accomplish something. And learning when to be proactive and say, wait a minute, why did you do that is difficult. And I think it comes with maturity. You don't want to fly off the handle of the senior partner who has just made a joke about gay bashing or about some fairy when he's making points with the other people around him. You will make no points with him or with other people necessarily by calling him the task for that. As black gay people, we are a double minority. And there's a lot, a lot of pain, there's a lot, a lot of suffering that comes along with that term. Being a double minority is hard enough living in this country being black. Then that's compounded by being black and gay. Homosexuality is just, it's not cheap this year. And it's just something that everybody's not ready for. Something that everybody's not ready to accept. This is something that's a given when you accept this lifestyle. You know there are obstacles, you know there are landmines, you know there are eggshells and you learn how to walk on the eggshells, you learn how to walk around the landmines and you just kind of like deal with society because society at this point is not ready to deal with us. The denial and repression imposed on black gay men reinforces a kind of negative self-image, a kind of self-doubt that some call homophobia, a fear of your own sexual preference, a fear of gayness. The more that I ignored it, the worse my life got. The more I pushed it away, it came back with double and triple force. It's like one of my graduate professors used to say, the energies we repress do not go away because we repress them. Homophobia can contribute to the continuation of unsafe sexual practices. For a man who does not love himself may not care enough to protect himself and his partners from infection with AIDS. The AIDS epidemic has devastated the black gay community. Over half the Philadelphians who have died from AIDS as of 1989 have been black. Most of these have been gay or bisexual men. AIDS poses the final challenge to the self-esteem, to the very survival of the black gay community. I lost several friends to AIDS and I think a lot of people still don't know the devastation of it. They're still carefree, unconcerned. I don't think they really know until they've lost someone really close and I have. I've talked to people where a member of their family has died and they're not allowed to come to the funeral. I've talked to people who have been thrown out of their house and all their clothing burned. I've talked to people who have been rejected by friends and family members and they feel isolated and then ambition compounded by the fact that they're not tapped into any support system within the black gay community then they're completely isolated. They don't know where to go. The community was devastated because so many families were being robbed with the death of a youth. The church was, they didn't express the devastation but they were certainly concerned because I know that one particular instance we lost the minister, we lost several prominent people. And suddenly people began to take notice that this really is a horrible killer. They came in, doctors came in, about seven or eight of them came in. I knew them, you know. And she finally broke down and told me. She told me I did have a choice. Rather I could tell my mother, my family if I chose to. So I told my mom. And like Gary and I are very close. We do a lot together. And my daughter, she helps out a lot too. She's not ashamed, you know, or afraid. But her husband, my daughter's husband, he did, she just had a baby. He was scared for his baby to kiss Gary in the mouth. And she explained to him that you can't catch it like that. So he said, well, you know, your mom been around and kissing him and hugging him this long. Y'all don't have it. I guess he won't have it either. The Black gay community has begun to respond, to defend itself against AIDS, to help rebuild itself image by taking responsibility for its own survival. When you're addressing an issue that affects you as an individual and your lifestyle, then you have to take issue on that not only here in the street, but in the political arena as well. So I think the educational process is not only for our health and our jevity, but how it affects us in the political arena as well. Exactly. So we have to make those numbers to make that difference. So you can talk about what you feel about and what's a part of your lifestyle, not only here on the street corner, but in the rooms that differences can be made. I think we have to start looking at that. I mean, why should you be ashamed of who you are at your age? You do anything that you want to do. So therefore, if you want to express your opinions about safe sex issues as a Black gay man, then you should be able to do that to save the jevity of your lifestyle the same as other individuals do it for their jevity. We have that right. Right. African American gay men are raising families, helping to provide stable, supportive homes for children from communities wracked by drugs and poverty. You're giving something to a person that really needed it at that time and they still need it with what's going on the world. So you have so many children that people just don't care about at all. And for me to be gay and to have the opportunity to raise a child the way I am, I don't have to change for him. If I wake up in the morning and my hair is all over my head, he still loves me. African American gay men are fighting to save lives by providing AIDS educational outreach to the community wherever it is needed. Black people are dying from very high numbers and it doesn't seem that the education is specific enough for us. We still think that a lot of people still think that it's a white gay disease, which it's not. That's why I emphasize that Black people are dying because we haven't gotten information. We still have a difficult time accepting the fact that AIDS is running rampant in our community. They don't really care about people dying or my friends dying. It doesn't seem like that I'm working fast enough or harder than that. It's important for me to work with Black gay people in my community. I mean that's really important. So this is where I belong in terms of working with people. I'm working with Black gay men. I should say that's my calling for lack of a better word. Right now, most of the Philadelphians with AIDS are Black gay men. Everyone in this room had lost friends and lovers to AIDS. Some were PWAs themselves. If these men were to survive as individuals, they had to organize as a community for no one in power cares about Black gay men. The federal government will not save them. The city government will not save them. The medical profession will not save them. There is simply too much prejudice, too little money. To claim their freedom, Black gay men must bear the responsibility for saving themselves. They had to organize to demand the services they needed to survive. They had to organize to build their future through actions based on love and care. It's togetherness. It's something we all should have. Being able to share things, do things with. Instead of, I've got, what can we do for me? It's what can we do for each other? Togetherness is what we mean, more of that. Between crack and AIDS, our community is being decimated. And if we don't do something now, while we still can, while we still have people who know how to do something about what's going on, we're going to be in trouble because we're losing people from all levels. Every time we lose one individual, we're damaged, we're hurt. So we need to work on it right now. We really need to get going. We really need to get moving with this thing. We're the ones who have held families together. And we're not some segment over here. We're the brothers, we're the sisters, we're the aunts, we're the uncles, we're the teachers, the preachers, all of that. We're part of a war and a roof for the black community. And unless we're dealt with constructively, the community cannot survive.