Howdy, y'all! I'm coming at ya this week from colder-than-expected Dallas, Texas. I've never been to Texas, but I am naturally celebrating by going vegan for the month. But don't you worry; I had my fill of Texas BBQ before starting this dietary experiment in earnest. Also, there's another long musing this week, so make sure you go all the way to the end! And don't miss out on:
Gay 4 Good
Mica England
Art
The Absence of the Gram
This week's nonprofit is the local chapter of a national nonprofit: Gay 4 Good. Gay 4 Good was founded in "2008 by three friends in Los Angeles, California on a trail below the Hollywood sign in the wake of the passage of Proposition 8 which abolished same sex marriage in California. Reeling from this loss, the founders were seeking a way to bridge the division in their own community, and drew on inspiration from the movie "MILK" chronicling the real-life story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California. Milk's strategy of reaching out to his local neighborhoods through acts of support and kindness, enabled him to gain trust and respect within his district, and ultimately win office. This sparked the idea to bring people together through service which they felt could address several issues at once: inspire more LBGTQ+ involvement in local and global societal issues and activities, provide social welfare and environmental service organizations with much needed volunteer labor in support of their worthy endeavors, and serve as a vehicle to bring people of different backgrounds together for a shared purpose. So G4G was formed to establish local charters and train volunteer leaders to this end. In January of 2009, Gay For Good held its first official service project and the idea took off…"
Here in Dallas, Gay 4 Good fosters a deep sense of community through their own events in the entire Dallas-Fort Worth area. Some of these really incredible events include:
Love of the Lake: A morning spent cleaning trash up from the banks of White Rock Lake.
Native Plant Society of Texas: An afternoon cleaning, mulching, and tidying up the most prominent garden at the Fort Worth Zoo.
Flags for Fallen Vets: American flags are placed at the graves of fallen vets in the DFW National Cemetery.
In addition, you can find other chapters of Gay 4 Good here if you're looking for cool ways to get involved, which I know I sure will be when I'm back in New York!
You can also donate directly below, as always! Stopping the Venmo donations for awhile too!
In 1989, a young woman named Mica England drove to Dallas from her home in Oklahoma to apply for a job as an officer with the Dallas Police Department. She had talked to DPD recruiters who had visited her school, telling them that she was a lesbian, and asking if that would prevent the department from hiring her.
The recruiters told her no problem. But the recruiters lied.
England had first applied to the Dallas Police Department in 1987, but was disqualified when she failed the polygraph test because she lied about being a lesbian. The next year, when England interviewed in Dallas, she answered honestly, acknowledging that yes, she was a lesbian.
The interviewer then told her that because consensual, same-sex sexual contact between adults of the same gender was a violation of Texas law — Section 21.06 of the Texas Penal Code, aka "the sodomy law," made such contact a Class C misdemeanor, akin to a speeding ticket — Dallas PD could not and would not hire her.
Irate that she had been lied to and that the DPD was discriminating against her, England immediately went looking for someone to help her.
She found William Waybourn and the rest of the Dallas Gay Alliance. With DGA in her corner, in May 1990, England sued the city, then-Chief Mack Vines and the state of Texas, and challenging the constitutionality of the state's sodomy law.
Nearly two years later, in February 1992, Judge Lawrence Fuller in the 200th Judicial District Court in Travis County ruled for England, declaring 21.06 unconstitutional and enjoining the city and Mack Vines from hiring discrimination based on sexual orientation. But the state had challenged Fuller's jurisdiction to hear, and he agreed, dismissing the state as a plaintiff.
So everybody appealed. The state and the city and Vines claimed Fowler was wrong to declare the sodomy law unconstitutional and tell Dallas the police department couldn't base their discrimination on it. England claimed the state shouldn't have been dismissed as a plaintiff.
The Texas Court of Appeals dismissed England's appeal, but at the same time upheld Fowler's ruling: 21.06 was unconstitutional and DPD had to change its hiring policies. (The city did file a motion for a rehearing and then tried to appeal to the Texas Supreme Court, but the motions were too late by a day or two, so the Appeals Court ruling stood.)
Today, the Dallas Police Department has a much more open, accepting and supportive attitude toward not only the LGBT community but with its own LGBT officers as well. In fact, Sr. Cpl. Monica Cordova, a lesbian on the force, was named Officer of the Year for 2015.
Unfortunately, that all came too late for Mica England. She won her case but was never allowed to complete the application process with the DPD (DPD officials claimed she lied about "borrowing" supplies from a restaurant where she worked as a chef). She continued working as a chef and later moved away from Dallas.”
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition October 21, 2016.
This week's art is another musical piece giving gay country. I think I've talked about Orville Peck before, but baby, he is back! He just released the first single off of his upcoming album Stampede. This album follows in his horse themed titles of Show Pony, Pony, and Bronco. But what sets this album apart is that it is going to be entirely duets. And Orville has established that he wants each and every track to be a true synthesis of the two artists and not just a guest star on one of his songs.
It's still to be seen whether or not the songs will be originals or not, but the lead single is a cover of Willie Nelson's "Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other" with Nelson himself. He sang it at Willie Nelson's 90th Birthday as a solo, and I remember being shocked at how incredibly provocative the lyrics were and even more so impressed that Willie Nelson had sung them. So, if you want a cute little listen, go and click the video.
The Absence of the Gram
I've always had a love/hate relationship with Instagram. I was late to download it when it first came out, and even then only used it ironically. Then I morphed into a classic user, trying to get followers because that's how the theatre industry was changing. But I never had a lane. I was attractive enough to get some followers but not hot enough to go viral for my looks. I wanted to get followers, but not enough to let it affect how I used my camera in my daily life. I wanted these things but was unsettled by how society was turning towards taking pictures and not experiencing moments. So, I've always been stuck in this weird moral quandary of wanting what Instagram has to offer and resenting it at the same time.
Then, I had a post go viral in 2020 and got about 10,000 followers in two days. Suddenly, I got what I thought I wanted. But since what I posted was a graphic, whenever I would post myself, the people who followed me for the graphics unfollowed me. So, over the past four years, I've been steadily declining in followers, which has been an unexpected gift. No matter what I did, when I used Instagram, I'd lose followers. And then Instagram started to become like TikTok and reward churning out content rather than sharing meaningful things. Instagram wants you to reach a massive audience with a viral reel rather than your friends or the people you know.
All these thoughts, combined with some insomnia, led me to delete Instagram a few weeks ago. My thinking is when I lie awake at night, I can't focus, and Instagram hurts my ability to focus, so maybe I will delete it and see what happens. And it's been a wild little journey. It's so interesting to feel how deeply ingrained social media is in our society. I have these wonderful photos from a wedding I went to, and I think, "what do I do with these photos if not to post them?" or "will the people I took the photos with think I'm not proud of the pictures if I don't post them?" I know in my heart that those are unfounded, but that's the culture we exist in now.
It's made me think about what I miss about the platform. Instagram is a major tool to stay in touch with my gay community and gay culture at large. Like, what did I miss about Cowboy Carter?! Which is exactly what Instagram wants me to feel. Their tagline, if you're not on Instagram, is literally, "See what you're missing - Download Instagram." And beyond being a cultural barometer, it's also such a crucial social contact tool. There are a fair number of people I communicate with frequently, but only on Instagram. So those people I now no longer have the same access to. The contact might not be as intimate or meaningful, but I do miss those friends.
But on the flip side, it's kind of liberating to miss out in this way. It's liberating to have someone ask if I have Instagram and say, "I've got a profile, but I'm not on it at the moment." It's liberating to pick up my phone out of habit, realize there's nothing to check, and then put it down again. And my focus is slowly coming back. And most importantly, there's no question about why I'm doing things. I am doing everything for myself and what I want, not the validation of putting it online, and that has felt like the best side effect of this whole thing.
Now this phase will probably not last forever. I'll get to the point where I feel in control of my relationship to it and reinstall it or simply won't be able to resist the pull of the Gram. But hopefully I'll have a slightly new take on it if/when I do.
That’s all I’ve got this week. Hope you’re staying safe and sane and find some small, joyous moments today!
All my love, Aidan
Love your comments re Instagram. And social media in general. It seems that opting out is more liberating, more refreshing than one expects.