Someone in the comments remarked that the New York Times seems to be only letting Log Cabin Republicans editorialize about Pride during Pride month. You have to remember it was decades, long after ‘gay’ became a commonly used term for ‘homosexual’ before the Times would allow it to be used that way on its pages.

I was guessing as I read that guest editorial title that its author, Matthew Vines, is a post Stonewall baby. In fact according to Google he was born in 1990. So he wouldn’t know that, as a matter of fact, yes, yes he is a queer.

That is what we were back when I was coming of age in the late 60s/early 70s, and well before then too. We used ‘gay’ to self identify, first as a bit of deep insider slang late in the 19th century, then more frequently and openly in the years after Stonewall. But to a certain subset of our neighbors, ‘queer’ is what we were and would always be. When it wasn’t one of the other dozens or so slurs for ‘homosexual’.

A Coming Out Story, What I Learned About Homosexuality. . . And Myself (Part 2)

I came of age when ‘queer’ was one of those slurs, and I will go to my grave flinching a little every time I hear it. But I appreciate the reclaiming of the word by the younger set; that defiance, that Yes We Are So What attitude. It makes things happen. Frank Kameny, bless his soul and may he rest in peace, approached gay activism by way of showing the world we were little different from anyone else. He insisted his White House marchers dressed, suits and ties for the men, dresses for the women. He said if you’re going to protest for the right to hold a job, you need to dress like you’re going to a job interview. It took a lot of guts back then. And it motivated a lot of us. But it was the drag queens, transsexuals and scruffy street kids who rioted for nearly a week in front of the Stonewall Inn set the movement on fire. We’re here, we’re queer, get used to it.

Or as Harold might say: “You’re a queer and you don’t want to be, but there’s nothing you can do to change it. Not all the prayers to your God, not all the analysis you can buy, in all the years you’ve got left to live. You may one day be able to know a gay life if you want it desperately enough. But you’ll always be queer as well. Always Matthew. Always. Until the day you die.”

Get used to it.