You are my Queer Legacy

You are my Queer Legacy

by Reginald Thomas Brown, M. Ed.  (Board Member of VOCAL-NY )

My name is Reginald Thomas Brown. I grew up in Kansas City, Kansas. My pronouns are they, them and their. I am 68 years old and a queer, gender non-conforming Black revolutionary.

My mother encouraged me to question and challenge everybody and everything so that I could stand up for what I believe even if she did not agree with me. One of her greatest gifts to me was telling me that I can do and be anything I want to be. Because she was my mother, I believed her without question and I am presently living and doing what I want to do. When I told her that I was involved with Gay Liberation, she smiled and said no matter what I do or who I am, that I will always be her son and that she would always love me. These encouragements haven enabled me to take on the world and win!!!!

In 1986, when I was 34 years old, I was told to get my affairs in order because I had two years to live. My HIV+ diagnosis came when death from HIV was most likely. This news, even though it felt like a punch in my stomach, did not surprise me because I REALLY like sex and have had sex with more men that I can remember. Keep your slut shaming to yourself because this MY journey. There was no one that I could turn to for support. So I turned to myself and realized that this HIV+ diagnosis was 3 blessings.

#1 I did not have to worry about getting it anymore;
#2 decisions about how and with whom I spend my time are non-negotiable;
#3 the most important blessing, whether I have 2 years or 2 days, I will live UNTIL I die.

That was 34 years ago this August 2020. I have been unable to transmit HIV since 2003.

I learned about Stonewall in 1969 while studying abroad in Chile as a high school foreign exchange student. My Chilean “brother” Mario told me: “The queers in NYC are rioting!” He did not know that I was queer but I felt a jolt of excitement when he told me. I graduated high school in 1970, a year after Stonewall. Although I was far from NYC in white conservative Kansas I was inspired by the rioting Queers to became a member of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) at the University of Kansas. Eventuality I was elected president of GLF. This was 1971. I was 19. I grew up my entire life being different people depending upon the circumstances.

There was NOWHERE that I could go and be me. I attended predominantly white educational institutions, in an area that is predominantly conservative, reactionary with white people and institutions. I was not able to be queer everywhere. I went publically not even my neighborhood nor my church. I have always been spiritual and aware of the God of my understanding would not have created me to be anyone but myself. It was hard as a child to hold on to that. But my faith kept me.

I moved to the campus of Kansas University one week after my high school graduation. I met Tony Cious an older graduate student while cruising the johns at the University Student Union. He took me to my first Gay Liberation Front meeting. When I walked into that meeting it was the first time I was in a room of openly queer people. I felt comfortable because I didn’t need to hide. This was the first place where all of me could show up without having to explain or justify my existence. Eventually I was elected President of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF).

My faith, and mother’s love supported me as we sued the University for denying funding and space in the student-funded Student Union. I was part of a Speaker’s Bureau that did teach-ins around the state to promote our campaign. I wrote op-eds in Newsweek and the student pointing out that the only reason we were denied was because we were queer. The university was embarrassed and we got funding and space the next year!

My activism was not limited to the GLF. I was pepper sprayed and shot at by the police during a demonstration denouncing the murder of the Kent State Four and the Vietnam war. That was the first mass demonstration I participated in. A colleague, Nick Rice was shot and killed behind me as we fled the police. Womxm’s right, sexism, machismo culture and counterculture were among the social justice issues that I believed in. I continued standing up for what I believed when I moved to NYC, and became an activist fighting for intersectional justice putting myself on the front lines for healthcare, affordable housing, HIV/AIDS advocacy, homelessness, etc. I have been arrested in 6 different civil disobedience direct actions. 3 for housing and 3 for healthcare. Social Justice is my ministry/service. “Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere”, Martin Luther King Jr.

The Reclaim Pride Coalition held its second march for Pride 2020 to celebrate the fist Gay Liberation Christopher Street Day March on 1970. Our theme: Queer Liberation March for Black Lives and Against Police Brutality. Our first march was last year. RPC was fed up with the heritage of Pride’s Parade with its floats, barricades and uniformed police involvement. Stonewall was a riot and not parade with floats sponsored by corporations who lobby against our interests. Originally we had scrapped our plans to march this year due to COVID-19. However the police brutality and murder of George Floyd changed our minds. In three weeks we put together a march that took 11 months last year. It was police brutality led to the Stonewall riots. We knew that we could not remain silent. I am standing on the shoulders of the ancestors who prayed for me. Follow your passions. You are in the universe to do something that only you can do. Find out what that is. Once you know what that is, don’t let anyONE nor anyTHING prevent you from doing it.

Gay Liberation is my legacy. 50 years ago I stood up to bullying when I sued the univerity and won. I stood up because I was tired of being bullied and unable to live my truth out loud. What I did 50 years ago not only changed my life but it changed the lives of all of you who have come after me. YOU are my legacy.

For more information about the organization, visit:
https://www.vocal-ny.org/