What do your circles of care and connection look like?
Do your circles interlock, nest, or ripple outward? Are they more like a Venn diagram with multiple intersections of connection, or a connect-the-dots with linear progressions of care? What symbols fill your heart space?
heart space, body painting by Olivia Levins Holden (TQH fundraiser photo, 2015)
Attendees at Telling Queer History’s February 2023 gathering were invited to envision the circles, networks, strata, and intersections of care and connection in their lives. Attendees created their own art as DiAn Augustus, artist, holistic embodiment coach and storyteller, mused about “heart space…the liminal space in which love exists and all of the people and places that we put there, and the types of relationships that are in there,” while making a colorful digital painting using elements from nature (sky, sun, moon, clouds, stars, planets and more) to symbolically represent his own heart space. He offered folks the idea of heart space as an environment in which everything one needs and all parts of one’s self are present, a space that doesn’t rely on hierarchical structures or place constraints around the ways love exists.
Each February, Telling Queer History’s gatherings invite people into a celebration of love and art. Distilling these big subjects down to relatable stories requires finding resonance and connection between our own lives and qualities that exist within love and art. Stories, shared in the spirit of vulnerability and care, are a key part of how people pass on wisdom from one heart space to the next.
Our February storytellers have explained how they see the connection of love and art working in their lives. Their stories have encompassed a spectrum from the micro- the littlest individual realizations and interpersonal moments, to the macro- the understanding that our daily choices around connection, love, and art become amplified on collective, global, and universal scales. In this piece, we are sharing poignant and personal excerpts offered across the years by storytellers at our February love gatherings.
Queer, mixed Boricua artist, educator, and organizer Olivia Levins Holden made an important connection when they were in college and first heard the term queer; they realized there were communities built around that term that provided connection and validation. In February 2019, they shared the impact of this realization, saying,
“I think also as a mixed person, it felt huge to me, the term queer, because to me it meant- it felt like - it felt like I now had permission to be all kinds of things at once. I think this is an experience of a lot of folks, a lot of queer folks and a lot of mixed folks, and a lot of folks that have a lot of identities. There can be this kind of, like, okay, who am I going to be today code switching thing that happens, and when I discovered that term, it felt like I had permission to be big and messy and multiple and really true to myself. And I think that when I am feeling the most true to myself it’s reflected in my artwork.”
A-ha moments speckle the coming out stories of folks in the LGBTQ+ community. Coming out to ourselves stems from getting clear, from realizing- a process of understanding ourselves and bringing ourselves into existence. These acts contain great power and create deep self-knowledge. For some queer folks, prior to coming out to ourselves we spend so much energy feeling like misfits, outsiders; trying to fit within social narratives that never align with our internal, natural senses of being. So much energy is freed up as we gain language to understand our long-lasting internal sense of difference, and when we learn about a framework of communities that have persisted for generations, where our differences become shared attributes.
Operatic tenor David Portillo resisted coming out to his parents for years, in part because of the ways his father rejected and commented on his not masculine-enough mannerisms. He recounted going out to dinner with his mom when he was nearly 30 years old, and how they connected when, unprompted, she asked if he was homosexual. He said,
“Oh, I freaked out inside. And I wanted to just scream like, yes! And I wanted to hug her. And I wanted to say thank you for asking. But the only thing I could say was, maybe yeah, I don't know. And I didn't really know. But that dinner lasted for, like, three more hours. I didn't really come out, but we talked a lot about what it means, about whether or not you're born gay, all of the things. And that same sense of freedom that I've had, that I feel, started to kind of come into my heart.”
Coming out to others is an outstretched hand seeking connection. It is our most authentic and original selves reaching out to say, see me, accept me as who I am, love me for me. But coming out to family members, those who raised us from childhood, can be fraught. More frequently than anyone would wish, it ends with violence, othering, and disconnection. Some folks struggle for a long time to inwardly accept themselves and to then stand up for who they are in the face of others’ discomfort and discrimination.
Singer and songwriter Mikko Blaze was our featured storyteller in February 2020. When coming to understand his identity as transgender, he first had to accept himself internally, a process that he says took six years. Part of his reluctance to accept himself came from not wanting to upset his mother again, since he had already come out to her about his sexual orientation years before. He said,
“The first time I realized I was trans I just cried. Because I'm like, oh my god, I found the answer; I put my finger on why I'm different. But I also cried because I was really terrified. I was terrified about my mother. I was like, that poor woman. I've come out two times and now I'm about to just drop another bomb on her. But I struggled with being trans, I think, a lot more than I struggled with being queer…I dated women in between, some abusive- one of them was like, well, if you transition, I don't want to be with you…But then I finally just decided. My friend Chase, one night, confessed to me, he's like, hey, I'm trans. And I'm like, wow. Like, I want to do that. And then the next day, I was like, you know what, buddy? I'm trans too. And that was the first time I accepted.”
When he was a child, Mikko’s mother’s beliefs as a Jehovah’s Witness created difficulty for this process of internal acceptance and coming out to himself. The religion he was raised in gave him a connection to his passion- music,
“That's where I started to sing…that was one of my first experiences with, like, instrumental tracks and lyrics, and I was like, oh, oh, I could do this!” At the same time, before he was even a teenager, he was told he was headed for a terrible fate: “The downside of being part of that church is that they think gay people belong in hell. And my mom would tell me bedtime stories and say if you end up gay, you're going to burn in the Hellfires.”
No matter our journeys, queer people keep searching for and finding connections with kindred folks across barriers that dominant culture has taught should divide, not unite. Often, these connections, initiated to meet very human needs, create an abundance of love, care, and mutual appreciation. Telling Queer History’s gatherings are one example of a space that creates appreciative connection and belonging for LGBTQ+ folks.
David Portillo and his partner keep working to disrupt their socialization and bring honest, open, loving communication into all of their relationships. He shared his gratitude for his partner, saying,
“I'm so lucky that I found somebody who is curious and kind and crazy patient with me…We, together, are trying to create our voice also. We're trying to live out and proud for our nieces and nephews. We're trying to talk about transgender rights and pronouns to our parents.”
He has also come full-circle with his passion of singing, giving back to a youth choral organization that he was a member of while in high school:
“I'm so glad that I can be an example of a successful out performer who is bridging that gap between sacred and secular…that's been such a treat for me [to show them] how you can use your voice and how you can use music and opera and singing.”
Often we meet our loves while working to create worlds that can hold possibility for us collectively. Black environmental justice organizer, activist, postpartum doula, and chef Sophia Benrud, a storyteller at our February 2022 gathering, has been instrumental in creating a study group for BIPOC environmental justice organizers. There, she ended up meeting both her best friend and eventually, her romantic partner. She shared,
“This is what curated spaces and environmental justice look like…I now have the best and most amazing [environmental justice] family in the whole world, compiled of all of the loves that I have met over the years! And I know that through uprisings, through lead poisonings, through incinerator fights, through constant and consistent violence and harm done to Black folks at the hands of the police; I know that there will be kanji on doorsteps, snuggles in the middle at night, and hang sessions through it all. And I deeply believe that environmental justice is so much more than a one to one. Everything else in environmentalism…I think, deep down, is about the environment that we create for each other, and the love and transformation that we have, and the commitment into life itself.”
Our February storytellers have channeled love and art from the micro through to the macro, sharing their wisdom about meaning that passes through ancestral and family connections, and exploring how connection and meaning transmit across time and space.
Sophia’s best friend, Charles Frempong Longdon, Jr., a fellow environmental justice organizer and activist, mused on the idea of how interactions with people we love, within our heart spaces, are more than just simple moments in time. He compared the experience of cooking catfish with his grandma and playing chess with his grandfather to receiving whole stories, full of soul, never lost to time but living on and creating experiences of warmth and care.
This exploration led him to his career in organizing. He shared,
“I wanted to be a storyteller in the sense of, I wanted to share a piece of myself with people and have the reciprocation of getting it back as well. Because I think underlying all of that was just a deep sense of trying to build a relationship and understanding with the folks that are around me. And I think that's kind of like the emphasis and the idea of what organizing is in general, is like, building those nuances and microcosms of relationship and connection with one another, in a way that not only amplifies us as individuals, but, like, as a collective working together. You know, because the idea of, like, if I'm a speck in the universe, we're all somewhat specks in the universe, but, you know, gathered together, we create such a large organism of change. I think it's really about what we are then able to focus on and prioritize within that change.”
Charles passionately shared his belief that connection is a way to build possibility in the world, saying,
“...All of these connections exist and last within the universe. And so, when I think of queerness, when I think of storytelling, when I think of my name, when I think of like, microcosms in space, and anxiety [of being a speck in the universe], what I think of first and foremost, is the idea of like erasing those borders…Erasing those parameters that restrict what our imagination can dream up. Because that's always what the oppressor, the people in power are going to want us to do, is limit us to this, like, very selective box or silo of like, how we're going to look at or interpret the world. And that's never something I want to apply to the love I'm giving out to my community.”
Asking people to imagine caring for others is one way of transmitting heart space wisdom. It’s a way people can prepare foundations on which love, connection, and care will grow. In February 2021, guest curator and featured storyteller Heather C. Lou invited attendees into a somatic imagining of care, asking if there were particular images, colors, or quotes coming to mind. They prompted people to consider what collective care really means.
The energy of abundance within our circles of connection frequently flows into mutual aid and community care. Innovative ways to survive and thrive come from the most marginalized among our communities, particularly Black and brown transgender women and Femmes, and Indigenous trans and two-spirit people. These brilliant folks teach all of us how to stay ahead of culture, how to create the conditions for our survival, and how to resolutely demand lives in which not just we personally, but the collective, can thrive.
In this current global moment we are all located on shifting foundations. Multiple intersectional human rights movements are advocating, campaigning for, and fighting to bring brave visions and new ways of doing into existence against massive resistance from those who hold narrow visions for change. It’s a hard time to stay tuned in because a majority of stories that are told contain so much violence, pain and tragedy and provoke frustration and rage.
Right now we need different stories- those that provide deeply fertile soil for the seeds of justice, belonging, and peace to root, sprout and grow strong. Queer storytellers, carrying the powerful gift of their earned understanding, act as vessels that pour out offerings from their lives directly into the heart of our community. At Telling Queer History storytelling gatherings, listening to our storytellers, it’s possible for people to recognize that connection and care is so close, all the time. We just need to move past the social programming that keeps us afraid, judgemental, and dismissive. What lives in our heart spaces demonstrates that achieving widespread connection and positive change in our world is absolutely within reach.
Written by Lucinda Pepper
Telling Queer History is turning 10 years old in 2023! In the language of organizational life-cycles, we are in a growth phase, building up on our previous learning experiences and successes, seeking to positively impact more folks in the LGBTQ+ and allied communities, and to grow our audiences, funders, and reach. Support our work by donating today, or becoming a monthly sustaining donor! You can make a financial investment in our work by clicking this link: https://www.givemn.org/organization/Telling-Queer-History-1
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