This October feels like the moment my youthful dreams have come full circle \u2014 and as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.<\/p>\n
When I was young, all I wanted was to understand why society so deeply misunderstood us \u2014 why people believed we were the green monsters hiding in the dark closet. Moving to New York, I began to learn the answers. I wanted to scream at the world: Stop oppressing us. Let us live our lives.<\/p>\n
But I didn\u2019t yet know how to begin that process. Then one night at Stonewall, I became an activist \u2014 without even knowing what an activist was. Soon after, I joined others in the Gay Liberation Front, and together we became out, loud and proud.<\/p>\n
Those three words changed everything. They transformed who we were and set us on a mission to create a community where none existed before. We dreamed that one day everyone could live openly \u2014 and that our work would make that possible.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s how I arrived at this October.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s much more to my story, of course. But what I find most remarkable now is that I\u2019ve become a witness to history. People want to understand how we got here \u2014 and somehow, I\u2019ve become one of the people they turn to for answers.<\/p>\n
So what does this October look like? I\u2019ve just returned from a European speaking tour, followed by a trip to Dallas to raise money for LGBTQ youth experiencing homelessness. Then came New York for a documentary shoot, and an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer about a project I\u2019ve been working on with Neil Frauenglass from Visit Philly: creating an LGBTQ visitor center, the Philly Pride Visitor Center<\/a>, right here in Philadelphia. Yes \u2014 it\u2019s real, and it\u2019s opening in 2026.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also been a serious debate over our history and how it\u2019s interpreted, and I\u2019m preparing for a speech in Virginia Beach, a panel in Palm Springs, and to end the month, an event in Hyde Park, New York.<\/p>\n None of this would be possible without the dreams and actions of my youth becoming reality. I\u2019m a lucky man \u2014 to have witnessed our community grow from whispers in the shadows to voices that fill the world.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not afraid of the future, because I know where we came from and how we fought for the equality we have today. I know the tools that will keep us moving forward.<\/p>\n So please \u2014 keep reading the news. Stay informed. Stay visible. The only way we lose is if we put ourselves back in the closet.<\/p>\n Stand with me \u2014 and I promise, brighter days are ahead.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This October feels like the moment my youthful dreams have come full circle \u2014 and as the saying…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":291721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,149525,149526,149527,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,47406],"class_list":{"0":"post-291720","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-gay-liberation-front","10":"tag-mark-my-words","11":"tag-neil-frauenglass","12":"tag-pa","13":"tag-pennsylvania","14":"tag-philadelphia","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-united-states-of-america","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","19":"tag-us","20":"tag-usa","21":"tag-visit-philly"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115349430388569837","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}