By Jaime Collins
I never imagined going out for this one simple walk would change so much about how I want to live. But then something unusual happened, and my perspective shifted.
It was all so simple. Passing a yard with a cluster of tall pine trees, I glanced underneath and there, on a soft bed of pine needles, a squirrel and a rabbit were playing together. I walked away but turned to be sure what I saw was real. There they were. Just two friends who seemed like they knew one another well. I could tell they felt safe in that space. Each so completely different yet feeling free to just be themselves.
As I continued walking, the image of these two little friends sat in stark contrast to the town full of humans surrounding me. I was seeing my human environment differently. All around me there were loads of expensive cars parked in concrete driveways. Block after block of big homes flaunted their manicured lawns. I passed one well-maintained property after another. And I imagined all the hetero couples inside with kids and dogs and careers. In comparison to the squirrel and rabbit scratching in the dirt for their daily survival, these humans had it all. But I knew better.
The alluring trappings of the American dream are everywhere, and even though I strive for and attained parts of that dream myself, I also see it for what it really is – a false promise with a death grip on nearly every moment of our lives. As long as I’ve been on this Earth, I’ve been fed the sacred lore of our founding fathers and their ancient ideas about freedom and independence and individualism. On the surface, it all seems just and good and normal. But only if one is white and straight and cisgender. Plus, seeing it as just also requires forgetting we live on stolen land. And it requires ignoring our country was built by slaves. And that ours is a society designed for some people while being hostile, even lethal, to others.
The American dream is simply not an option for many people. Nor, if you’re really looking honestly, does it ever truly deliver on the promise of happiness that persistent lies insist is ours if we just work hard enough. Sorry folks, neither the work nor the stuff brings happiness. This dream was cooked up long ago and remains with us today as if we’re still stuck in the ancient world of slave owners who concocted it. These same people, by the way, granted themselves (and other white men who owned land) the sole right to vote and, in turn, total control of new world.
In my own heart, I belong anywhere I choose to go. I can walk into any room anywhere and belong. But that doesn’t mean I fit there. Changing who we are to fit into spaces every day is exhausting. It also comes at the price of not being true ourselves. And so the more I experience the isolated existence of being an out LGBTQ+ person in rural Wisconsin, the more I want a space like that squirrel and rabbit. I feel a deep need for spaces where I fit without trying and the company of people who understand me. I am not alone in this.
LGBTQ+ people need safe spaces to gather and be real. We need places and events where we can nurture friendships, share our joys and sadness, and enrich each other in meaningful ways. We need space to be at least temporarily unchained by the absurd rules and standards of the profoundly unwell world we are born into. We need time with people whose own life experiences allow us to put down our armor. People who can help us re-fame what “the good life” means. Spaces where we truly belong. That’s community.
Many of us are fortunate enough to have family. Still, the American dream’s rigid and heteronormative image of family leaves many of us either on the outer edges or completely outside that circle, too. Gay, lesbian, bi, pan, trans, gender non-conforming, poly, intersex, and queer don’t always fit nice and tidy in heteronormative family structures. If that weren’t enough, we have all internalized these cultural norms, and when we see ourselves outside (even when we understand them as phony norms), it hurts. Always on the outside in that world, we are the others.
Give yourself a break if you feel the pull of these societal norms. It’s a lifelong process to unlearn the old rules and shed our feelings around them. And at times it even feels like things are changing. Like people and the rules and society are all loosening up. Actually, they are. Slowly. Yet our newsfeeds are still full of offensive garbage and heteronormative nonsense, and in the meantime the rules often seem to remain rigid all around us.
Creating our own sense of family helps fill that gap. If we want it, we can have a more expansive and beautiful and inclusive sense of family. Imagine spaces that are ours. Events we create. Kinder and more inclusive rules. All of it intentionally created by LGBTQ+ people for our own LGBTQ+ community and in CELEBRATION of our lives. Something empowering. Something we can all share. In entering into community, we can let go of that daily fight we have to endure everywhere else and be together where we are seen and heard and understood.
In coming together as community, we create safe spaces that feel caring and generous. We find others who will listen to us and who share our dreams, and we can find friends whose wisdom and love and joy we are free to soak up. Being together in community can offer much of what we’re not experiencing everywhere else. Support. Understanding. Leadership. Freedom from the constraints of our regular lives and time to step away from the constant demands to always fit and be something other than ourselves. Community also offers us a way to respond in far stronger ways and in our own unique ways to the world’s patriarchy, white supremacy, and heteronormativity.
Being LGBTQ+ means we live in a world we can’t always count on. We don’t know if others will ever show up for us when we need them. That fact exists in contradiction to the reality that humans are interdependent creatures. People need one another whether our culture wants to admit that or not.
Every day in little ways and in big ways, I feel the harm of toxic individualism. The effect it has on my life came into sharp focus that one summer evening on my walk. On that solitary stroll through the streets, I felt a pull to something different. Better. More connected. The image of those two wild little friends offered me a glimpse of the simple beauty of safe spaces. I realized I need that in my life to counter the exploitative ways of every other damn thing around me. I realized my solitude was nice in ways, but I also needed the healthy interdependence of community in which I feel belonging.
We have with Southwest Wisconsin Rainbow Alliance a stunning opportunity to belong in our own community. We get to infuse our community with purpose and design it to bring out the best in each of us. Just imagine community where love thrives because others cherish who we are.
Like everyone else, I want freedom. But not the isolated and dysfunctional version of a sham American dream. I want to be part of a genuinely caring and empathetic community. If we each join in, our Rainbow Alliance can be such a community for us right here where we live.