A love letter about living your truth
I’m writing to share with you why I do this work of supporting and advocating for our LGBTQI+ community.
At 21, I worked at a four-week residential program for teens in the Michigan woods. It’s the place where I truly landed the beauty of connecting lives and our experiences of intersections.
Breaking bread family-style, growing a produce garden, building bridges, playing new sports, learning international folk dances, social justice conversations, all-day canoe adventures, speaking truths toward a campfire Quaker-style, learning about HIV through a transmission simulation (we were all so scared trying to learn what we were not being shared at that time), learning photography, performing elevated versions of fairy tales, and the joy of discovering who we were, where we came from, finding our people and, most of all, finding ourselves.
Half the youth were Black, from Detroit, and the other half were white, from the rural north. The white youth had never interacted with Black people, and the Black youth couldn’t feel steady with the still of the night. But we all lived and learned together.
Corey
I met Corey, a 15-year-old from the north. He was kind, unassuming, curious and full of life. He found theater lovers who also knew the words to “Phantom” songs. He embraced his authentic self.
It was always sad when camp ended. Newfound friendships across cultures meant returning to the city or country with letters and phone calls, deepening connections and growth before email and the internet.
Corey went home to the north no longer allowing parts of himself that had been illuminated to be in the closet, even though his community did not have “out” gay people. The daughter of a retired teacher was also not accepted for their differences. This teacher also had been closeted lifelong, wanting to adopt a child knowing she could not if she were a lesbian in the 1970s.
I came to know her for being the safe house where Corey stayed because his mother couldn’t allow Corey to be gay in their house. This teacher came out to me and never to anyone before since age 22, and her only relationship with a woman. She was in her late 60s. I had only been out as a lesbian for a year.
An exquisite motley crew
We all leapt out of the closet together, within the walls of her home, breaking out in song, watching gay and lesbian films on VHS, dipping our hands in paraffin – her for neuropathy and us for soft and supple skin, driving out of town to be present for as many queer events as we could find. We were quite the exquisite motley crew. We were beautiful together.
Corey was deeply sad his mother and community could not understand and embrace him. He sunk into depression when he had to go back home. A constant grapple with mom and a cautious line with the retired teacher because of the risk of her identity being exposed.
I felt so much love watching Corey as the Ghost of Christmas Past in “A Christmas Carol” production. But he talked often of taking his life, feeling unlovable and believing he would never find someone who would love him.
Corey so wanted to have a boyfriend. He wanted to hold hands with a boy, be kissed by a boy and be able to be a boy who could love another boy. He wanted to be able to know that he could access a future where he had the fullest of love.
Making connections
As a Christian, the torture and self-hate were real for Corey. We connected him with a book that had just come out, “Stranger at the Gate,” by Mel White, who lives in Santa Clara. They talked on the phone and Corey was able to be reflected. He was able to speak with and know of someone who was living as a gay adult man and learned that being a Christian and a gay was possible.
Corey found his life partner at 22, became an incredible theater costume designer, his dream, and they just bought a house.
The teacher’s daughter reached out to me and shared that Corey died suddenly from a blockage and blood clot by his heart at just 42.
The reflection of coming out in proximity and the passion of youth is my gift, and to you all I offer this love letter.
Kiku Johnson is Rainbow Community Center’s executive director. As a man of color and trans experience, Kiku has invested his life engaging and elevating youth and adult voices of marginalized intersectional identities. Send questions and comments to kiku@rainbowcc.org.
To read more of Kiku Johnson’s columns in the Pioneer, click here.
Kiku Johnson
Kiku Johnson is Rainbow Community Center’s executive director. As a man of color and trans experience, Kiku has invested his life engaging and elevating youth and adult voices of marginalized intersectional identities. Send questions and comments to kiku@rainbowcc.org.