As I write this, I am six days away from turning 59.
This birthday feels surprisingly significant. Over the past few years, I have changed in ways I never imagined possible. My body requires more care than ever to stay healthy and moving, and yet I feel more connected to myself than I have in a long time.
I am nearing the end of my second Saturn Return, and the arc of this one seems to have bent backward. The last four years have tossed much of my life into the air, asking me to witness my past, present, and future all at once. I feel renewed and old, content and reflective. The old stories are still there, but I see them through a different lens now.
One of those new lenses involves my own queerness.
I do not often think of myself as part of a generation that carries pieces of queer history that younger people may not know. Like the proverbial fish in water, I simply lived it. But recently, conversations about Stone Butch Blues, Melissa Etheridge, ACT UP, and other touchstones of queer life in the 1980s and 1990s reminded me that much of our history is not widely taught. Queer history has often traveled through stories, music, art, activism, and community. We have passed ourselves forward through whatever means were available—sometimes underground, sometimes in plain sight.
Here’s one story.
In 1989, I was a member of ACT UP. San Francisco was in the grip of the AIDS crisis. People were dying all around us, and I was providing pre- and post-test counseling for men living in a city filled with grief.
ACT UP organized a die-in in the Castro. As we marched toward the intersection where we planned to lie down in the street, the police presence grew larger and larger. At one corner, officers surrounded us. Batons hung at their sides. Through a bullhorn came the order to disperse immediately or face arrest. The problem was that the police had formed a circle around us and would not let anyone leave.
Again, came the warning.
People tried to explain that they wanted to go home. Some held grocery bags and pleaded their case. Others lay down in the street. No one was allowed out. Then the arrests began.
More than 200 of us were lying in the street. When an officer reached me, he asked, “Do you want to be walked or dragged?”
I chose walking. Why get dragged?
Inside the paddy wagon, packed shoulder to shoulder with other activists, we all began singing Tracy Chapman’s “Talkin’ Bout a Revolution.” The song was barely a year old, but it had already become an anthem for so many of us.
Soon we were all singing. We rocked the wagon back and forth, shouting the lyrics, laughing, swaying together. Outside, we could hear people cheering. Some began singing with us until the doors closed and we were driven away.
At the station, the police separated the men and women into different holding areas across from each other. The absurdity of trying to sort a group of queer activists by gender was not lost on anyone. We exploded with laughter.
Within a few hours, ACT UP members who had not been arrested had organized legal support and gotten us out of the holding area.
I think about that day often.
We have come a long way. And yet many LGBTQ+ people continue to face harassment, discrimination, violence, and efforts to erase their existence. There are moments when it feels as though history is moving backward.
And still, I find hope.
Recently, I have been consulting with a group working to build a therapy cooperative in Arkansas. They are young, queer, neurodivergent, creative, and deeply committed to community. They give me an incredible amount of hope.
If people like this are creating something new and courageous in places where it may be most needed, then it must be happening in other places I don’t expect.
Lately, I have been intentionally seeking out positive queer stories, art, books, images, and acts of resistance. My family, friends, clients, colleagues, and community remind me every day that hope is not passive. It is something we practice.
This Pride Month, I invite you to connect with something old and queer.
Read a book. Watch a film. Visit an exhibit. Listen to a story. Talk with an elder. Learn about the
people who came before us and the worlds they imagined into being.
Let those stories live another generation.
They matter to our present.
They matter to our future.
Rosanne Marmor, LCSW is the Founder and CEO of Pulse Wellness Cooperative. Rosanne has dedicated her life to serving young people and the elderly. She has worked in housing organizations, gang prevention, and public schools as well as in community spaces and places for young people and their families. Rosanne also does training and consulting for organizations on trauma informed practice, de-escalation techniques and radical self-care.