Peterson Toscano's A Musing

I'm feeling tender today. Good thing that I am among Friends here. Peggy Parsons , the amazing motocyle-riding, Christ-centered Quaker minister and her family have put me up for the night here in Salem, OR. Peggy is the real deal pastoring a semi-programmed Quaker church, preaching wherever the doors open and working with trauma victims in Burundi--many of them Quakers. Last night the brilliant Quaker artist (music, visual art, humor, you name it) Alivia Biko cooked us a killer vegan meal replete with vegan chocolate chip cookies. I felt loved. (BTW both Peggy and Alivia miss Joe G. Just saying in case he is lurking :-) Yeah, I am feeling tender as I soak up all of this love in Portland with Doug and Bruce and Bonnie and in Salem with Peggy and her family and Alivia. This tour has been great in many ways but harder than most. Since the launch of bXg , Christine, Steve and I have received so many stories from people sharing their trauma from ex-gay experiences. I read some of these...

Something is terribly wrong is happening right now in the white gay community in Hartford, CT (where I live). A white drag queen (who identifies, by the way as a Quaker Minister) is coming to Hartford in 'blackface' as a welfare mom with 17 children, calling herself Shirley Q. Liquor. And many (but not all) white gay men do not see a problem with this. As a Quaker, as a white man, as a gay man, as a comic performer who plays many characters including Black women, I can say that this is wrong on so many levels. That the performer and the venue will not back down or listen to reason, reveals the arrogance and ignorance so often among privileged white gay men. We cry victim because of how we have been oppressed, yet we refuse to see the oppression of others and our own contribution to that oppression. Local activists (mostly young people) have begun actions including a myspace page Ban Shirley Q . The local press has covered the story . And True Colors , an LGBTIQ organization for...