First, I wanted to say welcome back and I’m happy you are here. Happy… I’ve been filled with happiness ever since I left Utah. For the last few years, I haven’t been at peace. There were so many external factors that made me feel like crawling up in a ball and not leaving the safety of my home. I’m mental health professional and even we need from time to time. With all that training, classes and continued education, its still hard to be happy when it feels like everyone you walk by takes a shot or wants to take a shot at you.
Utah is a strange planet all its own. The norms, customs, alienation, bigotry and judgement is something engrained in the people. From an early age I knew I was different. No, I’m not talking about being gay, I’m talking about not being Mormon. I felt the shun early on and I think I was a fairly popular kid.
In elementary school I ran for student body office and was out there, almost every school day, putting up the beautiful United States of America flag. Myself and an old pal who recently passed, Cory, would put the flag up in the morning and at the end of school day we would take it down and fold it into a cute little triangle. We tried so hard not to let the red, white and blue touch the ground. I tried my best to be active and engaged in school and in my community.
How and when I was allowed to engage was dictated to me. I wasn’t able to date certain people because I wasn’t Mormon. I wasn’t allowed to go to certain parties or hang out at certain houses because I wasn’t Mormon. I hope you don’t think I’m saying all Mormons because not everyone was like that, but many were.
Fast forward to the traitor trump presidency. From what I felt was my home became so weird, foreign, and aggressively unsafe. At least that’s how it felt. I would make comments in online public forums calling out lies, deceit, racism, and bigotry of that orange buffoon. People would make vague threats and others would just send terrible shit.
I had people come to my house and refuse to speak into the doorbell intercom thingy and they looked creepy. One video taped my home, tried to get into my back yard and it was just creepy. That was the message that was intended for me. Message received, so went and purchased a gun.
I ended up selling my home and while I was waiting for my old (new) townhouse to be built I rented an apartment in SLC. I worked 10 hour days and the commute was about 45 minutes to and from my job in Layton. I noticed things were not as I left them when I went to work. One day it was the outside porch light. The next I noticed that only one of the three light bulbs were working on the living room fixture. The ceilings were vaulted and there was no way I could even reach the fucking light. I thought they just went out so I put in a fix it request. They came the next day and pulled out a ladder to change the bulbs. The guy pulled on the string and all three lights came on. He said, “Oh you just needed to pull the string.” I replied, “I live alone and I never turned them off.” They ended up doing an audit on my electric door (opened with a fob). Someone was coming into my apt when I wasn’t home. It was creepy shit.
I’d get called a fag as I went to the grocery store or to a medical appointment. I know we are just getting to know each other but it’s hard for me to not say something back. I have a smart-ass mouth sometimes and I hate bullies. One of many reasons I hated that orange orangutang. These are a few of many, many interactions I had over the last few years. The discrimination became evident at work with pay discrepancies, treatment, and failed action when I would complain about racist comments made by employees to other Mexican workers. Yes, the other Mexicans would come and tell me and I’d report that shit. As indicated in the introduction, some people may say I’m hard to work with but I’m not. They would make this complaint because I would report their racist or bigoted comments. They couldn’t be themselves, their true selves around me because I’d report the fuck out of them.
I don’t ask much. Just that my community, LGBTQ+, Latina(o)s, and other minority groups are treated equally, with dignity and have a safe place to work free of harassment. That’s not fucking hard. Just don’t be a shitty person. But I guess for some that is hard to do.
I have many stories of discrimination, harassment, bullying and name calling that I’m sure eventually I will talk about. I never realized how much the feeling of being safe means to me. I took it for granted. It has changed how I view my home and some of the people that live there.
What I’m trying to say is that… when I got to Palm Springs I began to feel safe enough to process these emotions. I was and am filled with immense gratitude for being able to live here. Everything is so different here. Going to the store is fun. Going to the gym is fun. Going to the fucking dog park – if fucking fun! People say hello, people talk to me, and men flirt with me. (I have another post that’s called, “To Cruise or Not To Cruise” that will talk about how oblivious I am sometimes to the cruising. Truth is if you aren’t grabbing your cock at me I may not realize I’m being cruised. LOL)
For the first two weeks I cried. I cried tears of sadness for leaving a life I once loved. Then the tears changed to tears of gratitude and that’s when the real water works came. I let that shit out, it just kept coming and coming. With a smile, a soaked shirt and tears still streaming, I thanked God herself for giving me the opportunity to put my house up for sale, sell it and have enough money to get the fuck out of Utah. I’ll be forever grateful for the insane housing market in Utah. I thank many Utahns for thinking they have to have 8-10 kids and for the many who moved to Utah in the last year. She (God) and you made it possible for me to get to safety and that’s feeling I hope to convey in future posts.
The ugly truth is that I am a Utahn and I have many things to unlearn. I’m happy I get to do that here, in Palm Springs. Where everywhere I go there are Gay people. It’s either LGBTQ+ people or brown people. Some Mexicans even speak to me in Spanish. I answer in Spanglish of course. I sure with I was fluent as fluent could be, but I’m not. What I am is safe. I found my safe place. I found my home.
