insight

A forecast of change

In Colorado they say, "if you don't like the weather, wait 15 minutes."

This claim was proved true once again this weekend. Saturday was perfection. The sun was shining. A cool autumn breeze brushed against my skin. The leaves in the trees swayed back and forth as the colors began to transform from a youthful green to a mature orange.

When I awoke Sunday, vibrant reds and yellows had disappeared into the shadows of winter. Gray was omnipresent. Later that night, it began to snow. It snowed all night long.

I began to worry, not about what sweaters would match my new shoes, but about Coming Out Day. The event-typically outside-is the crown jewel of GLBT Awareness Month at Auraria. Like children with no chimney on Christmas who worry about how Santa will deliver their gifts, I began to question my faith in the day.

"The event won't get cancelled, we will move it into the Tivoli Turnhalle," Denny Boyd, interim director GLBT Student Services, reassured me in an e-mail.

The Turnhalle? Well, it's no Studio 54, but it was better than nothing, I figured. At any rate, the event wasn't about disco and drag, but education and equality.

An exhibit, "Looking at the Past, Present and our Leaders" was the ice sculpture the party was supposed to revolve around. It was sponsored by The Center, a haven for GLBT Coloradans young and old and the Gay and Lesbian Fund.

A party, however, it wasn't. But, as Boyd pointed out, the 125 individuals who stopped by were able to spend more time with the exhibit, 25 white panels detailing specific events and individuals from the gay movement in chronological order since the Stonewall riots of 1969.

"It was more personal," he said. "They could connect and understand the history."

Boyd told me he thought the exhibit would have received more attention had it been outside.

"I wish Mother Nature would have cooperated," he said early Tuesday morning. "We can't get the exhibit wet."

According to all the experts, the Denver metro region was supposed to have an early morning snow shower. But it never came. Around noon, the sun peeked from behind the clouds, the mercury peaked just above 50 degrees and color returned to our world.

Sometimes change just happens, like the weather.

But there are other times when change must be created:

Just like that summer night in '69 when the gays stood up and said the police of New York City would not oppress them any longer. Just like the 'mos of Denver, who, in 1970, sued Denver's police for harassment. Just like the queers in San Francisco, who flooded the City Hall for marriage certificates in 2004.

In less than 50 years, three countries have legalized gay marriage, two states allow same-sex marriage or civil unions and five cities in Colorado - as well as dozens of businesses - have adopted sexual anti-discrimination policies.

Well, it's not the land over the rainbow that Dorothy prophesied, but it's progress. Maybe more, maybe less than some expected. But change is in the works within our own generation. According to a recent Time article, hundreds of Gay-Straight Alliances have been started in high schools across the nation. I'm willing to bet if we start the little tykes off right, there won't be so much hate against dykes.

I received this quote in an e-mail Monday, "No one can go back and make a brand new start. Anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending."

It made me think about my life. How many times have I wished I could have a fresh start? Maybe I would be born into the Hilton Family? What if I could just move to Paris? Why couldn't I be straight? It would have been easier, right?

Allow me to move the story forward by assuming many of the progressive thinkers of today wished our differences were widely accepted from the get-go. There wouldn't have been slavery. Women would have always had equal suffrage. Hispanics were taught they were more than toilet cleaners. And homosexuals would have the right to love.

But due to the time-space continuum, we simply can't do that. We must accept the reality we have and move forward, taking in stride sunshine and snow.

In Colorado, you can never put away your coat or your flip-flops.

And in this world, you have to fight for your right to love.

Luckily for us, it's supposed to be 73 degrees on Saturday.