Hello everyone! I can’t believe that I have been running GayintheCLE.com for five years now. Most of the time it feels like I just started this all yesterday. GayintheCLE was not my first blogging venture, my first blog started in the late 1990s, around the height of MySpace and Geocities and after I came out. That blog focused mainly on sexual education, sex toys, and having fun as a gay man. I worked hard in researching, testing, and recommending products, positions, and advice on how to have better sex. That blog lasted two years and only reached about 75 people. I had fun, regardless, but I moved on from it and stopped writing. So, what changed?
Six and a half years ago, an event in my personal life made me realize I needed to leave the situation I was in and make my own way. I have been openly gay since around 1998. Even then, I kept a lot of myself to myself and others only saw me for who I was if they were close friends.
Up until that point, I had lost a place to live, been fired from a job, and subjected to countless derogatory remarks to my face or yelled from passing cars. I dealt with each of them because they were always at arms length, meaning that while they had an effect on me, I could isolate it because they weren’t personal. Six and a half years ago, a member of my family launched into a hate filled argument that culminated in listing all the ways me being gay was horrible on my family, myself, and everything else. I chose not to stand for it, especially when my father took the side of that family member and not mine. I quietly made my plans to move and only told him I had received a job that meant I was leaving town. I left, thinking I would never talk to him again. I moved to Cleveland shortly after that and have been a permanent resident here for almost seven years, this year.
Where it started
With the backstory out of the way, saying the why and how GayintheCLE came about is next. I was fortunate enough, when I came out, to have someone in my life who was well versed in LGBTQ history. He lived in California as the AIDS epidemic surged into the horrific nightmare it was. He witnessed the groups like Act Up protesting for the very lives of the countless gay men affected by the onslaught of AIDS. He even came from a small rural town where being a gay man was enough to get you killed, his hometown was only a few hours from mine. He instilled the need to understand our history and pass it along to those new LGBTQ folks, as they came out of the closet to live their true lives.
Five years ago, I was fortunate enough to be hired by a non-profit who took on the mission of getting the underserved and unconnected people of this amazing city access to the internet. They understood that this was an integral part of needed things for each person to live their daily lives. This was something that I also felt was imperative. After all, everything we do is moving online. Banking, health, employment, shopping, and so much more are conducted over the internet that it is an essential utility as much as water and power are.
Seeing how we were trying to empower people to use the access we were giving them to start developing their dreams an dhow to achieve them rekindled my desire to write again. This time, I wanted to share what it was like to be a southern born gay man living in a city like Cleveland. Share its people, places, and stories with every other resident of Cleveland, Ohio, and the world at large. I wanted to create a place to discuss politics and how they relate to each of us, to educate on history so its not lost, and try to create a sense of brevity in a world that still wants us to hide at the least and not exist at the most.
And so… GayintheCLE.com was born.
A collection of oddities
When I first started this blog, one of the first articles I wrote was about a book written by none other and Cleveland resident Ken Schneck. I saw his book on the Barnes and Noble shelf in Mentor, Ohio and said this is what I need in my life. History of LGBTQ rights and history in the city I know call home. It only solidified in me, my desire to write and share. Ken saw that post and contacted me to thank me for writing it. I also asked him for help about my blog, along the way, and he tried to teach me about finding my voice and being authentic to it. Five years later, I am still trying to figure that out, completely.
I have written about bars, shops, and history. I have shared stories of the people that make up our community and the horrors that this city’s LGBTQ people have gone through. Along the way, my blog has helped others realize what the LGBTQ community in Cleveland has gone through, people that didn’t know the horrors we often have to endure daily. I have had people stop me in Willoughby and ask me if I was the guy who wrote GayintheCLE and I have had many more suggested topics for me to write about. I have had members of bands I follow call out who I was, on stage, when they saw me in the crowd. All of this is because of this little blog and because of each and every one of you who have read the articles I post.
Now you see that I cover more about the things that make me who I am and what I like. This is because I know these are things that resonate with others. We all like pop culture, in our own ways, want to talk about dating and sex, or even learn a little bit about health and wellness. Is this where GayintheCLE is supposed to be? Who knows, I feel it is just another layer on its way to the center of what it is.
Stories that matter
I mentioned that I have shared so many things about Cleveland and being LGBTQ, but there are stories that have meant much more to me than many of the others I have written about. The ones that matter to me most and feel it’s the most important to share. Those are the personal stories like the series I did on the transgender community, here in Cleveland. Or helping a bar find its footing to try to become a safe haven for our people.
In the beginning, I had the idea that I really wanted to share stories of the LGBTQ people that make up our little amazing city. Gay and lesbian blogs seem to be a dime a dozen and there is more to our rainbow than just those two, so I decided to start with the transgender community, first. I posted to the Facebook groups asking for brave volunteers to share their stories and was shocked when I got a response back. The first article I wrote was the story of Ginger and her experiences in Cleveland as a trans woman. This series was meant as an educational piece for me, as much as it was for everyone else. I can say that I had not had a lot of exposure to the transgender community before that, other than my brother-in-law. It was a learning experience for me and one that I am still learning. I count myself lucky for Ginger allowing me to share her story.
One of the articles I wrote that received an immense amount of views was my first article about a little bar on Erie St. in Willoughby, Oh. I had received an event of interest on Facebook about an LGBTQ themed night at a bar in Willoughby. Being a couple miles from me, I had to go. The first review was pretty blunt and honestly, I wasn’t sure how this bar would fair, with the staff they had at the time and the overall theme. I was asked to come back the next weekend, as it was also supposed to be an LGBTQ Night. The next article came out on the 14th of February and reviewed the first drag night. All Axs and its posts had been some of my highest viewed posts of all time.
It has always been about sharing stories, whether they were my personal ones or those of the people and places of our area. That is always the most important thing to me.
The why of it all
I won’t lie, many times I have thought “this post will be my last post.” The reasons vary, I often feel like no one reads it, then i get the notifications of another person who signs up for new post notifications or someone will comment on how they appreciated what I wrote as it was what they needed at that moment. Those things keep me going. Many times, I struggle with what to write about and think that I am out of ideas. Nevertheless, I stay the course because I know there is at least someone out there who may need to read what I have said and could make a difference in some way. Maybe it will change the opinion of the topic or maybe they will see LGBTQ people in a different way than before.
I don’t write for the masses, it’s just too large. Instead, I try to write for one person at a time – like I am talking to one person. If one person gets something out of it, then I have won the battle. Each and everyone of you is that reason and I am so grateful to all of you for taking time to read the words I have written. Each of you are the reasons that I still do this little blog. So thank you from the very bottom of my heart.
If you have stories you would like to read about, drop me a comment or email at gayinthecle@gayinthecle.com. I will continue you to bring you content that I hope you will enjoy. As a sneak peek, i am working on an interview with a transgender comic book writer about a Muslim transgender superhero. I am excited to see how that one comes out. Thank each and everyone of you again for making this blog what it is and here is to the next five years.
Gay in the CLE 