Well way back in October, in a world of memories I barely remember, that clap began. And boy, has it been gathering speed. For those of you unaware, google Will Phillips. I mean, hell, the kid has his own wikipedia page. In such a simple act as not standing for the pledge, because, face it—we aren’t a land of liberty and justice for all—he tapped into a vein that just about everyone has some opinion on. He’s quickly become a spokeskid for the LGBTQ movement, traveling around the country with his two wonderfully supportive parents, Jay and Laura.

Being a board member of the organization closest in proximity to Will (the NWA Center for Equality), I’ve had the fortune of getting to work with the “Phillips Phamily”—planning protests, organizing fundraisers, even being on the Center’s kickball team together—and having that cooperation turn into a friendship. Anyone who knows the Phillips will tell you that Will isn’t some anomalous, rebellious child. He’s the child of two of the most wonderful and supportive allies I’ve ever met.

This past Sunday, an article was published on the front page of the NWA Times, talking about All OUT June, the Center’s month of activities. We were, naturally, elated at the publicity and exposure. Our elation, however, was soon tempered; not only was the article somewhat dismissive of our community (rather than saying “LGBTQ,” the article merely used “Gay;” while seemingly innocuous, the verbiage swiftly alienates a whole swath of our wonderfully diverse community and denies them of the identity they’ve worked their whole life for) but it raised several misconceptions about the event.

For, you see, All OUT June received $4,000 in funding from Fayetteville’s Advertising and Promotions committee, for the exact purpose of that commission—advertising and promotions. The commission is overseen by several community members who are all part of the hospitality industry—restauranteurs and hoteliers—and awards grants from taxes levied on their own industry. To the best of my knowledge, the grants are awarded to organizations and events in the hope that they will use said money to draw people to events within the city, which will, in turn, bring in more than what was awarded.

But that’s kind of a complex matter to explain, especially to sensationalized crowds who see that “THE MAYOR IS FUNDING SODOMY;” a charge more or less levied every day since that article came out. Being one of the most stereotypical and publicly visible embodiments of Pride, the nay-saying community has turned to the Pride Parade to be held this Saturday, June 26th, at 10 AM, and have sensationalized it by claiming the city is throwing the parade for us. First off, this is a complete fabrication. The Parade is organized by NWA Pride, an organization separate (though no less important) from the NWA Center for Equality. They received no money.

Furthermore, the money we received from the city was not voted upon by the Mayor nor the City Council, and was not intended to promote any agendum—gay or otherwise. Its purpose is to bring money and business to the city. Today, however, the American Family Association has started an email bomb to the Mayor and City Council, with, I believe, the word “GOD” all in caps and something about vengeance. The Mayor, however, has indicated he still supports the parade, and will still issue us a proclamation. (For more information on how to contact the City Council and thank them for their support, see this post on the Center’s blog)

Of course, this all comes around full-circle. We couldn’t forget Will Phillips. He did the grand tour; now he’s doing our tour: he’s the Grand Marshal of the Parade. Begin the onslaught of claims of horrid parents brainwashing their children. And this is, of course, evidence of that most insidious of gay plots—to recruit children. But among all of the hatred spewed at Jay and Laura, none of them seem to acknowledge that, perhaps, Will made this choice on his own and is standing by it. Because they don’t believe that a ten-year-old can have thoughts of his own.

Every morning, I wake up, and the first thing I do is check my email, on my iPhone. Because that’s the world that we live in. Usually, I have three or four, but this week it’s been 12 or more each weekend, updating me of the latest streams of vitriol and hate directed not only at the LGBTQ community of Northwest Arkansas, but at Will Phillips and his family. And why at them? For the audacity of supporting the rights of others.

It’s been kind of stressful, and there have been a few moments that brought me to the edge of tears. But I’ve only received the secondary brunt of it. And I’ve received it because I have to: I’m gay; this is my battle. Jay and Laura, though, have no stock in this: they’re being called horrible parents, daily, by people who do nothing but shout hate. Why? Because they stand up for us, and for their son. Because they stand up for what is right, even though it doesn’t have to affect them.

This whole week has just been going crazy. Lots of mudslinging. Thankfully, they’re mostly all groups far away, and we’ve got tremendous local support. This year’s Parade promises to be bigger than ever, and it’s all because people are willing to stand up. We’re getting stronger, and they’re getting scared.

Let’s use this trouble to become stronger as a community; they’re afraid of us, so let’s be a lot to be afraid of.

A few weeks later, I go on a vacation to metropolis, and WOW—they have ALL kinds of restaurants. So I go to a Japanese restaurant, and a Thai place, and a Korean restaurant, cause I know that I like Asian food, so I figure I’ll try some more kinds out. And it turns out that Japanese is nice, but it’s no Chinese, and I’m not really a big fan of Korean, but WOW, Thai is truly amazing—it’s my favorite so far. So I go back home, and I tell you about Thai food, and you’re intrigued but you don’t understand why I’m not so hot on Chinese food anymore. Because you can’t have tried Thai food, so you can’t know if you like it or not. You just don’t have the opportunity.

Well, this past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force‘s conference on Creating Change as part of the delegation of the NWA Center for Equality. I was expecting that what I would get out of it would largely be training—this is how you lobby for this, this is how you respond to this kind of discrimination, this is how you get your center operating efficiently. To this respect, I was not at all disappointed. I received all forms of helpful training.

But that wasn’t what I took back from the conference. The name of the conference, “Creating Change,” is as much about changing the people who come as it is changing the world they come from. All of the bathrooms at the conference are gender-neutral, to create the most comfortable environment for transpeople. However you may feel about a Gender-Neutral Restroom, it is truly a different experience walking into a bathroom and seeing a row of such different people. You just don’t see that in Fayetteville.

But, let’s get to the workshops. I tried to split my time between workshops that interested me (mostly on queer youth) and workshops that would benefit my leadership as a newly-elected member of the Board of Directors for the Center (mostly on volunteering, leadership, etc…). Very first workshop I attend, they ask me to introduce myself, where I’m from, and my preferred gender pronoun (PGP). Not quite sure what a PGP is and being the first person to speak, I introduce myself as “Mister Jon Cox.” I feel like everyone is looking at me weirdly. They probably weren’t, but I was right to feel odd: everyone else introduced themselves, saying “I go by she/hers, he/his, they/theirs, vi/hir.” By the end of the conference, it seems that most of us had pencilled our PGPs onto our name tag. I went by he/his.

It was odd to me. We don’t do that in Fayetteville. It’s not that we don’t have transpeople here, as I know a few, but we just don’t think about it—we’re not to that point yet. (Now, I don’t think that when two New Yorkers meet, they ask what the other’s PGP is, but I figure two queer New Yorkers very well might, whereas two queer Arkansans probably wouldn’t.)

Furthermore, there were many workshops on sexuality, and not just the various dichotomies of straight, gay, bi, whatever. There were workshops on leather, on polyamory, on kink. My initial reaction to these was rather conservative: “Wow, I can’t believe they’re having workshops here on polyamory.” After all, people frequently say that gay marriage will lead to polygamy (among others). Shouldn’t we be avoiding these hot-topics?

Of course, I soon came to realize that the answer is absolutely not. Think back to my story about burgers and Asian food. Burgers represent heterosexuality. Most people try it, because it’s what’s generally expected, and they find that it works out for them. They’re happy with burgers, so they don’t try anything else. Some people don’t like burgers, though, so they try the other option—Chinese food (representing in this case, homosexuality). Chinese food, they realize, is what they prefer to burgers. They stick with their Chinese food.

That’s where we are in Fayetteville. We’re pretty small, we’ve got (mainly) the two restaurants.

Of course, when you go places that are bigger, there are more restaurants. You’ve already figured out that you might not necessarily like what you have more than everything else, so you try other food. You might realize that you’ve been eating Chinese this whole time, cause you like it, but once you have Thai food for the first time, that’s your food. You could never have it before, so you never thought about it.

That’s what Creating Change was for me—a bigger selection of restaurants. I never really thought about the other types of food, because they were never there for me to think about. But in bigger cities, they are. And so it suddenly makes sense to me that there would be sessions on polyamory at a conference on LGBTQ rights: it’s not that queer people are more likely to be poly, it is that we have had to experiment from the beginning to find out who we are. Some of us are poly. Because most heterosexual people aren’t dissatisfied with their first experiment, they have no reason to try anything else. They could just as easily find themselves as polyamorous. They’re just not used to finding out which options fit them best.

As a caveat, my restaurant analogy makes it sound like you pick whichever orientation you like the most—that’s not it, at all. You don’t pick. It’s who you are. You just discover it.

When I went to Creating Change, I had a pretty standard LGBT view of sexuality. I didn’t use the word ‘Queer,’ which you will now notice me using. The change? Queer isn’t really found much in Fayetteville yet, because most of us didn’t know too much about it. My experience at Creating Change has shown me what queer is, and I’ve come to realize queer aspects of my own personality.

I have come out of the conference with a new look at myself (and others), and a renewed commitment to serve the center, this time in a way that is much more open and which will hopefully allow others to realize whoever they are.