Positive outcome, negative experience.

Speaking publicly about my family hasn't come easy. Especially considering the current political climate. Curtailing the real story to convey another story is sort of an art form which I am not so sure that I am comfortable with anymore. At some point, I have to tell it like it was and is. Sugar coating doesn't serve anyone's interest.

It wasn't easy and it sure wasn't perfect. My mothers weren't the best parents in the world. Although they loved me and provided me with affection and love, they created a home climate that will forever affect the way I live. In my relationships, I see reflections of the ways they treated each other. I see myself at the perpetrator and the victim all at once and this is what needs to be said: Domestic violence isn't something exclusive to heterosexual homes. It isn't something that men do to woman. It is without gender. It is a problem that permeates all sectors of our society and it needs to be exposed.

There wasn't a holiday that passed without a fight. Not an argument, not just an issue, an all out fist fight, exchange of demoralizing and insulting remarks, tossed furniture and food splattered against the wall. Broken down doors and shattered windows. Blood trickling from the ear of my battered mother. A manic monster storming through the house and destroying everything precious in her path. A family photo ripped in half and a stuck to the wall with a knife through the picture of my young, seven year old face.

I created a safe world, a silent and numb existence that protected me from the horror I was witnessing. When a silence fell over the house and tires tore out in the street in front of my house, when I could hear my mother sobbing from behind my bedroom door, only then could I come out and wrap my arms around my mother and begin to rebuild. Put the chairs back in their spots, mop up the soup that was flug across the room, rewrap the presents that were torn from under the tree and make the great escape to someone's house or a park where we knew we could not be found.

They ask me to speak locally about "celebrating our cultural tapestry" and I can say that my life was colorful and at times beautiful, but silencing the real story for the sake of creating positive images to gain more acceptance for our homosexual community, is killing me. There is more that needs to be said. The challenges of living twice closeted (once for my lesbian parents and twice for our domestic violence) is part of the story. Its is part of describing the positivity that can come from absolutely horrific experiences. These experiences are not ones that we can all relate to but therein lies the issue: it is time that we recognize that we are all a part of this society that allows this violence to continue. This is the motivator that will provide us with an issue common to families of all kinds. Your family is your foundation and you honor it regardless of your struggle. You honor all families for the sake of creating a space that is nuturing for children of all kind. There can be no more hiding.