Bill Konigsberg's Blog, page 4

OPENLY, HONESTLY!

I’ve been keeping a secret from all of you. It was a little naughty, actually, but what can you do?

For everyone who has been asking when they can read more Rafe and Ben, I’ve been saying, “March 28. Honestly Ben.”

That’s true, but. The actual answer is this:

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Yes! A free gift for y’all!

Openly, Honestly will be available as an e-book on Tuesday, February 28. You can get your Rafe and Ben fix then, and that will lead you directly into Honestly Ben, which comes, as I’ve told you, a month later.

Here’s an OPENLY, HONESTLY synopsis: NOT written by me, as it would be pretty ballsy for me to use the word “beautiful” in a synopsis of something I wrote.

Rafe Goldberg was planning to spend winter break at home in Colorado openly mourning what he almost had with Ben. He wasn’t expecting his best friend, Claire Olivia, to kidnap him. And he definitely wasn’t expecting what she has planned to cheer him up…

Ben Carver was honestly planning to spend winter break at home in New Hampshire not thinking about Rafe. But he wasn’t expecting to run into his ex-girlfriend, who’s still interested in him. And he wasn’t expecting to find himself still attracted to her…

Openly, Honestly tells two funny, sad, beautiful stories that were made for anyone who has longed for one person to see you, to understand you, and to love you exactly as you are.

For more information and download links, click here. Enjoy!

Neurofeedback Brain Training

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Back in early November, I began a process known as neurofeedback. This process, which I undertook partially out of curiosity and partly to see whether it would allow me to transition off of antidepressants I’ve been on since my late teens, is a non-invasive , side-effect free form of brain training. In short, a practitioner applies electrodes to the top of the skull, listens in on brainwave activity, and, using a computer interface (in my case I watched old sitcoms), attempts to train the brain toward more efficient ways of working.

I watched Bewitched. When my brain waves behaved in more desirable, more regulated ways, the screen would get brighter. When any of my brain waves faltered and moved at too high or too low a frequency, the screen would darken. My brain would have to figure out ways to behave in the desired way. All of this happened at a subconscious level. I could not will the screen to get brighter.

It’s a bit like exercise for the brain.

I did not have any expectations, really, for how this would work. Or if it would. I read as much as I could about it prior to going in, and some of the information looked a little too good to be true. “Expect miracles,” one site proclaimed, and as soon as I saw that, I thought, “Hm.” Not sure.

And frankly, when I had my initial brain mapping (they map your brainwaves before you get started), I became doubly skeptical. The doctor who went over this with me asked me questions like, “Did you suffer brain trauma when you were younger? Are you possibly autistic? Do you have trouble understanding and reacting to visual cues?”

None of these things apply to me. At least I don’t think so. But there were other things that did seem to apply. My math skills, it said, were  “off the charts.” That’s true. People don’t know this about me because I’m a writer, but I am a math whiz. Always have been.

Still, I went forward with it.

The first two or three sessions, I couldn’t help but feel that maybe I had paid money to watch Bewitched episodes. But I stayed with it.

It was right about my birthday, right around November 11th, when I noticed something unusual: I was feeling really, really good! Uncommonly clear.

Chuck and I spent my birthday out in Sedona with the dogs, exploring shops and taking nature walks. It was an exceedingly nice day. Chuck noticed that I was particularly vibrant and mentioned something about it. I wasn’t sure what it was, so I just went with it. Might it be a coincidence? Could it be the brain training? I wasn’t sure.

It continued. For about two weeks, I went through a period of joy that I have truly never experienced before, ever. I was smiling more than usual; I was very present in my relationships with other people, deeply connected with others; I was funny, and fun, and a bit more outgoing than usual. I took it with me to Florida, where I had a few days to visit my dad and some friends, and I was just ON. And I took it to Atlanta. I went to a conference, and I felt magnetic.

When I look back on this period, I think what disappeared for me was anxiety. For once, I was not worried about the many things that consume me on a daily basis about whether I was messing anything up, or if anyone was upset with me, or anything like that.

Chuck, who is a major skeptic, took major notice of the changes. He decided he’d try it, too. One of the things that neurofeedback is supposed to help with is sleep irregularities. Since I’ve known him, Chuck has woken up pretty much every day around 4am. It’s just what he does. It impacts him, because he feels tired all the time.

For a couple weeks, Chuck felt as I had, if not more. He wondered if he, too, were paying to watch a sitcom he didn’t particularly even like.

Then, on Christmas morning, I woke up and looked at my clock. It was 7:30am. I rolled over. There, snoring away, was Chuck.

I have never, ever, ever seen him sleep in. Ever. I worried momentarily that he was dead.

Nope. Just slept in. He agreed it was noteworthy.

Now, it’s not all roses. Chuck’s sleep pattern has been uneven since then. I went through a couple weeks after Thanksgiving when my mood wasn’t so great. But I think in both cases, we’d both agree it’s better. While I struggled with my mood, the bottom never fell out; I never got depressed. Chuck, too, has been noticing significant improvement in his own mood.

In fact, I would dare say that this short period has been among the best for Chuck and me as a couple in our 13 years together. We are both doing well at the same time, which is delightful. As I said, it’s not perfect. But it’s darned good!

I don’t know what to make of this all. After today, I don’t expect to do any more brain training. I did 20 sessions at considerable expense, and my hope is that it is, as advertised, permanent. I was told that if I suffer a significant event–a death, God forbid, or some such trauma–that I should come in for some more sessions.

In the end I have not stopped taking my antidepressants. I saw my psychiatrist and we talked about it and he noted my improvement. He likened the neurofeedback to “brain exercise,” which is, I think, a good analogy. He said that if I’m still feeling good in six months, we’ll re-visit the antidepressant matter.

But on a day-to-day basis, I must say it feels like I’ve improved. A lot. And I think if you are searching for something that might help you deal with your brain, this may be a good way to go. I did my training at East Valley Naturopathic Doctors in Gilbert, Arizona. I highly recommend them.

Starred Reviews for Honestly Ben!

I remember the day I pitched Honestly Ben to my editor. We were in her office in SoHo, and I was pitching her various ideas for my next book. A thought that had barely crossed my mind came out of my mouth.

“You know, a lot of readers are writing me after finishing Openly Straight and asking if there’s going to be a sequel. You don’t want a continuation of the story from Ben’s perspective, do you?”

(Note: the best, most confident people generally do not ask questions in the negative like this. Try to avoid.)

My editor’s eyes went wide. “Yes! This! Write me that book!”

Walking north on Broadway away from Scholastic, I thought two things. One was: Yay! She wants a book from me! Two was: How the hell am I going to do that?

You have to understand. Openly Straight was meant to be a standalone book. I wrote it purposefully, and I ended it the way I did on purpose (spoiler alert). I didn’t do it to break hearts; it didn’t really occur to me that it would. It had to end that way. Rafe’s journey necessitated him not being with Ben at the end.

So I had to go back in, open up the story, change narrators, connect with Ben on a deeper, more personal level, see Rafe through a different set of eyes, and find a brand new story that would both stand on its own, and satisfy fanatics of my most loved book.

Sure. No problem.

Gratitude for the debacle of 2016

Quite the year, eh?

If you’ve been anywhere on social media recently, you’ve most certainly been inundated with “F*** You, 2016” posts. When I see them, I laugh. It reminds me how similar we all are. It was challenging, when Debbie Reynolds died a day after Carrie Fisher, two days after George Michael, in the same year that we lost Prince, David Bowie, and countless others, not to want to cuss out 2016.

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RIP, GEORGE! YOU WERE MY FAVORITE! 

But I want to take a different approach today. As we look forward to this new year, when so many of us are feeling anxious about the state of the world, I want to talk about the many reasons I am grateful for the shitshow that was 2016, and, moreover, why I’m elated about the opportunities presented by 2017.

Boy, this year has sure gotten me in touch with my anger! For much of my life, I have suffered from depression. My reaction to the election of Donald Trump has been all over the map: acceptance, buying lotsa stuff, depression, sadness. But most recently, it has made me feel almost unbearably angry. I don’t recall any time in my life that my anger has bubbled up so much, so obviously. I have experienced car rage like I never have before. A few times when drivers have been thoughtless on the road, I have found myself wanting to kill them. Chuck has had to slow me down a couple times. I have written and deleted probably 20 Facebook posts in the last 50 days. That’s what happens when I feel a level of anger to which I am not accustomed. I write them, I feel momentarily better, and then I realize that’s not who I want to be, that’s not what I want to put out in the world. I see this as a real improvement, believe it or not. If depression is anger turned inward, then what I am feeling is anti-depression!
Likewise, this year has given me a great opportunity to examine my feelings about my fellow humans. I have actually always been a people lover. I have at times, in fact,  given strangers more credit than they deserve, and been kinder to them than I have been to myself. This year allowed me to come into contact with hatred. I have felt such utter revulsion at strangers, and I’ve never felt that before! This isn’t where I want to be, but I do think I needed to get here in order to get back to being the loving, kind person I wish to be. Taking people off the pedestal I’ve put them on has allowed me to see how I might lift them up again, but in a more realistic way. I want to treat others well. I want to see the humanity in my fellow travelers, even those who I disagree with vehemently. But I do think that this shift will allow me to hold others accountable for their actions better, while still loving them.
One of the best things in my life that I’m seeing this year has been a move toward befriending people who “have what I want.” In particular, I’m referring to an author and a pastor. In both cases, I saw the qualities that I have been trying to grow in myself: kindness, generosity of spirit, a desire to make the world a better place, great integrity and compassion. I feel really good about these burgeoning friendships. These people have responded with such openness to getting to know me, and I’m so grateful for that. I want people in my life who can show me how to be in this world as I mature. I want friendships with people who bring me life. Along those lines, I’ve noticed that I’ve been working on being more consistent with friends this year. I like that. Friendship builds over time, and the more I work at it constantly, the more connection I feel to people.
It has become clear to me that I am battling a significant internet/social media addiction. Thanks to incredible posts like this essay by Andrew Sullivan, I recognize that I’m not alone. I have become so comfortable turning to the easy stimulation of social media that it begins to feel as if I’m living my life around Facebook. I don’t want that. I don’t know if I can quit it. I’ve threatened to do so multiple times. But admitting I have a problem is the first step. I’m a writer. I am so fortunate to have the opportunity to become the type of author whose words outlast me. To achieve that, however, I need to really focus on my craft. Spending hours each day on Facebook does nothing to help me become that person. While I don’t expect to fully give it up, I must find a way to disconnect enough so that I can put my focus where it belongs: work, family, friendship. Facebook is fun, but it is none of those things.
Speaking of addictions, there’s the whole food thing. I have been all over the place with food in 2016. I nearly died when my gallbladder became gangrenous in February, and that seemed to be a wakeup call. I lost 26lbs. Then I forgot, and went back to eating everything I wanted, and some of the weight came back. All this, despite the fact that my health is truly not great. I have borderline diabetes, stage three kidney disease, and a fatty liver. These may not seem like things to be grateful for, but they are an opportunity to look at how I take care of myself, or how I don’t. I hope to make more consistent progress in 2017. I pray that I have the opportunity to do so before it is too late.
My family. Oh man. This has been a good year in our house. It may be true that we all had surgery (Buford and Mabel both got bit, Chuck got his Achilles heel fixed, I got my gallbladder removed), but that really gave me the chance to understand who these beings are to me. I don’t want anyone or anything else. I want to be here. And I want to live long enough to enjoy my family fully.

So yes, I’m grateful for the challenges of the past year. And even more so for the good fortune that has come my way, and for the love of family and friends.

My hope for the world is that we begin to find more compassion for each other. And my knowledge is that this shift must begin at home, with me.

Happy New Year!

 

 

Merry Happy Christmas Holidays!

From my family to you and yours… We wish you a Merry Christmas, or a Happy Hannukah, or a Happy Kwanzaa, or a Terrific Festivus, or whatever it is you like to celebrate at this time of you. In my family, we celebrated Christmas even though we were Jewish.

The wonderful song you will hear, if you click on the below link, is All I Want by the amazing Rhonda Ross, from her new album “In Case You Didn’t Know,” which you can buy at CD Baby or Amazon (digital only).

This free digital greeting card customized with Smilebox

First review for HONESTLY BEN!

Here it is, the very first review for HONESTLY BEN, the forthcoming companion to OPENLY STRAIGHT!

The book will come out in March of 2017. And maybe, if you’re nice, just maybe, there may be a bit of a surprise for you OPENLY STRAIGHT fans that will come before the new book! I’ll say no more for now…

Open Letter to Senators McCain, Flake

I have not written a blog entry since Donald Trump won the election last week. That’s not exactly true. I’ve written a couple times, but haven’t pressed send. I simply don’t seem to know exactly what to say.

But then Trump chose Steve Bannon as his chief strategist, and my silence had to come to an end. It was one thing when Trump chose Bannon to run his campaign, which was based on a lot of fear and hateful rhetoric. I was willing to accept the possibility that Trump was saying what he felt would get him elected.

But to have the head of Breitbart, which has become the mouthpiece of the “alt right” movement, as the president’s main policy advisor is just a step too far for me. I wrote my Arizona senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, today. You may feel free to use parts of this letter if you choose to write your senators, though I would ask you to please put some thought into personalizing these letters. These are people are we writing, and they deserve our respect and, if we really expect them to respond to our concerns, we should take the time to write them personally.

—-

Dear Senator McCain,

Congratulations on your recent re-election to the United States Senate. While I am not a Republican, I have always considered you to be a reasonable man and someone who, as a public servant, has done what you felt was right for the people of Arizona.

I am writing today to ask you to consider using your voice in the name of what is good and just and fair. I recognize before I even sent this that you have just won re-election and it may not be politically expedient for you to speak up here, but I believe this is extremely important and I hope you will consider doing so.

I am extremely concerned about President-elect Donald Trump’s decision to appoint Steve Bannon as his chief strategist. While I am well aware that he may do as he wishes, the choice of a man who has helped give voice to the “alt right” movement worries me more than anything that has ever happened in U.S. politics.

According to Andrew Anglin, editor of The Daily Stormer and a major player in the “alt right”, the concept behind the movement is “that Whites are undergoing an extermination, via mass immigration into White countries which was enabled by a corrosive liberal ideology of White self-hatred, and that the Jews are at the center of this agenda.”

I think we deserve the right to know whether the president’s new right-hand man agrees with this. I think we need to know, in fact, whether the president’s choice of Bannon is a tacit sign of agreement with this belief.

If I see a bright spot in the election of Donald Trump, it is the opportunity for reasonable Republicans, Democrats, and Independents to band together against the hateful messages that Trump used to get elected. I felt strongly that it was important to take a “wait-and-see” approach to his presidency, and it saddens me so much that he has so quickly chosen to give so much power to a person with such close ties to a hate group. We may not agree on much in this country, but it would be my hope that we can mostly agree that potential agents of White Nationalism should not have an official place in The White House.

I would really appreciate hearing back from you about where you stand on the announcement about Bannon, and whether you plan to speak out against the normalizing of an angry, Far Right movement such as the Alternative Right.

Sincerely,

Bill Konigsberg

“Put the bottle between your legs…”

Our visit to a Scottsdale restaurant that has delicious food and attracts a pretty old, conservative crowd started awfully, but ended beautifully on Saturday night.

Walking in to the restaurant (I won’t name it because I don’t now if the owners would want me to) for an early birthday dinner (I turn 46 in less than a week), I saw a man wearing this t-shirt.

I almost stopped in my tracks, because, well. That shirt just seemed to encapsulate so much of the past few months.

It was mean-spirited.

It was flat-out wrong.

And it was out of the closet, as if it’s perfectly okay to be mean-spirited and flat-out wrong these days, for WHATEVER reason.

Just so I say what is right here, so it is understood. Because this isn’t an opinion, it’s a fact. It’s a fact, and I know it’s a fact, because I actually know a lot of transgender people. Trans people are not perverts who want to see your children’s private parts. Trans people are human beings, and sometimes human beings have to use the bathroom.

The laws like the one that got so much attention in North Carolina actually require people to use only the bathroom that corresponds with his or her birth gender. So a transgender man who has transitioned (meaning that this person might have a beard or a penis and in all ways identifies himself as a man) would be required to use the ladies’ bathroom.

 

So that t-shirt is not just mean-spirited, it’s also lazy and incorrect. And it put me in a bad mood. I was feeling pretty on edge when we were seated.

And within about five minutes, a table of four men came and sat to our side. There was something about this group of men, who were drinking heavily, who were loud, that gave me a bad feeling. Their energy was … icky.

That bad feeling was confirmed about 10 minutes later, when they were escorted out of the restaurant.

One of the owners, an older white male, did it. And after, he came by our table to apologize for the hubbub.

“What happened?” I asked.

He explained that they complained to their young waitress that the wine was too cold. One of them told her: “You know how you could warm it up? By putting the bottle between your legs.”

I thanked him for throwing them out. He didn’t need my thanks. He seemed pretty miffed that one of his waitresses had been spoken to that way.

As we ate, a thought came to me. It was about the totality of the dining experience so far, and it didn’t feel profound, exactly, as I’d had thoughts along this line previously during the last few months. But it felt more clear than it ever had before.

What’s going on in our country is that segment of our country wants to go back to 1960.

It was a simpler time. Well, it was a simpler time if you were a straight, white male.

The U.S. was the most powerful country in the world. No one could touch us.

If you were a straight, white male, and you wanted a good manufacturing job, you could get one, pretty much no questions asked.

If you were a straight, white male, you could pretty well assume that your salary would be higher than that of a woman, or a Latino person, or an Asian person, or an African-American person.

If you were a straight, white male, you could pretty much say whatever the hell you wanted to say. Pretty much no questions asked.

And to a straight, white male, it was a gentler time. Privilege wasn’t a concept yet. No woman was threatening to become president; no black person was president; no gay person was saying, “please stop using the word faggot”; and trans people seemed to only exist as the butt of jokes.

It’s 56 years later, and so much of that is gone. Almost all of it, really. And suddenly the slogan “Make America Great Again” resonates with so many people. I actually get it. From a certain perspective, it must indeed feel like so much has been lost. And manufacturing jobs? Jobs for people without a college education? Oh my God. What are blue collar workers, what are folks without a college degree to do to make money in this country? I get that, too.

The fact is, none of this is simple. The message “Make America Great Again” is simple, but the problems facing our country are not. It’s not the same country, it’s not the same world as it was 56 years ago. Our enemies are not located within the borders of certain countries anymore. They are here already. They are everywhere, and it’s not always so easy to know who they are.

That’s fucking petrifying. I get that, too.

But we can’t go back. And frankly, we shouldn’t go backward. So many things are, on an objective level, better than they were 56 years ago. That is especially true for those who are not straight, white males.

Gays can get married!

A young, black person can see that the presidency is no longer an impossible dream.

So can a young, white woman.

These are good things. But they also make our country much less simple. Not less great. Just less simple.

After our meal, the owner again apologized and thanked us for being there. We stopped and spoke with him for a second, and he said, “Imagine saying that to a young woman.”

We shook our heads. No, we couldn’t imagine.

“You can’t say that here,” he said. “I’m not Donald Trump.”

Amen, brother. Amen.

A Moderate Plea to Undecideds

It’s political season, and I was hoping to get through without a single political blog post, but that isn’t going to happen. I’ve decided to write this because I think this is perhaps the single most important election of my lifetime, and I want to take the time to speak to my undecided friends, fans, and readers about why I think you should cast a vote for Hillary Clinton.

First off: I fully understand how a majority of you feel: dismayed by the choices, confused by the media coverage, unsure of what to believe. Also, I completely sympathize and agree that it’s time for a change. If Hillary wins, by the time her term ends in 2020, we will have had a president from one of two families for 24 out of the last 32 years. And given the fact that a lot of people have legitimate gripes about how our country has been run–from the economy to foreign policy–I totally get not wanting to vote for Clinton.

I also understand concerns about her honesty. The constant stream of “Crooked Hillary” comments, the endless coverage of her email debacle, and the questionable judgment she’s shown regarding conflicts of interest relating to the Clinton Foundation make me question how much I really trust her, or her husband, for that matter.

I get all that. Truly.

But.

It is the other side that has me motivated to vote for her.

Here’s the thing: it’s not opinion, and it’s not unfair media coverage that tells me that Donald Trump is unfit for the presidency.

It’s his words. And when I go through those moments when I feel a little overwhelmed by the negative stuff with Clinton, I realize that there’s a very simple way to wade through all the very possibly partisan claims about each candidate:

Listen to what they’ve said. When you want to know who a person is, listen to them. They will tell you.

If you look back at the worst things Hillary Clinton has ever said, you’ll come up with some doozies. I am disturbed by her possible ties to banks, and what she said in those speeches does bug me. And the fact that she said you need to have public and private political beliefs, though it does make sense in a certain way, makes me wonder about her integrity.

The worst quote I could find was, “We didn’t lose a single person,” regarding Libya. But that quote was taken out of context. She was referring to the military intervention in Libya in 2011, before the Bengazi attacks. And that’s the problem with equating these two candidates. You can find utterances from Clinton that sound bad, but she actually has a filter and tends not to say outrageous things on a daily basis.

When I Googled “worst Hillary Clinton quotes”, what turned up were highly partisan sites that all consisted of hearsay. I cannot find any of these words on tape. If I could, I’d post them. I promise.

But none of that holds a candle to the things Donald Trump says on a daily basis. And words do matter. Words are how we communicate with the world. I don’t feel the need to re-hash what Trump has said in the last year, and it would take a long time to cover all the awful things he has said about minority groups, women, his political foes, people who have crossed him, etc. In fact, The New York Times did that for me here.

For those who say Trump “says what he feels,” or, “he says what I think,” I guess all I can say is that I’m sorry to hear that. There’s a lot of anger and hatred in those words, and there’s a penchant for not being able to handle adversity that would be troubling in a regular citizen, but could be deadly in a person who is in charge of the entire U.S. military, who has access to the nuclear codes.

Beyond that, Trump has a tendency to turn on those who criticize them. I heard him say in a speech recently, “Get even with people. If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe it.”–In 2011, to the National Achievers Congress in Sydney, Australia, on how he had achieved his success.

This is a fantastic trait in a reality show participant. It’s highly entertaining. In a president, in the leader of the free world, it could be downright deadly.

There are all sorts of claims of Hillary Clinton being just as vengeful. But I challenge you to show me one quote, one thing she has ever said, that shows her to be this unhinged. And as I said: listen to what they say. There’s no possibility of bias if we simply listen to the candidates’ words. I searched and searched for such a quote, but all I could find were allegations of things she may have said, all in right-wing sources such as the Washington Times and Breitbart. Again: their words matter. Listen to the words.

The truth is that whoever becomes president will be skewered for the next four years, because the problems we face as a nation are not simple fixes. They are complicated, and they will take work, and compromise. Do you trust Donald Trump to see the nuance in these difficult problems? And if he fails, how do you think he’ll react to those who point out that failure?

I’m truly worried about that.

To close, this weekend brought about a perfect example of why I think Trump is downright dangerous to our democracy, and why we must keep him far, far away from the presidency. It’s his words about the vote being rigged. These comments have come as the polls have showed him trailing Clinton significantly. And words have consequences. When you tell people that their votes don’t count, you rile them up. No wonder some of his supporters are talking about a revolution, should Clinton win.

This is so, so dangerous. And I worry, should Clinton win, that people will die because of these words. But to make it even worse, listen to what he said when the recent email scandal came back to light over the weekend, the scandal that may allow him to keep the race competitive down the home stretch: “It might not be as rigged as I thought.”

I urge you, for all of our futures, to make sure to keep Trump as far away from the White House as possible.

 

 

 

 

The Radical Moderate

There was a time when I considered myself a radical. It was late high school, early college. An incurable disease was destroying a generation of gay men, and ACT UP had just formed in New York. I was young, but I felt the anger, too, right in the pit of my stomach.

They don’t care about you! They don’t give a crap if you live, or die! These were my typical thoughts as I walked to the subway each morning to go to school, back in 1988.

I wanted to scream from the rooftops, and sometimes I did. There were times when I would go into the theater in high school, stand up on the stage, and scream my lungs out, I was so angry at what I saw going on around me.

The injustice simmered in me. And I felt it was up to me to change the world.

So I attended ACT UP meetings, and a few times I went out with groups of older men and women and glued signs to walls decrying the government’s indifference to the epidemic, and I was openly gay when it wasn’t cool to be out, and I wore a Silence Equals Death pin to school some days, and I wrote a play with a couple friends called It Seems So Innocent, in which we decried racism and sexism and homophobia.

And today, I find myself living in Chandler, Arizona, which is mostly Republican. Last week I went to Red State Kansas, no gay mecca, and spoke about my journey and my books, which feature LGBTQ teen characters. This week I head to Wisconsin and do the same thing.

I feel new. Like my role has changed. I think maybe my new role is that of a radical moderate.

Some of this is because the LGBTQ movement has made incredible strides. My story, that of a middle-aged, white, gay, cisgender male, is no longer central to the fight. Think about it. LGBTQ rights has been conspicuously absent from the election for the first time in my adult life. It’s a new day. When it is brought up, it’s the issue of transgender people and rest rooms. That’s where the movement is today, and that’s where it needs to be.

Last year I went on a tour of the Midwest and South as a fundraiser for The Trevor Project. It was on this tour that I realized that I am no longer exactly the perfect spokesman for LGBTQ youth. Until that trip, I thought of myself as pretty cutting edge in being an out gay man, but even in towns like Little Rock and Nashville, I saw kids who were multi-ethnic and gender fluid far more than I saw gay white male teens. It was an interesting lesson. I have my place in the LGBTQ movement, but it’s no longer the center of the battleground.

I write this to say that I feel this sense of peace in my life that I haven’t really felt before, and I think it comes from no longer being on the frontline. I don’t really belong there. We all have our place. Mine is to build bridges with those who might throw their hands up in the air when hearing about gender fluidity, because, let’s face it: they live in small-town Wisconsin, and they’ve met one gay person in their lives. What they need is to make the heart connection with an LGBTQ person so that it is understood that we are all human beings with the same blood in our veins. And I’m very, very good at that. And by the way, the connection works in both directions. It’s also my job to fully accept them as human beings. Which they most certainly are.

I know some people are going to hate this and mention that I only feel peaceful because of my privilege as a white, male, cisgendered person. The fight is far from over, they’ll say. And that’s true. Both of those things are true.

But here’s the thing: I don’t have to be right. It’s okay to play my role. We all have a job to do if the goal is to make the world a better place.  They play their part, and I play mine. And we love each other through it.

I love my frontline, radical friends, and I am so grateful they keep pushing the envelope because someone needs to do that still. But in my heart I know that I’m where I belong, doing the work I need to do. I change hearts and minds through my books and my talks. I live in suburbia, and I make changes here on a daily basis just by being me. I build bridges with my conservative brothers and sisters, my conservative neighbors, whom I happen to love. Yesterday I went over to their house and traded peanut butter cups for beef sticks, and no, that’s not some sort of weird sexual innuendo.