Faggot Firsts

Fifth Grade.
Approximately 11 years old.
Roughly 4' 10"-5' tall and God only knows how skinny.
Creston, Iowa.

I was attending my first session of my school's T.A.G. program. This was a program designed for Talented And Gifted students to allow them to move at an advanced pace in the areas they excelled in. Mine happened to be READING. (Not writing) On my first day meeting with the instructor to discuss my schedule and my entrance exam scores, I was nervous and mad. I was mad that I had been chosen. Singled out. I had been noticed for something, and I wanted to go as unnoticed as possible. I was nervous because I would have to walk the halls alone to the teacher's office which was in the (insert loud, scary voice over) Junior High Building. Everyone knows that when you hit Junior High you start to change classes. You don't sit with one instructor, you travel at the sound of a bell to the next instructor on your schedule that specializes in math, science, etc. I had to travel through those Junior High Hallways to get to the T.A.G. room during a class change. Keep in mind my stature at this point in my life in comparison to all the puberty stricken Junior High kids. You could say I was petrified.

However, I am excellent at maneuvering through a crowd. I was then. I still am. I went practically unnoticed save for a few big-dumb-jock types who had absolutely no spacial (is that a word?) awareness of others or how big they really were, and I made it safely to the teacher's room.

It was there that I was introduced to a word that would stick with me for the rest of my life. A word I wouldn't understand until sixth grade. A word that I despised and would cry about in seventh, eighth and ninth grade. A word that would make me stronger, wiser, and harder in tenth and eleventh grade. A word that would exhaust me in twelfth grade. A word that somebody shouted at my high school graduation. A word that would haunt me during my freshman year of college. A word that I seldom heard in a derogatory fashion during my second year of college. A word I finally felt I would never hear again when I left college and hit the real world of New York City. A word I eventually used within my own community as an adult. A word that I would be blogging about today as I approach my thirties. A word that will still be here when this blog is done.

As I sat in the T.A.G. room with the door wide open to the noisy halls of Junior High, Travis Brown and Nathan Kool (two of the most "popular" assholes in the sixth grade) glared into the classroom, called out my name in this strange high-pitched voice, waited for me to look over at them, and then proceeded to wave at me with limp-wrists and hands on their hips, bouncing around, calling out "Chad the Fag! Chad Means what? Chad Means faggot!" I turned to look at the teacher. The actor in me had kicked in already and I gave her a blank stare. What she saw wasn't blank at all. Hey, I didn't say I was good actor yet, I just said I started pulling out the acting chops. She saw something in my eyes and she went to close the door. I stopped her. I laughed. I waved back to the boy's with the same limp-wrist they gave me. I said...."They're so funny. It's a joke we have. No biggie. You can keep the door open." (Can you say...the first stages of denial?)

I had no idea what a fag was at eleven years old. Was a faggot the same thing or something different? Did I really walk and talk like that? I mean, I know that I was a late bloomer in the puberty department. I know I was a tiny boy. But, I didn't think I did that with my wrists. I definitely didn't do that with my hips. And, I know I didn't have a lisp or do any kind of bouncing. All I knew in that moment, and would come to learn in the daily moments that followed, was that a faggot or a fag (same thing btw) wasn't a good thing. It was bad. No one wanted to be it. And, no one especially wanted anyone else to be it at them. (How much has changed? This entry is not about that....so blah!)

As I matured, I remained in denial about where all this was coming from. I never dressed like a girl. I spiked my hair with a flat-top like all the other boys. I mean maybe I checked it a few to many times in my mirror that hung in my locker. But, I wore clothes that advertised my favorite sporting team. The Iowa Hawkeyes. The Seattle Seahawks. The Denver Broncos. Of course, everything matched the respective team colors including my underwear if I could help it. (ummm...okay, maybe that one was a bit much.) I played sports. I didn't say well, but I played. I tried them all. Football, baseball, basketball, cross-country, track & field, even wrestling. (I wonder why I never got into that?) I dated girls. The girls definitely liked me, to say the least. I never looked at another boy in the locker room. At least not until I was a freshman, and even then I never got caught. I think? The denial grew even deeper as I realized that faggot meant that I might be gay. Gay? Homosexual? You mean, like Uncle Arthur and the Black Guy on Designing Women? OHMIGOD! Please not that! Then religion came into play. All that time I spent at Sunday School, bible study summers, church picnics, choir, scripture. Now I definitely didn't want to be a faggot, or a fag, or gay. None of the above please. So I prayed. Yes, prayed. Prayed like my mother taught me.

Alas, it wasn't until I moved to NYC ten years ago that the word started to linger, haunt, and intrigue me. Finally, I came out. (You had to see that coming?) I spent the next four years harboring all this resentment toward all the people that called me a fag. I carried it with me everywhere I went. I grew to loathe the word. It stayed with me like a wound that never healed. I was constantly picking at it, never giving it a chance to scab over and leave me with only a scar. I felt especially strongly about it's use within the gay community.

Then, in 2001, it would take one playwright and hundreds of famous women talking about their vaginas off-Broadway for me to come anywhere close to embracing my truth. (Go Figure!) The truth about who I was. The true faggot within. The real way to use the word fag. I spent the next 3 1/2 years tossing the word around loosely. Perhaps too loosely. It began to be used to put down other gay men that were sissy-like. I couldn't believe that I had come full circle. Finally, in 2006 I was watching some old reel-to-reel silent movies of my childhood (approximately 5 years old) when I saw it. I saw the hand on the hip. I saw a faint limp-wrist. I saw myself clap like Joan Rivers. My pant legs were rolled up so not to get dirty, and I was constantly wiping-no tossing- my hair out of my eyes. I was 5.

These are my Faggot Firsts. There's a first for every fag out there.

This entry is not intended to make my situation look any harder or easier than any other faggot's childhood. This entry is also not advocating nor condoning the use of the word fag within the gay community. This entry is not to be paralelled to re-claiming the word faggot the way that the Black community has and has not reclaimed their famous N-word. This entry is not denying that I may be a fag. This entry is also not confirming that I may be a fag/faggot. This entry is not intended to make you laugh. But, if you did that's okay. This entry is not intended to make you cry, sympathize, empathize or gather a pity party. But, if you did that's okay. This entry does not conclude that I forgive everyone, everywhere, for everytime I heard those words. This entry does not conclude that I don't still harbor hate and resentment for all those years I heard that word. (5 days a week, 9 months a year, 8YEARS YOU FUCKING HOMOPHOBIC REDNECK DICKS!) This entry does not intend to convey anger. This entry does not intend to convey sadness. This entry isn't about you, faggot. It's about me. Chad Means what? Chad Means nothing. It's Chad Ryan! Get it right, faggots!