Those Bloomin' Budds

I wanted to send a letter my uncle Trevor wrote to me to share his experience as a gay man coming out within the struggle of Mormon culture.
Most of you know Uncle Trevor is not really my uncle by blood but has been a member of the Budd family for longer than I have.

Trevor Southey is quite a well known artist who got his beginnings here in Utah, taught at BYU and illustrated many of the LDS churches instruction manuals.
The church still owns many of his original works today and he continues to draw global attention with his profound artistic expression using an incredible variety of mediums and communicating powerfully the shared experience of humanity.
My family has a strong LDS background and were among the very first Mormon members in Zimbabwe Africa. They have trickled in an almost pilgrimage-like journey from Africa through many parts of the world and most of them now reside here in Utah.

The unique thing for me is that I am gay, and so is my uncle Trevor.

I remember when he came out to my family mostly because suddenly “news” of uncle Trevor stopped reaching me and my other siblings and cousins.
I remember that talk of uncle Trevor continued only now it was furtively whispered with great “concern” and pity when the adults thought the children were not listening.
I remember that for many years uncle Trevor was isolated from the family that had so warmly adopted him in his youth.

I am 33 now and slowly the family has thawed and uncle Trevor is part of our lives again. He is especially part of my life as I feel that in many ways he paved part of the way for me to be openly gay and accepted in a manner of speaking.His story is unique, his wisdom is undeniable, and his words and his hopes are honest and kind.

Consider this letter...

Thanks,

Xander Gordon

CHILDHOOD DRAWING AND THE TOWN SISSY – Trevor Southey

I was the town sissy. In the unlikely event in such a small and remote place, there were possibly a couple of other candidates but if there were they were way overshadowed by me. It did not seem to be an issue. Even though I instinctively clung to my mother’s skirts, which must have annoyed my poor father, the ultimate sportsman and gentleman newly returned from war, I never remember him expressing any sense of shame. I also do not recollect any overt bullying by other kids. Of course I wore a shield of sorts. I was also the kid who almost died of rheumatic fever, missing months of school while languishing in hospital. Perhaps that confused the other kids. They had to pity me. Hah!Hah Hah

Surely the drawing (attached), which I did when I was perhaps seven or eight, would have been a clear declaration of my difference. It labels me sissy of the first order. And gradually I understood what made me very peculiar. I knew by some primal sense that it was not good. It would not do the tribe any good. It was disgusting. Little did I know how transparent it was. But in the polite society of Rhodesia, there may have been whisperings, but I remember no direct (overt) derision.

I was eighteen and recently arrived in England to attend art school when the first direct mirthful notification hit me. A bunch of students were all housed in a couple of boarding houses overlooking the English Channel. We were walking down the hill to school, boys in front, girls behind. Suddenly buoyant Nike sung out, “Southey, you walk like a queer”. It must have hit me hard even though it was probably good hearted. Perhaps I flushed red, but I kept on walking and got on with life, knowing that concealment was not easy, perhaps impossible.

Spring ahead a few years. I had converted to the Mormon Church and was drawn to Zion. There I determined my life’s course. I went to counseling at Brigham Young University within a week of arriving. I was steered to a confession to one of the twelve apostles who notified me clearly and to my mind callously, that not only would I be expelled from the university but would be deported should I succumb to my hateful inclination. I embarked on a serious and studious road to repentance and transformation, led by the counselor. Two things stand out in the advice I was given, one: learn to walk and talk like a man, and play baseball; and two: marry. The latter was part of my life’s dream anyway so I proceeded earnestly to date and then break the hearts of few fine women. I moved in my graduating year into an apartment with four other students. Months later I was startled to find one of these friends in a homosexual group therapy session. There was yet another surprise. By the end of the year it gradually became apparent all five of us were thus “cursed”. Guess birds of a feather… The other four adapted their lives to that world while I stubbornly went ahead searching for a wife. I found her during that same year and we were married the day after we both graduated. She was and is a remarkable woman. It remains by far my greatest regret in life that she suffered so much because of me.

Now decades later, having lived through something of a liberation with all its extremes, I find with my 70th birthday little over a year away, that a subtle degrading polluting and poisonous assault on my psyche remains in the form of voter rejection. Even many who profess to love me contribute, little knowing that the reluctantly proffered civil rights damages me, awakening again the self loathing I have had to fight all my life. Assuming I had someone I wished to live out my last days with as a companion, I must restrain myself from offending “normal” folk. I must not sully the sanctity of the word and institution of marriage by requesting its romance, its sweet umbrella and mantle. There is a certain human hunger for such ritual and it is denied me. That denial tells me that I remain a corrupting thorn in the minds of a majority, unworthy to love in my “perverted” way, unqualified to raise children within those bonds. That I have raised four children, fine honorable people who love me in spite of my “perversion” means little.

I would that those who voted yes on propositions that discriminate understand that I understand their primal revulsion. That same instinct has been the seed of the rack, the burning at the stake, lynching, and at its worst the Holocaust, usually justified by selected scripture and murky tradition. But we humans have at times risen above such bigotry. Witness the presidential election in the United States. And we should have the intellect and comprehension to rise to the full acceptance of a peculiar group within our societies, and embrace them completely. Words do matter. They can be murderous. There will no doubt be numerous suicides because of this one word of denial, marriage. Just ten years ago a young man in Wyoming was beaten and left to die on a fence in bitter cold because of insidious words of hate. Words can also be healing. This one word for those like me is huge in its capacity to heal.

And so my experience has evolved from anxiety as a child, to fear in early adulthood, to defiance and denial of my reality once Mormon, then to grief at the loss of marriage, family and dreams. The latter was coupled of course with exhilaration in personal acceptance. Then came years of bemused contentedness. But now I am raged and angry. No more the wimp, I am a man determined to claim right to full citizenship as a human, different but totally legitimate, and honest and vital in the lives of those I love.

And after all, fairies are people too.