The Gran Varones is a legacy project that uses video and photography to tell the stories of Latino & Afro-Latino Gay, Queer and Trans men. Our stories shine light on what being “out” and “proud” means to us, our families, and our communities.
his name was rob. he was 26. i met him in the bronxm4m aol chat room. it was 2005 and that was still a thing. his screen name was br0nxprynce. we connected immediately during our chat. dude was funny as hell. for a week, we chatted while i was at work and all through the night while i was at home. mariah’s “emancipation of mimi” was a few days from being released and i remember trying to convince him to buy it. i actually did that with all my friends. i actually had a mariah album release party but i digress.
the thursday after the album was released, i called out of work and caught the train to new york. he picked me up and we hung out all day. we talked about life, dreams and how much he needed to buy mariah’s album. lol we kissed and i remember feeling “wow. latino dudes do like me.” i still had some issues to work out.
during our makeout session, he took off his shirt and immediately said, “i know, i’m skinny. don’t worry, i have always been that way.” i thought it was a weird thing to say but didn’t think much of it because i too had body image issues. so we continued to makeout. eventually, i had to get back to philly. so the magic we shared had to be put on hold until the next time. i was hoping they’d be a next time.
that following saturday, he and chatted on the phone. he mentioned something about his bestfriend betraying him. i asked how so and he simply said “i don’t want to talk about it but he said something he shouldn’t have said.” i didn’t press the issue. he said he would call me back later that night.
he didn’t. i didn’t see him online.
i was mad.
i told myself that he lost interest in me because i was ugly. i was fat. i was not enough. i told myself a lot of shit and i believed it all. i then reminded myself that “no man is worth this spiraling.” so i told myself to forget about him.
a few weeks later he messaged me asking how i was doing. i was short with him and simply said “fine. you?” he said “not feeling well. i think i have a cold.” i remember thinking “good. that’s what you get for playin’ me.” he tried to continue the conversation but i wasn’t into it. i was too scared to be charmed by him again.
rob and i had a mutual friend in the aol chat room. i told the mutual friend of my feelings and how i was hurt by rob. the friend was surprised because he had known rob to be a really sweet guy. but he said “you know how dudes are anyway. fuck him.”
the summer past and in late august, i was watching family guy when the mutual friend called me. we started chatting about our summers and what we had done. he then asked if i had ever spoken to rob again. i said “no. our last conversation was online and it was a short one.” he then said, “i’m sorry to tell you this but he passed.” my heart dropped. my body felt hot and i was filled with dread. i asked how - knowing what he was going to say. he said “complications of hiv.” i hung up the phone and ran to my computer and messaged br0nxprynce: “hey! please respond to this asap!”
i waited.
no response.
it just didn’t make sense to me. if he had died, why was his aol account still up? why would the universe allow me to message him? i could not wrap my mind around why these things still existed.
i spent the following week reliving and recounting our conversations, our words. why didn’t he tell me? surely, he knew that i would be ok with it. i was working in the hiv field. why didn’t he tell me!? why didn’t i seek clarity!? why did i assume shit!? gawd damn!
then it hit me that he could have easily made up stories about me just as i had done with him. i had convinced myself that his distance was because of me. i never once considered that maybe it had absolutely nothing to do with me. i felt foolish. but i felt the pain that comes with loss and the anguish that comes with missed opportunities and moments.
i think of rob often. especially whenever i am making up stories about people to cut myself. i remember him every world aids day. i remember him every time someone shares their story with gran varones. i remember him every time i play mariah’s “mimi” album.
on days like this, i miss him.
i was sweeping up dust from the paths where boys like us wept when i took a brief rest upon a dim star to catch my breath when you stepped into my galaxy to look after me.
you break and enter with such sweet sugar rage controlling my every limb taught me to enjoy childlike grins and chase every cloud nine on a whim and just when i begin to marvel you would generously give me a jarful of wonder.
you were always a traveler wandering to your side of the moon no one ever sees i knew my heavy hand could not hold you down the choice was always forced i had to let you leave.
so alone for so long with a need so strong it will rip open a deep ocean of grief in my chest there is no rest for the oppressed on this side of the moon i think you always knew.
i will be sweeping up dust from the paths where boys likes us continue to weep and when they take a brief rest i will tell them of the galaxies you created for us.
written by: louie a. ortiz-fonseca
christopher collins died on january 3, 2017. he was a long time hiv prevention and queer youth of color advocate in philadelphia. chris was my first love and one of the most important relationships i have had during my entire career. he was 37 years old. i will forever miss him.
they called her “the lady in red.” i cannot remember why but i do remember her loving in. whenever she was drunk she would scream, “i am the lady in red!” maybe he favorite color was red. i cannot remember.
my mother, rosa m. ortiz-fonseca, seldom ever got “dressed” up. well not so much in my teen years at least. she would only throw on a dress and decorate her lips whenever her birthday and mother’s day rolled around. not because there was a major celebration. we didn’t attend family parties to the celebrate these days. we never even had birthday parties. she, like the rest of the residents on our small block in the heart of north philly, got “dressed” as way to communicate to the universe “today, i am feeling good!”
this picture was taken on january 13, 1994. her 36th birthday. like all other birthdays, she threw on a lip. lawd knows my mother loved a burgundy lip. she wore the earrings we bought while food shopping on the avenue. she wore her red tights because she was “the lady in red.”
the neighborhood drug dealers, all of whom she worked with, loved my mother. mainly because they thought she was a bruja. why? because EVERY TIME there was a police raid, my mother was never there. maybe that’s why they called her the lady in red. anywho, on this day, they all surprised her with flowers and not just one cake but two cakes! i remember her being so excited. in fact, she gave me money to run to the drug store (that’s what we used to call pharmacies) to buy a disposable camera. she posed with the roses on someone’s wicker chair. she posed with the cakes (as seen here) and posed with many of the men who surprised. most of which have been killed and jailed since.
this was the last time her birthday was celebrated like this. i still have many of the photos from this day. some bring great smiles and some usher in great pain. but i have them locked away in bedroom.
my mother died on monday, june 22, 2015. the day after father’s day and the day i rushed to florida to visit her one last time. the lady in red held on until i got there. we spoke of everything, mainly gossip but she knew i was moving to d.c. she knew that i was ok. she knew that i would be ok. then she went to sleep.
happy birthday lady in red! i love and miss you so.
Growing up, my mother used to always tell me that I’m too smart for my good. The context of this would be in the mornings, when she would be cooking breakfast for the family, her and I would share our thoughts. Sometimes, I would be so excited about what I learned in school, I’d tell her everything. I would discuss with her all the latest theories on global poverty, economic development, prison abolition, state violence, the socialization of gender, and so forth. In these conversations, of course, my mother would also chime in with her opinions and background knowledge. Adamantly, I’d tell her that she has it all backwards and that she needs to reevaluate about how she thinks about the world around her. Even if it were true that she could be more holisitc in her thinking, there always seemed something off. She often would tell me afterward, “Pienso que la escuela te hizo mas pendejo que mas listo (School has made you more dumber than it did smarter).” Of course, I took offense to that. I was a concerned son. How was that my mother, someone whose identity consist of multiple intersecting and interconnected marginalization did not care to learn about the effects of her own experiences in the politically and economically violent society that we live in? It seemed like she just didn’t get it, and yet, I told her that I was going to continue speaking up for women like her and that I would make sure to remember her in my fight towards collective liberation. And, indefinitely, and undoubtedly that is the problem with “wokeness”.
Wokeness in itself implies an enlightenment, a journey, if you will, of a person unfolding the petals of oppression and blooming into a fully fledged flower of knowledge. You are awakened to the systemic issues that have plagued your communities and global issues that are perpetuated underneath the same systems. This, of course, sounds enticing and promising to the common person, because the processes of unlearning, learning, and healing are crucial to a person becoming more conscious about the things they’ve been socially conditioned towards all their lives. The problem with wokeness is that the concept itself is grounded on a person’s ability to continually seek enlightenment for their own intellectual necessities and social egos. Wokeness is individualistic in nature, and most often, is destructive in the processes of awareness that follows. What is often left out is that the same wokeness that we develop is the same mechanism that traps us in ideological abstractions that are only understood either within our own minds or those who we surround ourselves with. This type of mentality is what feeds many of the problems often found within justice advocacy networks.
Not too long ago, I attended a meeting with local Latinx community members, where we discussed the importance of resistance in a time where more undocumented immigrants were being deported than ever before. I have never attended any of the meetings before, but I decided to check it out to potentially network with local activists. Before the meeting even started, I remember sitting down and overhearing a conversation being exchanged between two people. The conversation straddled along the topics of DACA, Dreamers, and respectability politics. One person drew an argument that we needed to be more mobilized to reclaim US land and adopt “illegal alien” as a definitive marker of resistance, not one of shame. The other drew a different argument saying that that was radical and we needed to work within our political dynamics to ensure things like DACA made it easier for undocumented folx to navigate the US and eventually become citizens. The first guy just started jabbing at the second one, arguing that he has been brainwashed and is trying so hard to assimilate. While I’m not opposed to having those types of discussions with people about respectability and immigration, they got into arguments basically trying to “out-woke” each other. Eventually, the meeting started and it was drowned by that discussion; nothing was ever really discussed from the meeting, nor was anything accomplished. I left thinking, is this what woke spaces really are about? Of course, I’ve attended other successful meetings, but this was a reoccurring theme that I noticed with these particular spaces.
These ideas of being never nuanced enough, never radical enough, never decolonized enough, never intersectional enough, and never woke enough permeates through the circles of advocates and community members. For clarifcation, there is nothing wrong with critiquing ideas and analyzing methods of organization. The problem is that many of us reading this have experienced this where people’s egos get in the way of collective work and nothing gets accomplished. This renders us to think more profoundly about our own placement in society, because we have to understand that we all begin somewhere. No one is born “woke” nor is anyone exempted from being normalized into these systems. We’re all conditioned under the same pretenses and engage in these problematic systems every day. How do we do know if everyone who is “non woke” know about the movements we hold on their behalf or understand how they’re being affected in multitudinous ways? We don’t, but we assume that it is their responsibility to know because whether or not they’re affected by it, they should know better. This is where the individualism that wokeness invokes is most seen because we often forget that the people we are rooting for are the one’s that don’t know what is being fought for to begin with. We been “woke” for so long, we almost forget what it was like when we were “asleep” not by our own choices, but because at some point, we didn’t know what we know today.
There’s that saying that knowledge is power, and while to an extent that is true, what’s most powerful is what we do with that knowledge. Is it enough that we ourselves continue to learn and involve ourselves in activities that contribute to the resistance, alleviation, and liberation for all of us? Perhaps, perhaps not. You see, when I think of the day my mother told me that my knowledge made me more “dumb” I realized how true that was. The academic rhetoric and activist jargon that circulates is so far removed from reality, that it is undeniably useless that we have been woke for so long only to not know anything at all. The realization I made was in understanding that by me viewing my mother as the means for my motivation to continue fighting for her, I am inherently viewing her as inferior, as someone who is incapable of her having her own thoughts and her own way of seeking liberation for herself. In a lot of ways this happens to all of us. When we are not returning back to the hood, when we are not making this language accessible, when we are not reaching out into the communities we are fighting for to understand their needs, when we are not making efforts to ensure that the work we do is actually making changes, we fail to truly understand why we do this work in the first place. You see, a movement is truly powerful when we begin to see those we are fighting for as equal partners of a revolution. When we hold them as a means for motivation and inspiration, we fail to humanize their experiences and their bodies as valuable and central to the type of work we are involved in. In the process of this as well, we also fail to humanize ourselves, because the ideological components of wokeness denies us the ability to be human like the rest of the world. We get tired, too. None of us are exempt from imperfectability and enculturation of the oppressive systems we soon learn to navigate. When we all become a part of the movement, beautiful things, transformative things can occur. This is why wokeness can no longer be a thing, because the preservation and accumulation of knowledge without a grounded touch of reality is counterproductive and destructive. We can do better than just merely being “woke”.
I no longer want to be woke, because I want to acknowledge the limitations of theory and academic rhetoric, and the limitations a person struggling to survive has. I don’t to want to be woke anymore, because I want to understand that my mother’s liberation is mine as well. I don’t want to be woke anymore because I want to be okay with knowing that I am only human, I am problematic, I am full of complexities and fears, and that I am not the only one. I no longer want to be woke, because I want to stand with the community, not stand up for the community.
What I want to be is empowered to use my knowledge and cultural capital to effectively communicate the visions of liberation I have for the communities I care about. For 2017 and moving forward, I will no longer care about being “woke” if being woke means to only continue ensuring that I have my ego inflated and having status among others who are “woke”.
Abby Stevens Arellanes is based in Utah. He is not on twitter (yet!) but he welcomes friend requests on facebook.
in february of 1988, both my mother and my aunt janet lived in squatted houses. both knew how to heat a space with space heaters, plastic bags on windows and hanging bed sheets in doorways. they knew how to make a squatted house a home.
i spent many days in janet’s room. i loved everything about her. her laugh, her hair and her mind. she knew everything! at that time, she was the first to have ever gone to college. i wanted to be her and for me to be her, i had to learn all that she knew.
one saturday, i went across the street to visit her. she had the lights off and was watching some weird shit with people skating on ice drawing a figure 8 with ice skates. i asked “what’s this?” she said “shhh. it’s the compulsory figures.” i thought she was speaking in tongue. during the commercial breaks, she explained to me what compulsory figures were. they were an essential part of figure skating competitions. skaters had to use their skates to draw figures 8 and other shapes. these scores were important. when i asked why she was watching it - she turned the TV down - back then you couldn’t pause the tv - and with a straight face replied “these are the winter olympics. they happen every four years and countries from all over the world compete.” i was immediately intrigued. it sounded so dramatic and i wanted in! i asked “ok, which one is the american?” she pointed to the only black woman on ice - debbie thomas.
debbie came into the olympics as the reigning world champion. her competition was the beautiful and graceful (as the commentators described) german 1984 olympic champion, katarina witt. as a kid, i remember thinking she was beautiful and poised but i still wanted to be debbie. she was black and on ice and before this night, i had never known you could even skate on ice.
a few days later, the women’s figure skating short program took place. i watched and rooted for debbie. she was flawless! she ended that night in the lead. all she would have to do to was skate a clean long program and she would be the new olympic champion! fun fact: although debbie was the winner of the short program, the philadelphia daily news still placed katarina on the front cover and debbie on the inside back cover. the celebration of white beauty was real in 1988.
two days later was the women’s figure skating long program. there was tons of buzz because coincidentally, debbie and katarina had both chosen the classical song “carmen” as their music. to add to the drama, katarina would skate first and debbie would have to wait until about two hours later to skate - debbie was literally the last skater of the night.
katarina got on the ice and skated a somewhat clean program but she had missed a jump. all debbie had to do was go out there and skate a half decent program and win the gold medal. chyle, i was so nervous because even at my young age, i knew what he winning could and would mean. she must have known too.
debbie hit the ice and began to skate. i remember this shit like as it was yesterday. her first jump was a triple loop - and she “two-footed” it. my aunt janet sighed and hit the tv with the magazine she was holding and said “she fucked up.” janet’s eyes began to water but i was keeping hope. debbie would miss not just one but two more jumps including one where she completely fell. i was heartbroken. i wanted her to win!. debbie would finish the night in 3rd place.
the next night were the exhibitions. me and janet tried to guess what song debbie would perform. we both hoped that she would skate to george michael’s “one more try.” it was a current hit and we felt that it captured the feeling and added to the drama of what unfolded the night before. so you know me and janet were hella pleased when debbie stepped out on the ice skating to george michael’s “one more try.”
we watched her skate. both our eyes watering. both of us hurting for and with her. both of us loving that a black woman was on the ice representing america. in 1988 - THIS WAS HUGE!
debbie soon retired from competition. i spent that following summer fantasizing that i was a figure skater. beatrice, the drug dealer’s daughter, gave me her pink and purple roller skates. i taught myself how to jump in them. i’d put our cheap radio on the steps or as far as the extension cord would go and wait for a radio station to play “one more try.” i’d skate and make believe that i was skating for my life at the olympics. in all of my fantasies, i won the bronze medal. i wasn’t sad. i was ok with it because, in my fantasy, i was the first puerto rican skater to win an olympic medal.
i still watch the olympics. the compulsory component of the competition has since been eliminated. i still sometimes fantasize about being a figure skater, expect the fantasies are that of a retired puerto rican skater. janet passed last year so i now watch the olympics with my son. the skates that beatrice gave me didn’t last too long. turned out that roller skates were not made for triple loops. and even after all of these years, debbie is still one of my greatest heroes.
- louie a. ortiz-fonseca
picture of my aunt janet celebrating my son’s 10th birthday 4 years ago
story originally posted on july 23, 2016. re-posted today in memory of george michael
as 2016 comes to a close, we want to thank you all for your continued support. in this past year, we were able to interview and photographed over 40 varones from 11 states and 15 different cities.
in march, we screened our documentary at the latino lgbtq center in new york. this was because a varòn from new york reached out and made this happen. in june, we screened our documentary at the Philadelphia latino film festival and that was because a community member helped to make that happen.
in july, we were featured storytellers at the first movida event in new york. in late july, we were able to raise $3000 from supporters so that we could travel to orlando, florida to document stories and build community with local varones.
in october, we were invited by the CDC to present on the work of gran varones at the MSM and HIV symposium. and this was because a supporter advocated for our project to be included.
in 2016, we have met some absolutely brilliant and remarkable varones who invited us into their homes, their lives and hearts. we are so full of gratitude. none of this would have been possible without any of you. thank you! thank you! thank you!
alberto: not much. well, actually a lot. i have 2 more papers for finals and i am really just beginning.
louie: are you going to stay in new york after you graduate?
alberto: new york has been great. i love it. i am from texas so new york was a breath of fresh air. i have met all kinds of people here so it has helped me to grow personally. but i may move. i am looking to move to the west coast. i am also in love so my mind and heart are all over the place?
louie: that’s the way love goes. alberto:yeah, it was so unexpected, ya know. he and i met on facebook months ago but we were just friends. we would chat about life and love and we just clicked. it was natural and it felt good.
louie: is he in new york? alberto: i wish! no, he lives out in the west coast. we have spent time together. after i returned from my trip to uganda, i was basically on the next flight to the west coast. louie:and how was it? alberto: we had a great time. i wasn’t reality worried about chemistry because i knew we already had that but meeting in person. made it, like, more real. i feel good when i am with him. there were no awkward pauses in conversation. i hate those. but now i am back in new york and it’s hard. it’s hard wanting to be someone physically and because of geography, you cannot. i just want to scream. it’s also scary. but i am feeling courageous. we are both busy with school and that takes up a lot of time. i just have to be patient. it’s hard but i am willing to whatever it takes to make this work. alberto, new york, new york
photographed & interviewed by: louie a. ortiz-fonseca
I’ve kept quiet about the whole #KimBurrell situation to figure out my thoughts and examine my heart.
As a former worship leader, pastors kid, and youth leader who grew up in the pulpit from birth. All I have known for the past 26 years of life is what people call “Religion and Church”.
Throughout those past 26 years I have seen many commit suicide, harbor self-hatred, and even disown there own for living in their truth.
When Kim Burrell and Pastor Shirley Caesar made those comments recently it didn’t come as a shock nor surprise. However, those comments bring up memories of living as LGBT in the church.
It feels like just yesterday when I decided to live in my truth as a queer man and the abandonment and hurt that came from the people I had grown up with all my life. The people who yet just days before were telling me I had an anointing on my life yet when I revealed who I really was to them all the sudden I was an abomination and I had to fast and pray for this “ perverse spirit” to come out of me.
And like that, in an instant a whole chapter of my life was now gone.
If I was just a few years younger i’m not sure if I would of been able to handle the rejection that came from people who strive to be like “Christ” but one day I was cleaning my apartment and came across an old cassette that had a recorded prophetic word about me in 2008. It stated “You have a calling on your life and you will touch millions through your ministry and story”.
Well here I am in 2017. A successful young, educated, and vibrant QUEER man whose ministry is helping those who have been broken, beaten down, and left to fend for themselves who the majority have been abandoned by the very pulpits you preach your “deliverance” speeches from.
After all is said and done, thank you for your words because if it had not been for those judgmental and hateful words my misery wouldn’t of become my ministry…
xoxo,
Benjamin T. Di'Costa
Benjamin Di'Costa is an internationally recognized HIV and Social Justice activist based out of Chicago. He recently was listed as the as one of the Top LGBT Social Media Powerhouses of 2016
you can follow benjamin on twitter @benjamindicosta
yo! i thought the white gays would have learned from the constant
draggings of their platform and approached to “equality” in 2016 but
these basics have not.
lgbtq
nation, which is some whack ass website that bills itself as “the
world’s most followed lgbtq news source”, just named that milo “i hate
black people but i am gay so y'all other white gays won’t hold me
accountable” yiannopulous as their person of the year. well, it’s
readers did but reading the article (you will have to google it - i was
not going to help them get clicks by posting it here) that website is
pleased with the outcome of the poll. i have included a screenshot of it
and if you look closely, the writer drives home the point that milo won
“fair and square!” i am sure they want readers to believe that this was
not a “rigged” election of sorts because you know, that shit doesn’t
happen here. lol they are also pleased with the results, much like
america is with the november election results, that they are going to
interview him and make it interactive!
but the kicker (and white gays are so full of them) is the editor’s note at the end of the article:
Editor’s note: This article was changed to remove a reference to
Yiannopoulos as a member of the alt-right movement. “Alt-right” is a
term used to describe a political ideology rooted in white nationalism,
xenophobia, anti-Semitism, sexism, and homophobia. Its adherents are, in
short, exactly who Hillary Clinton meant when she dubbed many Trump
supporters a “basket of deplorables.” Yiannopoulos contacted the editors
to insist he does not identify as a member of the alt-right.
wait! and then in the comments section - i do read those because why
not? - white gays are giving milo props for taking back conservatism
back from the homophobes. lawd! you can’t make this shit up!
well thought we’d share this with y'all in the event you thought trump
brought white gays to their senses. leave that hope in 2016!
also, if you google the article to read it. share screenshots with your
friends. sharing their article helps them get clicks and shit.
lastly, if you are a white ally, do not comment with the “not all white
gays,” instead, hold your friends and other white gays accountable.
