I LOVE Jermaine Stewart. He was the first Black sissy I ever saw on TV and it made me feel really good to see that. Too bad our community is still too conservative to just accept us as we are even though folks will eat up our images and music, and then say that 'hate the sin, love the sinner' business. This duplicity sends mixed messages and just gives kids and adults permission to bully us to death -literally- either physically, or soul murder (the latter leading many to NOT protect themselves and abuse their bodies through sex, drugs, alcohol, toxic relationships, etc).
Enjoy Donny Simpson's interview posted above, and check out the video, The Word is Out, which to me, always felt like a coming out anthem, as in the word of the day is 'out' in the way that Black vernacular uses the phrase 'the word'. Of course, the artist passed of AIDS-related complications in 1997 and is neither here to defend nor define himself. This right here is just a fan talking. Back in the early 80's when Jermaine's videos dropped on Video Soul, I recall one of my uncles saying "Now, who's this sissy." I for sure kept my mouth wide-closed, and hoped no one pointed at me. Luckily, I could point my eyes at the screen and maintain the hope that one day I'd be able to come out.
Needless to say, this is why it's so important for people to come out, and for us to be able to actually see/feel/touch/know actual sissies and dykes who embrace themselves in love and reject the hate associated with those labels- yes, those labels hurled at us by kids who hear them in homes where folks say empty crap like 'hate the sin, love the sinner'. There's no love in that, and just painful to hear Christians, actual living, breathing, so-called God-fearing folks advocating any sort of hate. Needless to say, like Jermaine, I made my life far, far away from home, those words, and even those people who love me but just didn't know how to help me 'out'.
In case you didn't catch that, no one wants to live love behind closed doors:
You had to be the one to say it
You couldn't keep it
Our secret, oh, no
...
I can't stand the gossip
Out on the streets now
How could they see us
Behind closed doors
...
Why did you have to tell them
I told you not to say a word
Why did you have to say it
We were never seen (never seen)
Now I can't believe the word is out
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