Queer people were ostensibly not included in JFK’s vision for the Peace Corps when he gave his famous speech at the University of Michigan in 1961. It wasn’t until much later that LGBTQIA+ people could serve openly, but openness is still relative. On my second day as a trainee in East Africa in June 2012, we were instructed during a training not to come out to our host country national staff, as it might affect our relationships with them and the support we would received over the following two years. During my service, another volunteer agreed to pose as my girlfriend, and I was careful to use she/her/hers pronouns if conversations with friends in the communities where I lived ever went in that direction.
The support we received as queer volunteers was minimal. We had the session on the second day of training during which we were taught about the real risks associated with coming out in a country where we were illegal, and then we were also able to meet for a lunch hour during the annual All-Volunteer Conference. Friends and I disagree about the possibilities, but logistically, I do believe there was little Peace Corps could do for us. Some volunteers had discussed a weekend in the capital for queer PCVs, but then there was the problem of getting funding approved for a meeting about which staff members couldn’t know any details. As a result, I went through some of the most difficult isolation I’ve ever experienced.
When allies put it in their own words, they say it must have been really hard not to be my true self, but it went much deeper than that. The relationships I cultivated during service felt very tenuous; I always wondered whether my local friends would still love me if they knew who I really was. The sense memory of those two years in the closet still shocks me; I’m still processing it, and I’ve been back in the States for almost four years now.
A few weeks ago I was invited to march with the Peace Corps in the Chicago Pride parade. This felt like a very symbolic opportunity; I would get to march under the flag of the country where I served and add my voice and body to the pageant of our queer liberation. I had to think seriously, though, about what it would mean to participate. Years into a process of becoming more inclusive, Peace Corps still does have a spotty reputation in regards to its queer volunteers. This includes HIV prevention methods for queer PCVs as well as placement options for trans PCVs. Additionally, queer spaces across the country have often not been open to diversity; the image is one of overwhelming able-bodied cis white maleness. Corporations now sponsor floats in Pride parades as a marketing ploy; they have only begun to accept us because of the money at stake and not because we should have had rights in the first place. So why did I ultimately decide to march?
I’m not marching as an expression of the support I received from Peace Corps as a queer volunteer. As I stated earlier, there wasn’t much to go around. No, I’m not marching as a declaration to other queer people that the tides have entirely turned—they haven’t.
I’m not marching as a testimony to straight and cis people that the world has gotten warmer for us. Many places have, yes, and in many other places, people continue to struggle and push. But there are many more places where queer people dream of these colorful flags draped in business windows and flying on poles in front of homes, atop stadiums, and in the hands of the crowds I’ll see today. Today I’ll see what many of my queer family may never see with their own eyes: thousands of mouths cheering, thousands of hearts open. No, I will not testify today to the warmth of the world for its queerness.
For me, today is part of the healing journey I’m still on. Today I march in memory of the shattering of my life across the world. I march in memory of the wreckage around me, my old religious beliefs destroyed to make way for a new world in which my body is not garbage, not a mistake, not an unfortunate kink in the universe. Today I participate in our continual story of coming out: I walk in the sense memory of pressure, the sparkle of new diamonds deep in my core. Today I indulge in the sweet gift of being publicly gay, living in a city with a queerer identity, having friends and co-workers for whom my sexuality is not a curiosity but a description.
Today I march in gratitude to my fellow queer PCVs as well as my allies: my fake girlfriend, my friend who bought me a traditional scarf in the capital because the colorful border almost made a rainbow, and all the PCVs who kept a belief in my humanity and goodness safe for me while I broke apart. Today I participate in my pride, which is precious to me for how hard I have to fight each day to live in it.
The Mill 