Gettin' Queer for Dope: Learning How to Learn about LGBT Identity by Morgan Parker



When I met Sarah on August 28th, 2015, I saw a very shy and sheltered Mormon-raised girl. When I met Josh two weeks later, I saw a very bright and bubbling boundary-breaking guy. I’d never imagine that these two distinct identities and two distinct personalities came from one single person. My roommate is transgender, and while he was in the process of translating his entire identity, I was adjusting my mind to the prospect of not only meeting, but living with, a person entirely new. Despite any initial apprehension, I know that I am among the luckiest freshmen for having been blessed with this life-changing experience. I have been enlightened and I owe it all to a little club on campus and a new friend named Josh. This club, known as the Pride Network, epitomizes a true community that offers the unique opportunity for diversifying, involving, and inspiring our minds within a safe and supportive environment. Hofstra Universitywould surely be a different place if it did not exist.

In her September 11, 2015 Taking Giant Steps blogpost, “Leaping out of the Cave and into the Light,” Deanna Weber discusses her yearning for the diversity and experience that Hofstra University provides. She writes, “Not only did I long for students who did not look so much like me, but I also wanted to encounter people with more experience about different places and points of view” (Weber). However, just because so much diversity surrounds us at a place like Hofstra, that doesn’t mean that we are taking advantage of it. As college freshmen, we are especially in the dark when it comes to challenging and diversifying our minds. However, my roommate Josh Green and his friend Matt Sullivan are one step into the light ahead of everyone else. My interviewees were brave enough to be involved with something outside of their comfort zone and, in return, were met with great reward. This is because The Pride Network embodies a form of diversity that is entirely attainable. Matt says, “It’s all about learning, and it’s very comfortable. The purpose is that everyone is welcome” (Sullivan). This is a deliberate characteristic of the club whose main goal is to better the community through awareness. These are people who invariably know that the more differences you have from the person sitting next to you, the more opportunities you have to learn something new. These are people who know how to make every person they meet into an asset.

Moreover, the Pride Network concerns itself with learning outside of Hofstra University by organizing trips and other opportunities for students to attend. Recently Matt, along with other members of the club, ventured to Vermont to attend a “Translating Identity” conference that explored a number of topics regarding gender and transgender identities, expressions, and communities. The conference featured a keynote speaker prominent in the LGBTQ community and aimed not just to reach students and members of this community, but the entirety of the nation (“Translating Identity Conference”). Enlightening experiences, such as this conference, are available and accessible to all interested club members, and are widely encouraged! The goal is for students to see more and learn more outside of what they are comfortable with by breaking free of any means of restriction. Becoming a member of this club provides the first step in our own “leap out of the cave,” and gives us that first glimpse of light. The Pride Network’s overwhelming desire to educate and interact is what makes it crucial to the infrastructure of our “diversity university.”

Beyond the idea of education as a means of opening ourselves up to diversity, the Pride Network provides an experience for those seeking to “learn how to learn” through involvement. As products of the traditional learning pedagogy, we have been programmed to believe that true learning only exists by the guidance of a teacher within the four walls of a classroom. However, the Pride Network proves that belief is far from true. Opportunities for involvement in club meetings and social interactions offer a greater, more valuable kind of learning. Paulo Freire, author of “The Banking Concept of Education,” provides an explanation of this ideal form of learning in what he calls “problem-posing education.” He writes, “Education as the practice of freedom as opposed to education as the practice of domination denies that man is abstract, isolated, independent, and unattached to the world; it also denies that the world exists as a reality apart from people. Authentic reflection considers neither abstract man nor the world without people, but people in their relations with the world” (Freire 8). In other words, knowledge comes mostly from experience and from learning about the people in your world rather than learning about the world apart from them.

Furthering this idea, at a typical Pride Network meeting, members begin by sitting around a table and introducing themselves to everyone before beginning the discussion of that week. When Matt and Josh sat down at their first meeting, their minds were still forced shut by fear and anxiety. However, within the first five minutes, those feelings subsided and their minds were engaged. Matt noted, “When we got into a circle and introduced ourselves, everyone seemed more relatable” (Sullivan). Dissolving formality and opening up to discussion is one of many ways the Pride Network runs parallel with Freire’s ideal learning pedagogy. The club holds weekly discussions of current and pressing social issues that are “fun to talk about” (Sullivan). For instance, they recently ran a meeting for people who were interested in discussing the Democratic Party debate that had aired just a few days prior. Additionally, at most meetings they will break up into smaller discussion groups to consider more specific or personal issues. As Paulo Freire put it, “Here, no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught. People teach each other, mediated by the world, by the cognizable objects which in banking education are ‘owned’ by the teacher” (Freire 7). Seldom does one find the opportunity to involve oneself in something that, by nature, gives more than it takes. Simply being there is the greatest thing you can offer the Pride Network, but in return it gives you back something much greater.

One of the most intriguing things Josh ever said to me was that somehow Hofstra felt like a home to him before his own body did. As difficult as it was for me to comprehend such a statement, it was also oddly empowering. I didn’t really understand the true impact it had on me until I attended a meeting of the Pride Network for myself: If ever I could be a real fly on the wall, I certainly would have been at that meeting. My goal was to be an objective observer, so I could focus more on the big picture than on my own involvement. However, there is certainly something to be said about being the only person in the room who is somehow different from everyone else. I didn’t feel anxious or nervous, but I certainly felt out of place. After a few minutes of feeling that way I remembered Josh’s comment, and I started to understand what it really meant to me, as well as everyone else in the club. For those fifteen minutes of feeling outside of my comfort zone, any other person in the room could have spent fifteen years feeling the same way. For one reason or another, not everyone has a comfort zone they can depend on returning to and I realized I had been taking mine for granted. This was a place made for people to belong; a comfort zone for those who may not have their own.

Ultimately, it is the atmosphere at the Pride Network that breathes inspiration and positivity. Everywhere I looked I could see someone inhaling the Pride Network and exhaling with relief and confidence. This is a place where the only thing you might have in common with the person sitting next to you is that you are different. This is a place where everyone feels entirely content to be wholly and unapologetically themselves. Finally, this is a place where everyone can feel a part of something greater. Beyond everything I have written, to say that this club has changed people’s lives would still be an understatement. My roommate, Josh, may never have been confident enough to become himself had the Pride Network not been ready to catch him when his old life came crashing down. As Deanna Weber wrote, “I am big on self-love and self-happiness, and diversity is something that can contribute to both of these things” (Weber).

The Pride Network offered me the kind of enlightenment Deanna Weber spoke so much about. Although I may not yet have made my leap into the light, I feel confident that this experience has equipped me with the means by which to do so. I learned that I have the responsibility to not only observe, but immerse myself in, the diversity that surrounds me. I learned what it means to really learn. Most crucially, I learned that everything around me has something to offer me if I am willing to look hard enough.

Works Cited

Freire, Paulo. "The "Banking" Concept of Education." Plato (2007): n. pag. Web.

Green, Josh. Personal Interview. 14 Oct. 2015.

Sullivan, Matthew. Personal Interview. 14 Oct. 2015.

"The Internet Classics Archive | The Republic by Plato." The Internet Classics Archive | The Republic by Plato . N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.

"University of Vermont." Translating Identity Conference. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Oct. 2015.

Weber, Deanna. “Leaping out of the Cave and into the Light,” Taking Giant Steps. N.p., 11 Sept. 2015. Web.

The Ultimate Scribe to His Tribe: An Interview with JUSTIN LUKE

KIRPAL GORDON: First off, I congratulate you on writing an extraordinary first novel, Gulliver Travels. It’s also gotten great press, and you have had incredible success selling the book via Amazon, Kindle and other new technologies as well as through your day and night jobs. What’s the adventure been like for you?

JUSTIN LUKE: Thank you, KP! And I thought that my novel's namesake had an adventure… little did I know what was in store for me! Gulliver Travels actually began almost 3 years ago, as a National Novel Writing Month challenge (I got the 50k words in 30 days, score). From there I re-published the "novella" to a blog while I spent a year revising it… people then began assuming that Gulliver was real and he became a celebrity in New York City! He was asked out on hundreds of dates, offered jobs, propositioned for sex… needless to say, when I had to "come out" as the Guy behind Gully, it was a bit of a trip.

From there, I self-published the book using Amazon's CreateSpace, as well as Amazon's Kindle Direct Publishing. And I then discovered that the gay 20-something demographic, who are well known to spend lots of money on things, weren't AVERSE to reading… it was just that no one had ever bothered writing anything for them before. This led to my book becoming the #1 highest rated gay book on the Amazon Kindle within three weeks. If this wasn't exciting enough, one day I was walking home from my day job when I got a Facebook email from the Senior Book Buyer at Amazon Encore, Amazon's publishing imprint. He had grabbed Gully, and enjoyed it immensely… and offered me a 3-book deal!

The first thing I did was read the email ten times. I had given up on being traditionally published years earlier! That's why I self-published! After that I called my Mom and Boyfriend and Dad and Best Friend, and through jagged sobs of happiness, told them. From there it's been a stress-filled dream come true. New revisions, new writing, meeting with marketing teams and design teams and experiencing what I've been dreaming of since my parents bought me a typewriter when I was 12. And all of this has happened BEFORE my book Gulliver Takes Manhattan goes on sale internationally in May of 2012! I can't wait to see what else is in store. As Gulliver says at the end of the novel: "I should be terrified. I am so fucking excited."

KIRPAL GORDON: Not only do you express yourself very well online, but taken together, the video and print interviews you’ve done make it clear that for gay members of the generation under thirty years old trying to make New York City their home, “Gulliver Travels” is the ideal handbook. What’s it like to be so well received by the gay community?

JUSTIN LUKE: Being received so well by the gay community, frankly, is something that HAD to happen. If it didn't I would have considered myself a failure, hung up my hat, and moved to some suburb in Illinois, never to be heard of again. I've been working as a gay nightlife promoter and producer for over two years now. I have been keeping the illustrious metropolitan gay twenty-something male in my sights for even longer than that. I study them. I observe them. I meet hundreds of them a week. If, after all that, I WASN'T received by the community, I would have seriously had to reconsider my talents.

Also, it's all I've ever wanted. I began my life as a wallflower in elementary, junior, and high school. It wasn't until I detonated the closet in college that I began to discover myself. Now I'm living my dream: I'm having fun, I'm meeting younger gay guys and able to teach them and prepare them for the world ahead of them and give them learnings from my life experiences.

And, finally, it's fun because they care about what I care about. When I write something, I'm writing it for me. Luckily, it's perfectly in line with what this community wants as well!


KIRPAL GORDON: The only thing I found a bit odd was all too little mention of the book’s literary merit. Granted, most of your interviewers were dealing with its gay, youth or New York themes, but it is an extremely well written, page-turning tale. It built a powerful momentum chapter after chapter, and like all great literature, it riveted me by pity and fear, Aristotle’s famous remark in his Poetics on the cathartic quality of storytelling.


JUSTIN LUKE: Thank you, Kirpal, it means a lot to me to hear that.

I'll be honest, KP. I wasn't going to call Gulliver Travels (or Gulliver Takes Manhattan) literature because I am used to the negative, flame-friendly world of the Internet. My mother taught me modesty early on, which I use because 1) I am modest and 2) No one attacks someone for being modest. I didn't want people coming out of the woodwork to set me straight and tell me what I had written was trash.

I look at OTHER works as literary, sure. The Chabons and the Franzens and the Rushdies. I guess I didn't give my book enough credit; I just assumed that a book about a gay boy drinking and sexing his way to self-discovery through modern day Manhattan couldn't possibly be literary!

And, finally, I know what sells to my target audience. I say "great literature" and they're already fleeing the scene, their iPhones out as they try to distract themselves. They want excitement! Sex! A character dealing with problems similar to their own, but ratcheted up for ultimate schadenfreude.

KIRPAL GORDON: It’s this unique combination---mastery of the new marketing technologies and mastery of your material from a literary point of view---that gives me hope in the aftermath of an industry destroyed by greed. In other words, you don’t need to be a midlist author waiting for someone to give you the big break. I understand Amazon has invited you into its free publicity program.

JUSTIN LUKE: Technically, Amazon gave me a 3-book deal! It's the whole hog: ePublishing, print publishing, brick and mortar bookstore distribution, and a full PR, marketing and everything else blitz. Essentially, it's like the old fashioned way of publishing, but pimped out to the extreme with the world's largest and most successful company behind me all the way. Again, a dream come true. If I'm going to have a publishing house behind me, having that house live within Amazon makes it that much better.

KIRPAL GORDON: What’s next? Tell us about the short stories you are writing and marketing uniquely.

JUSTIN LUKE: Oh there is always something next! Right now I'm wrapping up the fifth and final short story in my "Gulliver's Travelers" series. It's an eBook-only series that features the secondary characters of my original novel. Each story is told in first person, from one of these characters, and they are all tied in to each other because they take place on the same day. I take it one step further still because the day when all of these stories takes place actually occurs IN THE TIMELINE of my original novel. Basically I answer the question: where was every one else on the day when Gulliver did X?

I did this because, when I first self-published my novel, I figured I'd need to stack the odds in my favor to get attention. And so I committed to write 5 short stories, as eBooks only, all based on the original novel. What I wanted to do was flood the Amazon Kindle's gay store with my name and writing. And, because they were eBooks only, I could charge very little to sell them (each is $2.99… you can't even get a slice of pizza for that any longer). And what it seems to be doing, based on sales, is creating a funnel. For readers of Gulliver, they now have more to read. For those who don't know Gulliver, there's the chance I can reel them in to me by enticing them with a cheap and exciting mini-book that is tied into 4 others, and all of which are related to my original novel. And, to my fortune, it seems to be working!


KIRPAL GORDON: Your grandmother, Edith Zirilli, may she rest in peace, was my neighbor. A daily meditator and a woman with literary talent but little access to the lit world, she would be so proud of what you have accomplished. Do you think of her when you are out giving readings and shows?


JUSTIN LUKE: I always think of my Grandmother, actually. I was lucky, as the oldest child in my extended family, to have the most time with her. She is actually the first acknowledgment in the back of my novel. I am convinced that the writing bones in my body stem genetically back all the way to her. And, judging from how much my mom smiles when she sees my growing success, I imagine Grandma is doing the same.

It's a shame that she was born in a time where a woman writing was frowned upon. I wish she had been given the chance. I like to think that she's watching me, and she's happy that she's getting a shot vicariously through me.

KIRPAL GORDON: How can friends at Giant Steps Press stay in touch with all of what you are doing?

JUSTIN LUKE: Super easy! I'm a bit of a web nerd, so I make sure to be strongly represented online. You can find links to everything I do and sell and offer at my official web site, www.JustinLukeNYC.com. From there you can find hundreds of ways to get in contact with me and keep tabs, I'm on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, LinkedIn, Vimeo, YouTube, etc. etc. etc.

If you'd like to find out more about my book, there's always www.GrabGully.com.