Remarks

given at the

Inaugural Rochester Pride

Brendan Johnson

Rochester Municipal Park

Rochester, Michigan

June 27, 2021

Hi my name is Brendan Johnson,

I’m a lifelong Rochester area resident, and I’m queer. And I think I’m the first person in the history of this historic mill town, this first Euro-American settlement in Oakland County, this distant farming village-turned Detroit suburb, to grab a microphone and quite publicly say that. I’m queer, and I’m so, so happy to be here with all of you today to celebrate our community’s very first ever LGBTQ+ Pride.

So just before COVID started, I was having coffee with my since-retired high school Spanish teacher, and she lives here in Rochester, and at one point during our conversation she asked me in a very cute and funny way and obviously also in Spanish, “Hey… are you a member of the LGBT community?,” and of course I responded, also in Spanish “Yes I am a member of the LGBT community,” and for the next few minutes we just kind of gossiped about who else from high school was queer.

And in those moments I realized that a lot of people that I grew up with, people who grew up among us here in Rochester, are queer. And you know what the not funny thing is? Not one of them lives here now. Not one. And when I ask people why they leave, of course this is a generational problem too, I know that, I'm well aware that this is a generational issue too, but it's also very much a queer issue. I tell people all the time, obviously not from here, where I'm from, and almost instantly their reaction is a mix of curiosity and pity at like, “How could you possibly live in Rochester? .. How could you live there?”

But that's why this matters. That's why pride matters. Because visibility matters. Showing up and showing out matters. 

Full disclosure I did not know gay people existed until I was in high school. I did not know that this thing that I was was shared by other people until I was in high school. And when I did find out about it I was so confused about how to react to it, how to respond to this new information, unlike anything I've ever learned before.

I remember getting into an argument — a creative discussion — with a classmate of mine in high school about how homosexuality does not make sense from a evolutionary biological point of view: it didn't make any sense to me that a species would generate members of its species that would not fulfill the single task of any organism. Right? An organism has one task and that is to perpetuate the existence of its species. So how could you possibly have members of your species that don't do that?

I remember learning about Pride for the first time, learning that some queer people are so excited about their sexuality that they gather in the streets that they have parades and parties about it! And I was so confused because straight people don't brag about how straight they are. And if you're anything like my parents and the rest of my family, public displays of affection or not okay no matter which way you swing. 

So anyway for the next several years and all throughout undergrad, I consigned myself to just live alone and learn more about myself, and I'm mostly asexual anyway so it didn’t really matter that much.

And it wasn't until October of my first year of grad school when — and you have to understand I lived in a neighborhood such that to get to the neighborhood grocery store, you had to walk through kind of the play yard of a middle school. So I was coming back from the grocery store, on my way back to my house one day, and I passed two obviously middle school-aged girls, they were probably in sixth grade, so 11 years old. 

And one of them, with more excitement of youthful jubilance as I had ever seen, ran up to me, a total stranger, and said, “Guess what?!” And I returned just as much energy as she did, and I said, “What?!,” and she said, “My best friend came out today!”

And I looked behind this outing friend at her newly-outed friend, with stunned and with my mouth wide ajar at what had just happened to me. And then, with the faintest of movements she cowered, just a little bit. This 11 year old queer girl cowarded just the tiniest bit in the absence of my reaction to this girl who just wanted to share good news about her best friend. Relieving news about her best friend. Rejoicing news about her best friend finally living in truth. And it shook me .. because in that moment, I learned more about myself than anything I could about her.

So anyway I immediately congratulated the newly outed 11 year old and I reprimanded her friend for outing someone other than herself because that's not any straight’s business! Be this a lesson here, dear straights among us today. Don’t out your friends, only we get to do that! 

And I turned and started to continue on my way, but after making it half a block, I stopped dead in my tracks, turned around, raced back and told the very first person ever that I was too. And I thanked her. 

So as I said this is the first pride event ever in our community. A community that is also for the very first year ever that I have seen flying a rainbow flag on Main Street — though not yet any any of our city halls…baby steps. A community represented by some of the fine people here who know that love is love and support our community’s demand for equality under Michigan and federal law. 

Thanks to State Sens. Mallory McMorrow and Rosemary Bayer for supporting amendments to the Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act, Congresswomen Haley Stevens and Elissa Slotkin and Senators Debbie Stabenow and Gary Peters for supporting the Equality Act in Congress. It’s nice to have a friend in the White House again, I’m glad we’ve got Joe Biden in there. And of course not ally, but dear member in our community, Dave Coulter for finally establishing some countywide protections for our community.

But thanks especially to the organizers of this event and to all of you for coming. I know you didn't come to hear me talk about myself and my own story, but for me at least I needed that 11 year old girl. So if any of you need me, here I am.

A journalist asked me a few weeks ago what I thought Pride was. A deceptively difficult question! And eventually I realized that more than just as a celebration of gayness — although it is fun to celebrate — Pride is a promise, a promise made by those of us who are out to those who are watching the parade pass them by, behind the windows of their comfort, wondering if there's a home, somewhere amongst the crowd, for them. And even though the giant sign behind me proclaims loudly that Rochester is "Where You Live” be it known that, to all who here live, may you also be home.

Happy Pride.