15 years ago today, my uncle Patrick Allen Wegesend, passed away. He was 53 years old.
http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2002/Sep/20/ln/ln46aobituaries.html
(he will be referred to in the rest of this article as "Uncle Pat")
Uncle Pat was the older brother to my mother. Out of her 6 brothers, Uncle Pat was the one she had the closest relations with.
He was the uncle that I had the closest relations with.
Uncle Pat was a constant visitor to my mom and grandma's home, and we would have long meaningful conversations about life and current news. We would talk about world events, history and tabloid news.
Uncle Pat had a very kind & generous spirit.
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But even with our close relations, Uncle Pat had some secrets that would only be revealed later.
Uncle Pat was going through some major health problems.
I've heard conversations about him having diabetes.
But I learned the truth in my conversation with grandma that Uncle Pat had AIDS.
That was a shocker.
Usually, when it is announced that someone got AIDS, there are instant questions on how that person got it.
I asked my grandma.
She said that Uncle Pat got it from a man he was living with a few years earlier.
What?
You mean to tell me Uncle Pat was ...............?
That side of Uncle Pat wasn't talked about.
I was naive about the whole thing.
I was assuming that Uncle Pat was living with a friend, not realizing what type of friendship it was.
Uncle Pat didn't exactly fit the stereotype of a gay person "having a limp wrist", never wore feminine clothing, didn't talk with a stereotypical "gay voice", none of that!
While Uncle Pat never had that rugged exterior like some other uncles, he didn't fit the "mahu" stereotypes either.
There were a few other uncles that weren't married either, but I doubt that homosexuality had anything to do with that! Some people just liked the independence of living alone. I like the independence of living alone, and I'm heterosexual.
Anyways, when my grandma informed me about Uncle Pat having AIDS, it was probably somewhere between 2000-2002. It was within Uncle Pat's last few years. I didn't say anything about it to anyone.
On the day that Uncle Pat died, I told my mother what grandma said about Uncle Pat having AIDS and how he got it, and my mother basically confirmed everything grandma said.
It was also the first time me and my mother having a conversation about Uncle Pat's homosexuality and him having AIDS.
My mother said that very few people understood how much Uncle Pat suffered throughout his life.
She said that Uncle Pat felt misunderstood by his brothers. That grandma wasn't so nice when Uncle Pat revealed his sexual orientation until Uncle Pat told grandma "You think I like being this way?" At that point, grandma understood! It was a revelation to grandma that sexual orientation is an inborn trait, that many people who are homosexual are suffering with living with such a secret that if they revealed it, it could mean the difference between full acceptance versus being outcasted by loved ones.
To add to that, being that many homosexuals "lived in the closest", the best options that many felt they had was to go to "gay bars" in secret, where they feel they can live their true selves for a few hours. Those places were notorious for their hookup scenes, and being that men can't get pregnant, there was less hesitation among gay men to "hook up", making them vulnerable to STDs.
When the AIDS crisis hit in the 1980s, it was seen as a "gay disease". Among those already outcasted by their families, peers, churches and mainstream society, many gay men with AIDS had no emotional support to help them survive such a brutal disease. It's bad enough that AIDS was basically a death sentence, even worse when many who suffered didn't have emotional support from family due to homophobia.
While the AIDS crisis might've enabled a few ultra-conservative preachers to preach homophobia, news reports about the suffering of AIDS patients eventually had the rest of the population rethink their prejudice against the LGBT population. People start to realize that their jokes about homosexuality isn't "just a joke" but something that can traumatize people who are already suffering.
As I learned about Uncle Pat's reality, I feel really guilty about laughing at homophobic jokes and making homophobic comments when I was younger.
I didn't even know what homosexuality was until 5th grade in sex ed, and my brother told me that gay men had anal sex, we were both disgusted.
Nobody in our schools was out of the closet, except for this one loud transgendered person who was a senior when I was a freshmen in high school. In that environment, there was a near consensus that homosexuality was something to be ridiculed.
Around the same time, this being the 1990s, that same-sex marriage was in the news, as there was a lawsuit in the Hawaii court systems. So it was something discussed in social studies classes. Hearing that issue discussed in 10th social studies class was the first time I heard classmates defending the right to allow same-sex marriage. As far I know, none of them were openly LGBT, but they were already "ahead of their time" on this issue.
The late 90s was also when Ellen DeGeneres had her "coming out" episode. That was the first time I had any discussion about homosexuality with my mother. My mother defended LGBT rights, but at the time, she didn't mention about Uncle Pat's sexuality.
Those discussion motivated me to research the issue. Back then, I didn't have internet access (it was the late 90's, the internet was still a new thing), so reading books about it in the back of the library (away from everyone else) was the only option. Even with that, I learned a lot! I learned that many LGBT had those innate feelings and they knew they had to keep it a secret because they knew even their closest friends would turn against them. Learning that broke my heart. I felt guilty for any homophobic thoughts/jokes I expressed because there's a possibility my comments hurt the hearts of people who might still be in the closet.
It took me a while to openly defend LGBT rights, because others would be like "eww, you're defending same-sex marriage because you gay"
I remember in freshmen year of college (1999-2000) in speech, we had to randomly pick a paper that had a topic written on it. The paper was folded so you can't see what you're picking. The other topics included abortion, gun control and doctor-assisted suicide. I was hoping for those topics. The folded paper I picked happened to have "same-sex marriage" written on it. One more person had the same topic. One of us had to defend it, the other had to argue against it. I decided that it was time to defend it, just as boldly as I was already defending my viewpoints on other topics. I learned then that the university was a different environment than high school, and that you won't be stigmatized for defending LGBT rights. (Remember, this was the turn of the century. Yes universities were already "liberal" but not a single state legalized same-sex marriage yet).
Even at that point, I still didn't know about Uncle Pat's orientation. It was still a "secret".
Had he lived longer, maybe he might've been more willing to talk about it.
Had he lived until this year, he would've seen same-sex marriage legalized, and maybe, he might be more willing to talk publicly about his orientation.
Or maybe he just wanted to be left alone in privacy.
Either way, I will continue to miss Uncle Pat, his generous spirit and the discussions we had.
