Aldwin Era tackles the topic of gay travel. Is it all about choice or does it support negative stereotypes? What do you think? Tell us in the comments section below.

Madrid is one of my favourite places in the entire world.  And that’s exactly where I found myself one evening last June.  After eleven hours of torturous travel from Toronto, with a pit-stop in Paris, I had arrived to join one of my best comrades Gabe and a few of our mutual friends to a convivial tapas meal at Lateral in the heart of city.

Our destination? Cool – world-renowned circuit party venue and stomping grounds of Madrid’s most good-looking hombres.  I placed my night’s fortune, as I had countless times in Toronto, in Gabe’s hands.

Making our way down the spiral pathway, I beheld what was to be the absolute best party of my life.  It was like stumbling into a wet dream, one of those surreal moments where the circumstances are simply too good to be true. And for what seemed like an eternity I danced my life away, surfing the throngs of chiseled torsos and crashing against the flood of rippled chests.  And before I knew it the night was over.  The first morning rays had already begun to soften the staunch grey façades of the neighbourhood buildings when we blundered out of the club.

Gabe and I parted ways and I dragged my aching body back to my hostel.  I climbed the mountainous staircase, let myself in, and collapsed on my bed.

I glanced at my watch.  830AM.  I had been in Europe for twenty hours and I was already gayed out.  I plonked my head onto the pillow and wondered for those few moments before the immense fatigue set in if I had gone too gay, too soon.  Was this vacation becoming a gaycation?  Even though I had just spent the last six hours at the best party of my life, I was ready for something new, something not so…gay.

Gay travel is big business.  Recognizing the enormous buying potential of this seemingly affluent niche market, travel and tourism companies such as Atlantis Tours and Out Adventures have built wildly successful businesses catering specifically to the gay and lesbian community.  In fact, LGBTQ’s worldwide are presented with an endless array of choices when it comes to travel the gay way.

From non-stop party cruises along the sun-drenched Mediterranean Coast to spiritual pilgrimages through the Buddhist temples in Thailand, there is truly something for everyone represented under the LGBTQ umbrella. Atlantis Tours for example, the premiere gay and lesbian tour operator in the world, boasts nearly 20,000 guests annually.

Similarly, Olivia Lesbian Travel, offers an equally diverse holiday selection.  Whether you find yourself snorkeling with angelfish along the Mexican Riviera or wandering through the Forbidden City in Beijing.

I have to admit, as a fairly cultured gay man who (every now and then) likes to throw it down to the music of DJ Abel and Manny Lehman, the idea of a gaycation has enticed me.  However, every time I’ve contemplated a gaycation I’ve always hesitated. Was I really willing to sequester myself to a week-long escapade of gayventures?  Did I  want to spend every waking moment with gay people?  Doing ‶gay things″ all the gay freakin’ time?

For some perspective on the topic, I surveyed some of my good pals. And according to Johnny and Marc-Antoine, who have been on many a gaycation, it really is about three things: freedom, flexibility, and fun.

“What appeals most to me is that you can still make it what you want. If you want to party your ass off every night, never sleep and come home exhausted, you can. Or, if you want to chillax, read, workout, have a few cocktails, see the sights, you can certainly do that,”  explains Johnny.

Marc-Antoine takes a similar view and adds, “[Gaycations] cater exclusively to gay people’s needs and have a lot more to offer than straight (cruises) which cater more toward families and children.”

For these two gaycation veterans, the idea of consecrating an entire holiday with gay folk isn’t an issue in the slightest.  In fact, they embrace it.  “I was pleased to discover guys  from early 20’s well into their 60’s having a great time.  And there are plenty of both model types and non-model types so you can definitely find your own niche,” adds Johnny.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, those who hadn’t been on a gaycation seemed opposed to the idea.  My gay partner-in-crime, Glenn, with whom I’ve shared countless exploits, shares his personal reasons: “I have always felt that my sexuality does not define who I am. I’ve never been incredibly comfortable in entirely gay settings i.e. Pride…(and) I never grew up in an entirely gay-friendly/accepting environment, so I actually am more comfortable in settings where sexuality is not the main focus. My most favourite vacations have been with close friends, regardless of their sexuality. In my case, I would find gay vacations restrictive.”

Peter, a former coworker supports Glenn’s stance on gaycations.  Here, he describes is vacation planning process:

“We don’t plan a vacation in ‘gay’ mode, we plan a vacation like any other couple would plan a vacation.  We are completely against going on a gay cruise or gay beach. Doesn’t that go against everything ‘we’ as part of the gay community have tried so long to pull away from?  Why do we have to conform to a stereotype that has never really existed…Machael and I plan for vacations, places in the world that we would like to see and enjoy as human beings, not as gay men…It’s absolutely disgusting in my opinion and many gay men that we associate with feel the same way.”

In the end, on whichever side of the fence you happen to fall, it seems to boil down to one all-encompassing factor: choice.  As Vince so eloquently puts it, “it’s all about choice.  It’s there for those who want it.”  And much like the LGBTQ community at large, gaycations can either be viewed as the harbinger of all those nasty stereotypes we have fought to quash or just a fun getaway. I texted my talented colleague and great friend Antonio for his thoughts last week to which he replied, “well, have we asked ourselves what makes a vacation too straight?”  Touché.  However the next time I plan a getaway, if it sounds like fun I’m going to go…gay or not!

If I have the chance to really reflect on my young 20-something life, I can clearly distinguish a before and after. Before, I lived a lot in shadows. Secrets. Hiding. Pretending. Acting. Trying to be someone other than myself for fear that my family, especially my father, would come to know the real Aldwin and despise me for it. Ever since my memory has served me I knew I was gay. Yes, you’ve heard about the doodles in my colouring book of the hairy-torsoed men but even deeper than that, at five, I had this amazing self-awareness about my sexuality that many people don’t discover (or accept) until much later in their lives. I just knew. Like breathing. But growing up knowing this truth proved to be the biggest burden I’ve ever carried. From the moment my ultra-conservative Filipino father saw his first-born son prance about their tiny living room apartment singing and dancing to Whitney Houston he did what any person with his staunch, Catholic upbringing would do. He freaked out.

“Don’t dance like that! Are you a girl or what? Don’t walk around with your wrists hanging like that!!!”

I hung my head low as he lashed out at me, his vicious words like needle pricks piercing my skin, the shame coursing through my veins like a warm venom. I remember comforting myself in the aftermath of it all, telling myself it was okay. I’d just have to dance and sing while Dad was at work and I’d show him I wasn’t a girl by walking around with clenched fists. I spent the next eight years of my life doing that. Eight years trying to mask any even remotely feminine tendency. Eight years dancing in my room behind closed doors. Eight years trying to please him. Eight years of darkness.

That was before.

Fast-forward. I was thirteen. It was Christmastime. We drove up to New York where, as part of our family tradition, we spent Christmas at my aunt’s house. I couldn’t wait to see my cousins Jenny and Jinkee. Having grown up with them and essentially being raised in part by them, they were my beacons of light in a pitch black storm. We’d laugh into the early hours of the morning every time we were together. I had missed them so much since moving to Toronto. It was finally my opportunity to drop the façade, be who I really was, unclench my fists.
But this Christmas was different.

I can’t pinpoint what it was exactly, whether it was the raging hormones, teenage angst, or pent up frustration, but I was acting out, spitting back at my favourite cousins just like my father did every time he caught me failing to live up to his standard of masculinity.

It all came to a head the day before Christmas Eve. Having had it with my insolence, Jenny was giving me the cold shoulder. Feeling awful about my immaturity, I came to her side as she was making the bed.

“Hey.” I mumbled.

“I’m busy. Get out of here!” she barked. I started crying. It was one of those moments that you don’t fully understand at the time. There I was, crying, weeping, and not knowing why. Looking back, it became pretty obvious. All the sadness and anger and helplessness was pouring out, finally, after years of holding it in. Jinkee walked in from across the hall.

“…What’s wrong Aldwin? Just tell us.”

They lead me onto their carpet and we sat cross-legged, me avoiding their searching eyes as I stared into my lap.
There is that instant where hanging over the precipice you look over and see your greatest fears facing you. And for some reason, feeling just that little bit more courageous, you are ready. You’re ready to jump. I prepared the words in my soul and I leapt. I was free-falling. I started to sputter the words out.

“I’m…I’m…you know. I’m gay.”

And that, was after.

My revelation didn’t surprise Jinkee and Jenny. They had always known that I was gay but they were just waiting for me to fill them in on it. And that’s the thing about coming out. Coming out is about you. It’s not about anyone else. It’s not about meeting other people’s expectations or searching for other people’s approval or ruining other people’s lives. In the end, it is uniquely about being honest with yourself. Because coming from a place of truth, in spite of the obvious obstacles and eventual turmoil and anguish, is, in my estimation the only way to live. To really live.

I am an openly gay 20-something man. I’m successful, happy, and I’m looking forward to what new adventures the future has in store for me. My coming out has a lot to do with that. The after part of my life has been filled with so many wonderful experiences, people, and memories that I can’t begin to imagine how different my life would have been had I remained untrue to myself. Life is far too short to be spent in someone else’s shoes. And although impossibly daunting at first, coming out proved to be one of the most cathartic experiences I have ever had.

It’s been nearly twenty five years now since I’ve come out and I don’t really think about the whole thing at all anymore. That’s what coming out did for me. It made this big, dark, weird, awful, taboo thing, feel so normal and so right. And that, my friends, is the way it should be.

LGBTQ columnist, Aldwin Era shares his experiences in the transgendered community.

Her name was Cookie. I sat nervously in her salon chair as my mother patiently read from under a hair dryer in the corner. “Don’t move cutie, okay?” she chimed affectionately as she flipped the hair clippers on with her hot pink acrylic nails. I stared in quiet terror at my reflection in the vanity mirror. Cookie had a man’s body, that much was obvious. She had strapping thighs, well-toned biceps, and a grossly protruding bulge that was clearly suffocating from beneath the tie-dyed leggings she was sporting. But from what I could see in the mirror (because I refused to look her in the face) Cookie was also definitely a lady. I mean, I had watched the “Conga” video enough times to figure out that Cookie, with her puff of curly red hair and bright orange lipstick had a little obsession with Ms. Gloria Estefan. Already well aware of my own sexual orientation, a slew of thoughts raced through my five year-old gay mind: “Does this mean I’m going to grow boobs?” “Will I have to change my name?” “I don’t like leggings! They’ll make me look fat!” Imagine, just becoming cognizant of your sexual identity and then having it thrown for a whirl by a tranny doing the samba in between shaving your sideburns. I was freaking out.

“Okay darling, you’re finished huh?” Cookie brushed off the last of the freshly cut hair from off my neck. “Come, Auntie Cookie will take you to Mama.” She took me gently by the hand and we click-clacked our way to where my mother’s perm was “activating.”

“Cookie, thank you huh?” my mother said. Cookie smiled and accepted my mother’s payment graciously. She moved to the adjacent room and spent the rest of the afternoon watching The Price is Right. My mom turned to me and smiled. “She’s a nice lady no?” I looked up at her blankly. Strangely, I could see her eyes welling with tears. I didn’t know how to respond.

“Mmm…I guess so,” I said.

“She is,” my mother’s voice quivered. She sighed and left it at that.

My experience with Cookie represented my first foray into the transgendered world. Although shocking, it desensitized me and initiated the beginning of a lifelong fascination with this deeply marginalized community. Occasionally, on weekend strolls with my mother in New York City during the 80’s, I’d see a figure like Cookie working the pavement. Normally she’d don a pair of fierce pumps, had lip gloss for days, and cruised down the sidewalk with a switch in her hip as if to say, “Girl, you betta watch out!” From afar, I stared in awe, riveted by the power she commanded. In my adolescence, my interest flourished when I became enamoured with the transgendered characters created by cinematic genius Pedro Almódovar. I fell in love with a character named La Agrado in particular in the 1999 film All About my Mother. A transsexual prostitute who reunites with a long lost friend in search of her dead son’s father, she delivers a moving monologue at the film’s end that speaks to themes that resonate with the LGBTQ community: identity and authenticity.

There is just something so appealing about them for me: their confidence in the face of adversity, their refusal to succumb to society’s myopic definition of gender, their evolution from self loathing to self acceptance; in one word, their resilience. I asked one of my good friends Hannah, whom I knew as Glenn years back, how she lives her life as a transgendered person and whether as a successful twenty-something, she still feels alienated not only from society in general but from the LGBTQ community in particular.

First however, a small disclaimer. Since its inception, the term “transgender” has been a difficult term to define because of issues relating to the relative definitions of “gender” and “sex.” Here, it is sufficient to use the Merriam-Webster definition of transgender as an umbrella term “of, relating to, or being a person (as a transsexual or a transvestite) who identifies with or expresses a gender identity that differs from the one which corresponds to the person’s sex at birth.” I also want to caution that the experiences expressed here are predominantly those of male to female transsexuals and transvestites and unfortunately don’t touch upon other sub-groups under the transgender umbrella.

Hannah, a self-identified transsexual female and two-spirited individual (a term of aboriginal origin referring to the possession of both male and female spiritual identities) talks candidly about the integral complications in her life:

“Right now, I’m still transitioning and I’m not full time yet. I’ve just recently started hormone therapy…and let me tell you…it’s really a long process and…it’s pretty expensive. I had to go see a psychologist first to make sure that I was properly evaluated…then after that an endocrinologist can start prescribing hormones. I go to work very androgenous. I have my long luscious hair…but i don’t go to work as Hannah. Right now, I’m [fine] with living part time. After six or seven months of hormone therapy, that’s when I plan to live full time. I’m excited and nervous at the same time.”

Her childhood experiences are reminiscent of many of the experiences shared by the LGBTQ community. There is the overwhelming burden that “feeling different” can strain on a young person and she concedes that as a result she “kept to herself” and was “very quiet.” Not until she found herself in Toronto, studying at Ryerson did she start coming into her own: “I was lucky enough to have met friends…and girls from my program who didn’t care that I was trans…I sometimes wish I had transitioned earlier…but things happen for a reason.”

Speaking frankly, she likens being a transgendered female in today’s society to “being a female during the 1940’s”, serving as a “second class citizens”, but what I find more compelling are her thoughts on being a transgendered female within the gay community. She expounds:

“I know there are those…macho types of gay guys who make or poke fun at transgendered people. I think they see that being feminine is a sign of weakness. Also I think the gay community has this misconception that transsexuals equals trash…but when you think about it, you have to be really brave and strong to transition. You have to deal with so much, like whether or not you can pass and live as a girl [or that] your friends or family might disown you…there are murders against transgirls…poverty and not getting a job…but I stand by this motto that I would rather be hated for who I am than be loved for who I am not.”

The one thing she’s taught me, above anything else, is be who you are because even those whom you assume would be the most accepting (i.e. members of the LGBTQ community) may in fact be your harshest persecutors. It is a sad but very real truth. Discrimination is alive and well within the LGBTQ community. Where the fight originally was an issue of us versus them, it has in many ways degenerated into an issue of us versus us. But here’s the kicker everyone: we’re all fighting the same fight. Lesbian, Gay, Transgender, Femme, Butch, Queer, whatever. We’re all part of the same struggle.

That’s why my mom got teary-eyed that moment in Cookie’s salon. Whether I would grow up to be transgendered or not, she knew her son was going to go through precisely the same hardships that her best friend, whom she knew in high-school as Allan and who now lived her life as Cookie, was going through at that very moment.

I am a self-identified gay man but I have to admit, I’ve gladly dabbled a little bit in the fabulous transgendered universe. Taking cues from people like Cookie, La Agrado, and Hannah I’ve slapped on my share of lipstick and even worked it out down the Vegas strip in a pair of six inch silver pointed-toe pumps (work!). And I’m telling you, I have no doubt that I will want to do it again. But until then, I’m hanging up my heels and I’m going to leave the strutting to my girl Hannah and to the memory of my mom’s girl Cookie.

LGBTQ columnist, Aldwin Era discusses the representation of the LGBTQ community on TV, starting with the show that launched it all…

I remember watching the original British version of Queer as Folk for the first time.  I was about sixteen, had already come out of the closet, but really hadn’t any idea what it meant to be gay.  I knew that I was gay, had always known in fact (I have the doodles of hairy-torsoed men in an old colouring book to prove it).  But I had no clue how real gay people lived.  ‘Where did they work?  What did they do?  How did they meet?’  Like the Lochness Monster or Bigfoot, gay people seemed a dreamed up myth to me — until that fateful Friday night.  I had never been more enthralled by a television show in my life.  I sat on the brown laminate flooring of my tiny bedroom riveted by the gratuitous images whirring before me: the gyrating naked male physiques, the Day-glo and sequined hot-pants, the seizure-inducing strobe lighting, the aloofness of one-night chance encounters with very young strangers…

‘This was it,’ I thought.  ‘This was how real gay people, or at least men, lived.’  I had been exposed, for the first time that I could remember, to a representation of myself on TV.  This was how my gay life was going to look, disco ball, feather boa, and all.

Boy, was I wrong.  I could not have been farther from the truth.  Sure, I’ve had my Church Street outings , seen my fair share of leather chaps and denim cut-offs, but my gay life, in terms of television, turned out to be more reminiscent of The Golden Girls than Queer as Folk.  And that got me thinking, more than ten years later as a gay man in my twenties, and with even greater representation of the LGBTQ community in the media, what does it mean to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, and/or queer in today’s society? Are we seeing true reflections of ourselves or are we playing into the stereotypes that many of us have struggled to eradicate?

One can’t flip a channel these days without coming across at least one LGBTQ person or character on television.  With the historic outing of Ellen DeGeneres on her mid-nineties sitcom Ellen releasing the proverbial flood gates, there are now a plethora of LGBTQs reaching millions of homes internationally.  From the bisexual hijinks of MySpace star Tila Tequila on A Shot at Love to the antics on the transgendered/transsexual reality competition RuPaul’s Drag Race, one can’t argue that our community has no visibility on television.  In fact, it seems very à la mode these days to have an LGBTQ character as part of one’s ensemble cast.  How could the newly re-launched Melrose Place garner more attention than by writing in bisexual character Ella Simms?  Nothing says big ratings these days than an on-screen girl-on-girl kiss.  Are these characters serving as mirrors for the LGBTQ viewing audience? Is that really me as the recently out, mad for musical theater, Kurt Hummel on Fox’s new hit show Glee?  Are those really my lesbian friends swapping saliva on The L Word?  I asked a couple of my 20-something rainbow flag comrades to find out.

Laura, a dear friend and co-worker, posits that although the heightened presence of the LGBTQ community on television is generally a positive thing, the one-dimensional portrayal of its characters is what bothers her.  “You have to have a balance,” she says.  “What I don’t like is that when we are portrayed on television it’s usually as these promiscuous people whose only concerns are going out, doing drugs, and having sex.  We’re more than that.  We’re real people who want to have normal relationships, normal jobs, and want to lead a normal life.”

Vince, my first gay friend and only other openly gay male at my high school echoes Laura’s sentiments.  “In a post Ellen/Will and Grace era, mainstream TV hasn’t progressed much beyond presenting the token gay characters as mostly just stereotypes.  Characters are usually based on generalized truths that have been boiled down to a couple of signature traits, failing to represent the complexity of who ‘we’ are.”

How many times have I personally been told that I reminded someone of Jack on Will & Grace?  Countless.  Not to say that I’m bothered by such a comparison (I am pretty damn funny) but I am mostly disturbed by the conviction with which many of those who have “complimented” me in such a way believe that, Jack, this caricature, is who I really am.  And so the natural line of questioning ensues: “So, have you seen Cher in Las Vegas?” or “How many people are you seeing right now?”  Actually, a) I don’t like Cher and b) no one.  It’s the categorizing that is at issue, the fitting ideas of people into small, easily contained boxes, with clearly marked labels that is detrimental.

In the end, television will what television wants.  It’s a numbers game and as long as networks vie for viewership the sorts of things one will find on the airwaves will be of that over-the-top, shock-value, and up-to-the-minute kind.  Hopefully one day representation will achieve the sort of clarity Vince describes as “a representation of gay people, as individuals, with individual histories, who function both within and [outside] what you call ‘the [gay] community.’”

The truth is, I do see a little bit of myself in characters like Kurt Hummel.  I see the hiding, the secrets, and the wanting to please one’s parents (particularly one’s Dad) and these are all things I’m sure everyone can relate to.  So, until we get to that place where we are a more “integral” than “visible” community, I don’t feel so bad that I’m singing and dancing along with the cast of Glee from the privacy of my own home.