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COURTESY OF REX OGLE   Rex Ogle in 1998. #Disowned #Family #Gay #LGBTQ #Rejection #Religion #LALGBTCenter By Rex Ogle Guest Writer We were on the back porch, smoke rolling up from the nearby barbeque grill, the smell of chicken roasting in the air. My father was more silent than usual.  He took a hard swig from his beer bottle. I asked, “You okay?” Out of nowhere, my father says, “If you choose to be gay, then you’re no longer part of this family. You want to live that lifestyle? Then do it somewhere else.” His gaze drifted toward the woods. He didn’t want to look at me. The thought of me, of what I was, sickened him. Shame overwhelmed me. Sweat soaked through my shirt as I held back the bile in my throat. I asked how he knew. My stepsister had outed me.  Stuttering, I tried to explain it wasn’t a choice. But at 18 years old (and caught completely off-guard), I had no defense. Not that it would have mattere...

#Ballet #Dance #Dancers #Gay #LGBTQ #Masculinity #Queerness These men are finding new stages on which to express their queerness, collapsing gender barriers in the world of dance. 1. The Ballerino When I was 15, I met a dancer from Canada’s  Royal Winnipeg Ballet . The company had come to  Los Angeles  to dance in the  Olympic Arts Festival , and my parents volunteered to host a post-performance dinner in our backyard. I recall about 200 people — family friends, Olympic officials and maybe 25 dancers — eating curry (is that right?) off paper plates.  But that’s not what this is about. No, this is about the ballerino — my word for him — I met and what he represented to a lonely gay kid in Southern California in 1984, a kid who had never before met another gay person.  Earlier that evening, I had seen the dancer turn, leap and smile onstage, expressing through the mute language of ballet who he was. Something about his movement told me he was...