Billy Porter: I'm finally at home in my own hometown; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/1/15

Billy Porter, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Billy Porter: I'm finally at home in my own hometown:

"Being black, gay and Christian in Pittsburgh during the 1980s made me a target for the kind of oppression that literally kills people and destroys humanity. Government and religion-sanctioned homophobia permeated the culture here.

From the moment I could comprehend thoughts and ideas, the well-intentioned adults closest to me — loved ones, preachers and educators — took turns trying to silence me. Sometimes unconsciously (or so I tell myself). Always aggressively. “Abomination” was the word most used to describe me in the structure of my family and religion. “Faggot” was the term of choice in most other circles.

Then there was the time a family friend threatened me with death if I ever “turned gay.” Or the time I was fag-bashed only a couple doors down from the stage door of the Benedum Center as I headed into Pegasus, a Downtown gay bar.

You see, I represented something that made people feel uncomfortable. My ministry and very presence awakened something in people around me that begged a conversation nobody was ready to have. The only way I knew to save myself was to get out of Pittsburgh until they could. So I did. And I didn’t come home for decades. I put blinders on and simply put one foot in front of the other — staving off, as best I could, all negativity in my path.

It’s fascinating to me that sometimes, when one is in the trenches, focused and fighting for so long, the very fruits of that labor often go unseen because the fight becomes the normal. I am amazed now that Pittsburgh has shown me that we live in a time of a “new normal.”"

Stage preview: Billy Porter comes home as star of 'Kinky Boots'; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/2/15

Sharon Eberson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; Stage preview: Billy Porter comes home as star of 'Kinky Boots' :

"Mr. Porter has spoken openly about the pains of growing up a black gay Christian, who began singing in the Pentecostal church. Acceptance has been hard-fought for most of his 45 years.

“I just cried,” he said of hearing the recent Supreme Court ruling in favor of same-sex marriage.

“I realized, and I’ve been realizing it more and more inside of this conversation, that for many years I drank the Kool-Aid of ‘My love doesn’t matter.’ This evolution that we’re seeing has cracked open inside of me in a way that I didn’t even know could exist,” he said...

Facing an audience full of friends and family with a show that delivers messages of perseverance and acceptance is particularly sweet.

“To be able to be a representative of the idea that hard work and patience pays off is what makes me so thrilled about it. … Where I came from, I’m supposed to be a statistic, and I’m not. And just that representation alone is the reason for me to come,” he said."