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.”"