There Is Still Work To Do
Reflecting On The 10th Anniversary Of Obergefell v. Hodges
This is Sitting Queerly, a newsletter about the late blooming queer experience and the lofty goal of opening up conversations and celebrating those who embrace their full selves.
On June 26, 2015, mine and my wife’s second wedding anniversary was only weeks away.
Our first child had just turned 8 months old.
We had just moved into a new house that spring.
I was still working at the declining local daily newspaper, my wife was surviving what would be a very temporary stint working in a school district communications office that was managed via passive aggression and bitterness.
And, that morning, it was in that house, likely sleep deprived, getting ourselves ready for jobs that we hated, preparing to take our daughter to the caregiver we had found via one of my co-workers, that we had the TV on with cameras live in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
I know I was elated, celebrated with my wife the moment it was clear that the Court had ruled 5-4 in favor of James “Jim” Obergefell, had made same-sex marriage legal and a guaranteed right for all in the United States. But I otherwise have no specific memories of that day.
So I looked back at what I wrote in my journal.
Never forget that you once thought differently. You didn’t hold some of the more abhorrent perspectives on homosexuality but you did think less of its practitioners. You thought “maybe not marriage but a civil union.” You thought “maybe they shouldn’t be allowed to adopt.”
You get credit for eventually making a 180, with the resources of friends and family, who showed you they are people, first and foremost, who are as deserving of courteousness and respect as anyone else. They are good people.
But you shouldn’t be too proud of yourself, when you stood up and pumped your first this morning when the court decision blared on the screen. You, after all, had helped instigate past resistance to this happening.
Be mindful of your shortcomings. You still have work to do.
And there’s an arrow drawn from the end of the first paragraph over to the next page, which is blank except for a few lines written in the runic script I had long used to provide an extra layer of privacy. Decrypted, those lines read:
And how much of this stemming from your own internal conflict
A conflict you have yet to resolve fully
The brevity of those two sentences understates the depth of that conflict that had raged inside me.
How I had agonized over the feelings I had, dreams I had, about some boys growing up, young men I went to school with, men I saw out in the world.
The communities I sought to join in an effort to eliminate or maybe control or at least cover up those feelings and dreams.
The voice in my head that said I would always have those feelings and dreams and it was best to get it over with so I could stop having them or at least not have to see the faces of family and friends when they learned of them.
On June 26, 2025, we are in a new house, but only several doors down from where we watched the announcement of the ruling (it’s now occupied by a lesbian couple who have made it far more beautiful than we ever did).
Our oldest is 10 and her sister is 7.
I am working in journalism after eight years away and my wife is working in schools, but we are far from hating our jobs now.
Our 12th wedding anniversary is only weeks away.
I have come out to her, to many friends, to some family. We have opened our marriage. I have found great new friends among other late bloomers and queer folk. I have experienced things that I dared not let myself before, convinced that there would be no turning back if I did so.
And I was right about that; I can’t turn back, nor do I want to.
And there is still work to do, on my part, on the part of all of us.
I also responded in other spaces here on Substack. Our 25 years together-23 year marriage ended this month in an uncontested divorce. Would we have done the Civil Union post 9/11 and then legal marrige in 2017 knowing then what we know now? Probably not. But the world forgets how it was in 2001 when it came to heterosexism and homophobia.
I'm so glad you shared this, Ty! I incorporated a snippet of the memory into our roundup at The Queer Love Project, but I hope people read the full piece here as well.