LGBT in El Paso: "As a community, we’re coming out of our closet"

If there has been one by-product of the Chico’s controversy for openly gay UTEP student Jeremiah Almanza, it’s dialogue. “I think that the best thing it did was that it caused a lot of discussion,” he said.

That discussion has been seen in the reader responses to the stories on NPT, some exhausted by the level of coverage (Jim, July 9, 2009, on the article Chico’s Needs a Change: “Could Newspaper Tree possibly cover this story any more? I mean, I don't think three articles is enough... Jesus....”), most supporting the LGBT community (jose, July 16, 2009, on I’m not homophobic, but ... :“If we are truly tolerant we cannot choose only those issues we are comfortable with.”), and a few who were skeptical (Ken, July 22, 2009, on Diaz de Leon responds to 911 tapes; says Chico's 5 will come out soon: “Much to do about nothing! These guys will do anything for a little attention. A lot of valuable time wasted on this nonsense.”).

The incident in El Paso was one of two -- the other was a furor that erupted in Salt Lake City over a kiss -- to precipitate The Great Nationwide Kiss-In, a Facebook-based event Aug. 15 in which couples are to kiss in public places “to make a strong statement to everyone everywhere: kissing is not a bad thing, nor has it ever been.”

The Chico's Kiss, in which a man said he and his friends were kicked out of Chico's because two men in their party kissed affectionately on the lips, erupted into a community debate over public displays of affection and gay rights. Exacerbating the situation was the police response; the officer who first responded to the scene at Chico's said that the men were breaking state laws that had been declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003. A police spokesman then said that the men could have been charged with criminal trespass and that the business owners have the right to refuse service to anyone, although the city has an ordinance passed in 2003 that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Police Chief Greg Allen eventually issued a memo refuting the statement and affirming the department's commitment not to discriminate.

In the course of the debate, the El Paso City Council adopted a policy to allow certain benefits to domestic partners, defined by meeting three of six criteria. That decision, which made El Paso the third Texas city to offer such benefits, led to an attack by a group of Christian activists on Tuesday. More than 20 people signed up to speak, offering variations of the ideas that the city policy was out of step with the community and an immoral affirmation of homosexuals. One person spoke against the attack, which was organized quietly amongst the activists, and others have since weighed in on chat rooms, Facebook and in Readers Responses on NPT.

All told, the incidents raised the same question raised by the Christian activists speaking at the City Council meeting -- was being gay or tolerant and accepting of gays as having equal rights (for example, to show affection in public or to receive benefits offered to married heterosexuals) out of step with the community? And what changes, if any, had those who were the subject of the debate noticed in the community over the last several years?

While local LGBT activists say there has been progress within the last decade, the incidents signified what to them is an opportunity for advancement. Cesar Campa, a board member and co-founder of Puentes LGBT Resources, said that he was surprised to see some blog posts in news articles that were directed against the LGBT community. “To see that opposition is very alarming. It just goes to show the amount of work that still needed to be done in this community,” he said.

In areas of acceptance and tolerance, local resources, the ease of the coming-out process, and the professional consequences of being out, several LGBTs articulated what seems to be a local consensus: “There’s still a long way to go, but we’ve come a long way in the past decade.”

Some members of the community point to the increased comfort they have showing affection in public or finding support groups for LGBTs over the last decade, despite the noted “machismo” that they encounter in El Paso. Some noted an increased level of activism, but also said that it includes reactionary activism rather than continued support.

Also, there’s the issue of marriage and El Paso's physical location at the edge, but still part, of Texas. Karina Modesto pointed out the narrow likelihood of gay marriage passing in Texas, which in 2003 as a result of the Supreme Court ruling against the state's anti-sodomy law passed a constitutional amendment declaring marriage as only being valid between a man and a woman.

“It puts more of a burden on the gay community. Gay marriage has to pass through the whole state, if ever,” Modesto said. “A lot of the gay community is going to have to leave if they find a partner in order to fulfill their life together.”

Several organizations have been working in the past few years for LGBT causes. Sam Aguilera, Executive Director of Puentes LGBT Resources, has been performing outreach, diversity training, and other services to fill what he considered a void in El Paso for LGBT victim services since his move to El Paso from San Antonio in 2006.

“As a community, we’re coming out of our closet; we’re becoming more visible and more vocal about the community’s needs,” said Aguilera. He mentioned Texas’s LGBT communities -– Austin’s 4th Street, Houston’s Montrose, San Antonio’s Main Street, Dallas’ Cedar Springs –- and the strong economic infrastructure they have. He says that more community involvement will be the first steps in creating a “queer micro economy.”

“We need to not take the streets and start all kinds of trouble, but the way to do this is by meeting with City Council like we did after [the] Chico’s tacos [incident],” Aguilera said.

El Paso does have a bar district Downtown, but not a "neighborhood" where a majority or even a large group of people live an openly gay life. And there are some in the gay community who do not believe that they should be open about who they are -- some people, most often among generational lines, have expressed the thought that being discreet is preferable.

Still, Campa, who grew up in El Paso and left to attend Trinity University in San Antonio 15 years ago, said that the community has come “leaps and bounds” from what it was, mentioning the emergence of LGBT organizations around town and at UTEP, including the gay fraternity Delta Lambda Phi.

“To see that is very important. It helps us combat brain drain,” said Campa. “A lot of people up and left because we weren’t going to be able to really truly be ourselves in El Paso.”

The reserve could be attributed to El Paso’s demographics, or what Isac Esquibel, a UTEP graduate who was part of the Queer Student Alliance, describes as the sexual cartography of the Hispanic culture with a male-dominated family structure.

“I would describe [El Paso] as conservative; not in traditional sense, but people don’t like change. They like to stay in their comfort zone,” he said.

UTEP student Almanza describes his hometown as having a “live and let live” mentality about LGBTs, but says that he had to adjust his path to becoming a pastor when he did an online search on religion and homosexuality. He felt comfortable at the Metropolitan Community Church of El Paso, which he said is accepting of gays and lesbians, and is studying to be a pastor there.

Despite living in what he describes as a conservative city, Esquibel says that he was able to utilize LGBT resources, an advantage that those who came out recently might have had over El Paso LGBTs in previous decades.

“I do have a lot of friends who are a little bit older than I am, and something that I keep hearing is that when they came out, there weren’t any resources for them, no ‘community’ to find support,” Esquibel said.

The generational gap isn’t just evident in the coming-out process. El Paso Sun City Pride Chair Dave Castillo has witnessed taboos among professionals who were still in the closet after their education, versus those who started their professional careers already out.

“We don’t have any mentors in the professional industry of how to go about this,” he said. “People in the professional position, also in their culture, have a difficult time coming out. Having those 8 years, I think the work place is not going to be anything shocking for [younger generations].”

Castillo added that local business people who donate to El Paso Sun City Pride do so generously but, at times, anonymously. Still, he said that the last five years have brought a lot of progress, such as the Pride Day celebration that was extended to a four-day event.

“We’ve been keeping up with the Joneses, so to speak, with larger cities,” he said.

Despite the diversity within the community, represented by different genders, gender identities, orientations, ages, ethnicities, and the time in life that they came out, some LGBTs maintain that unity is key to progress. For Campa, that includes ties with members of the outside community, which, despite the negativity he witnessed, he noticed growing after the Chico’s incident galvanized discussion.

“When you saw family members standing outside the street with signs, that was a testament to El Paso that we have strong families that really do support their LGBT daughters and sons.”