When I was growing up, I knew I was different.
This was before Stonewall.
And honestly being a teenager in the early 70’s, there was very little to be found in books or an occasional newspaper article about the Gay and Lesbian part of society. Maybe you would hear a rumor about someone. Then the derogatory words describing them always followed. I knew the words and they made me cringe.
But Gay didn’t fit me, though I was called that a lot by the kids in my neighborhood. I was the Omega wolf of the pack in my part of town. I knew and wanted to belong to the pack. In the hierarchy of a wolf pack, the Omega wolf eats last, they keep to themselves, and wander off alone while the other wolves do their business during the hunting trips. This behavior shows that they are truly at the bottom of the pack. They are the ones that get the beating when the pack needs to relieve stress.
Often once we come out and identify with the alphabet mafia (LGBTQI+). We think, finally, we have found our tribe, our pack. Hoping for a wolf pack mentally that we will have each other's back through thick and thin. Usually in a relatively short period of time, the TQI’s of the alphabet mafia start to have a deja-vu. That Omega wolf life we lived before, is also here and now. It is very discouraging realizing you are treated as the Omega once again.
“Birds of a feather flock together” is a very popular saying and one used in everyday speech. The phrase refers to similarities within a group of people that allows them to connect and feel safe around one another.
So regardless of the pack you thought you were part of, whether it’s elephants or donkeys, a pack of wolves or a blessing of unicorns, a sleuth of bears, a pride of lions, an ambush of tigers, a weir of dragons or an odyssey of phoenixes: Find your birds of a feather. The ones you resonate with. The ones whose friendship is seamless and easy and accepting.
Quite honestly, my Birds of a Feather is starting to look like we belong on Noah’s Ark.
