I have, by some measure of recklessness or sheer geographic fidgeting, inhabited eight U.S. cities. Birmingham, New Orleans, Fort Lauderdale, even a brief, sun-drenched pause in West Hollywood—a restless itinerary born of work, longing, or my desperate, repeated need to push the reset button. I am now, for the sixth time, back in Birmingham, where the cycle first began, a prodigal son without a parable, merely a habit.
This itinerancy—this compulsive crisscrossing of the American landscape also included countless fundraisers and the Sisyphean work of HIV/AIDS advocacy—has left me with a staggering collection of human contacts. Acquaintances, yes. Friends, certainly. But, most importantly, it has forged a chosen family of a size and tenacity that defies mere listing in a digital Rolodex.
My path, as I’ve chronicled in various unflinching accounts, has traced the dizzying heights of the acme and the devastating depths of the nadir. And through all of it, from the ecstasy to the sheer, unblinking horror, I have walked with these few, this steadfast, close chosen family.
The Birmingham Contingent
To return to this Southern city—to the origin point of my adult consciousness—is to settle, finally, into the loving bosom of men I have known for forty years. Forty years. It is a terrifying testament to human endurance, if nothing else. We are the brotherhood I once wrote of—the crew who traveled, absurdly, to Savannah in a Winnebago to watch the river succumb to a green dye job.
The history is untidy: there was the sleeping together—and the dating that curdled into something better. It was during this early time when I met my first partner, whom I quickly designated "Also John"—my No. 1. I first saw him at Basics, sitting at the bar in these cute orange gym shorts. I soon recognized he was also my cashier at the local supermarket. Within a week, I mustered the courage to ask him on a date. “Wanta go to dinner on Monday?” “Sure!” he replied. I don’t recall where we ate, but he stayed over with me that first night—and never left. Two years later we still lived together. It was both our first try at a loving relationship. But because we lost many of the men just older than us—the couples that might have been role models for us—we used the only examples we had: our parents, straight couples. Unfortunately, both of us had come from very bumpy family origins, so…
But three years after we met, we remained loving friends as he went off to Texas to get his Masters. To this day, "Also John" is the closest thing I have to a brother—and I have a biological brother, mind you. We’ll get to the topic of how biological families have often failed a generation of gay men.
"Also John" remains my stalwart constant.
Many of us who had early encounters took the best of the salvageable material—the friendship—and continued. And in that continuation, we stumbled upon a profound clarity. The confusion—the sexual possibility—was relegated to the past. What remained was a companionship that was more than friendship; it was a commitment, a deliberate act of loving companionship. We cooked, we gathered, we watched the comforting, synthetic glow of The Golden Girls—a strange, surrogate domesticity.
Intimacy Without Fear
Then there is Atlanta, where the 1996 Olympics seemed to inadvertently sow the seeds for another grouping, sixteen strong, constant companions. This was the moment—between the cautious cultural visibility of My So-Called Life and Ellen, and the seismic shift in medical progress—that the world, and we ourselves, dared to believe we could be comfortable again.
We had, by this time, matured. We were comfortable with man-on-man intimacy—and I do not speak of sex, but of brotherly closeness. A gathering for a film meant bodies piled upon a sofa—a casual, tactile acceptance. There was no fear that a head on a shoulder would be mistaken for a preamble. It was simply the evidence of the bond.
It was this very intimacy, this effortless being, that led to the farce we called Gays and Grays Mother’s Day Weekend. Eight of us, realizing we had become the collectively chosen child of a beloved mother (what a grotesque, beautiful trope!), coordinated the arrival of our matriarchs. A cocktail party, a dinner. The wine flowed—the great grease of truth—and the dam broke.
The Education of Mothers
One of the mothers, with a disarming directness, asked the necessary question: “So are you all one another’s ‘play things’?”
The collective eye-roll from the eight of us—the Oh, Mom—was immediate, instinctive. But another mother interrupted: “No. I truly want to know the answer to that question.”
Ever the educator, I took a stab at the defining. “We are all friends. Most of us have a ‘special friend’ in this group, but the rest of us are simply friends.”
A second mother cut through the semantic clutter. “My ‘friends’ and I do not routinely hug and kiss when we greet and when we part.”
A friend countered: “Point taken. But I suppose, in that way, we are merely a large Italian family. We love one another, and we love showing it.”
Then, the final, surgical question: “So none of you have ever slept together—except with your special friend?”
The silence was the kind you could bottle and sell as an existential threat. A shared, shamed look among the sons. Then, a sudden, thunderous laughter. “We are not saying some of us have not slept together over the years, but still…”
“Hmm,” a mother observed. “The man you bring home to me, you call ‘your friend.’ You call all of them ‘your friends.’ Pardon my confusion.”
I jumped in, offering a compromise: “Let us agree to use the designation ‘significant other’—a term we grant men with whom we have lived and who we have managed to endure for more than a year.”
They nodded. They seemed to find relief in the structure. But if the mothers were to define us, it seemed only fair that we should test their accuracy. "Turnabout is fair play," I announced, turning to my own mother. "Given that designation, can you name my ‘significant others?’"
Once we reached eight or ten cries of “Mom, I never dated him!” or “Mom, do you recall me living with him?”—the volume rising with the wine—we all had to agree that communication had failed us all over the years.
Yet, I still break into a cold sweat when I imagine what my mother might have been thinking for the last fifteen years.
The Choice of Lifestyle
Years earlier, my own mother had lamented, “I just can’t reconcile why you chose this lifestyle.” For years, I had diminished her, insisting this was no choice; one does not choose attraction. The argument, a well-worn piece of theater, flared up again during a twelve-hour drive to visit my lesbian sister.
Suddenly, she stopped the performance: “John, you’ve mistaken my meaning. Honey, I know you didn’t choose whether or not to be fey—attracted to men. That is ridiculous. You can’t choose that.”
She leaned into the silence of the car.
“The lifestyle I’m disappointed you chose was one of isolation—living apart from the family. You moved off to the City, spending time with those people we didn’t know—and in questionable places. You turned your back on your family—as if we were no longer good enough.”
She offered an example: “I had an uncle who ‘wasn’t the marrying kind.’ We all knew. He lived near my parents. He played his part in the family—babysitting, helping when someone was sick. Not doing that—not living as part of our family. That was the choice.”
I sat with it—disappointed that the misunderstanding had existed for so long.
“First,” I finally said, “I am sorry. You are right. I misunderstood you.” But then, the defense of a generation. “Mom, your uncle lived a lonely, isolated life. Would you have wished that on me? I had no interest in being cast in a supporting role. I would have been miserable.”
“So many men like me have made the same ‘choice’ I’ve made—because we can. Because our biological families couldn’t, or wouldn't, understand—or love us as we are. So, we sought out happiness—love—with like-minded people, in a community we built for ourselves. In that sense, yes, I chose this lifestyle. But it was the only chance I had to love and be loved.”
Our Clan of Handwavers
This was our mission. This was the fate of a generation, beginning in the mid-twentieth century and accelerated, execrated, by the AIDS pandemic. We were forced to create our own families. We made a large, caring brotherhood, within which we created smaller, essential, loving chosen families.
As we age, the peace of mind is immeasurable. We are there for one another. We know one another more deeply than many of us know our own family of origin. We accept, embrace, support. When I was homeless, I had a home. When I was hungry, I had a meal. When I found success, my chosen family was there, cheering me on. Unconditional. Loving.
The brotherhood is now an international scattering of Facebook feeds—the New York friends, the Philly friends, the New Orleans Boys. The intimacy of proximity is replaced by the necessary infrastructure of social media.
But most vital are the chosen families. The local, daily support system. Our rides or die—the grammar matters less than the conviction.
I think back to those fundraiser dance parties. Our little Atlanta family became known, affectionately, as “The Clan of the Handwavers.” You could spot us, on any crowded floor, amidst the sea of bare chests. We were dancing, only and always with our family, our hands thrown into the air, waving in time to the music—a gesture of pure, unadulterated celebration of our family, the deliberate, necessary family we built for ourselves.
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