I consider myself
both a migrant and a Queer. Like these titles the paths that I have
traveled have shaped my cultural perception as well as the actual
person I have become. At ten months I was adopted and began life in
the suburbs of Wexford near Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, in a good
christian household. Marylee Haas, the very last non liberated woman
after the sixties and also my mother. She held a desire to be middle
class above all else. She was raised poor and she shared a room with
three sisters in Hartford, Connecticut. Her father was a looming
German disciplinarian and her mother an artist who gave up New York
to raise a family. At 21 she married a middle of the road business
forms salesman Weston Hyde, to provide for her and offer the normalcy
she required. Weston had been raised by a father; also in the
Hartford area; who always wore mustard yellow and was a widower. Thus
Wes similarly wanted things just to be. Like the placid yellows of
his father he to was content in the suburbs having a good life as
promised by the American Dream.
Growing up I was a
shy if not fearful boy. I have always been what society calls
feminine. This was inexcusable to my parents and eventually estranged
us, as they became more abusive and christian. After my second
semester at the University of Pittsburgh I quit school and moved to
Trafford Pa. to live with my first boyfriend. Trafford was an old
mill town with woods and trains and very little else. Found just past
the whistle-stop of Willmerding, another steel belt town, the nearest
excitement was a mall. To find adventure we took a summer to live in
Nags Head, North Carolina and make some money waiting tables. Summers
end returned to Trafford and we took up residence in the comfortable
attic of said boyfriends grandmother. Being so near my parents and
in a small town were playing my youthful desires. I wanted to go
where being gay was accepted and celebrated. Pittsburgh could be very
hard in the late eighties for out gay people. I had always felt
that what made me different would be the thing that was my salvation.
After the death of
a close friend in spring 1990, with three hundred fifty dollars, I
set out by train to conquer New York City. I managed never to settle
into a place to stay, or held a day job long. I was instead busy
becoming a star Drag Queen. I worked five to six nights in clubs in
drag and began to really explore my unique voice. I began learning my
gay history through the storytellers in the scene as well as being
part of living history. Yet all that partying turned roommates into
junkies and the schedule was rough to maintain, especially on the
liver.
Living in clubs and
hanging with the likes of Lauren Hutton and Debbie Harry for 8 years
I was suddenly very burned out. I hopped onto a bus to Provinctown
Mass., another gay mecca, to work another summer at the beach and
give the city a break. I spent the summer waiting tables, working in
a gallery, discussing art with artists, and being a handsome tan
twenty seven year old that attended yoga, meditation, thai chi and
even church. I tried to stay in this Ptown through a winter but the
dark at 4pm; due to its very eastern location geographically; and no
job or community in the winter months, sent me packing to San
Francisco.
The last queer
mecca, and still home, is San Francisco. I had found out I was HIV
positive at age twenty two and was beyond surprised that I was not
yet dead. I was actually very healthy but also not a youth. I also
needed some where less expensive to live, which sixteen years ago SF
was. The city is small enough and open enough for me to be different
and succeed. I won the coveted title Miss Trannyshack 2004 two weeks
after going All American as a swimmer. I*ve been Sainted by the
Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence in *09, and in 2010; using both my
boy and drag name Anna Conda; I ran for District 6 Supervisor. I now
sit as Neighborhood Representative on the Entertainment Commission
and serve this year as Vice Chair.
I have migrated
from a small city known in days gone by as the gate way to the west.
It has truly served as my gateway. Although I gained strength and
purpose during my years in New York it has only been since being in
San Francisco that I have truly blossomed and owned my power.
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