precious blonde hair and blue eyes and
that beautiful smile in that little pug
nose she actually cut her own bangs for
this picture on july 24 1966 at the age
of six Dana joy drowned off a sandbar in
the White River my mom and dad had taken
us there to swim with some other
children my dad unfortunately went off
to fish and drink and my mom stayed on
the bank with some other adults to
supervise but she didn’t know how to
swim I was only five years old at the
time so I’m just going to relay the
story that I’ve been told as we were
swimming the sandbar shifted and dropped
all of us went under the water a man our
pastor at the time reached into the
muddy water and pulled me up by my hair
he and two other gentlemen were able to
save all the children that day all
except for one Dana Julie I often wonder
how my life would be different today if
I had a big sister after Dana joy
drowned my father became distant he
drank more and loved less his alcoholism
became laced with absenteeism I actually
remember one Christmas morning waiting
for him around the Christmas tree and he
never showed up I’m not sure why he had
so much trouble connecting with us why
he feared loving us after he lost Dana
but I began to understand it a little
bit better about seven years ago I was
reading a book called the gifts of
imperfection by brené Brown dr. Brown
is a research professor at the
University of Houston and her
searches in the areas of shame and
vulnerability courage and worthiness she
writes in this book that what we all
want what we all need as humans is to
feel connected she says that connection
is this energy that exists between all
of us when we believe we’re being seen
and heard and valued she also writes in
the book that shame on the other hand is
this intensely painful feeling that we
are flawed so flawed that we are
unworthy of love and belonging I’m not a
researcher and I don’t know why my
father couldn’t connect with us I
imagine it was the intense weight of the
shame he felt because he wasn’t there
when Dana joy drowned it could have also
been that he was so frightened to open
up his heart space after he lost his
angel that day for whatever reason he
carried this pain and this shame and
this guilt for 33 years until in 1999 he
took his own life beyond that I don’t
remember tons about my childhood to be
honest with you I grew up on a farm in
Southeast Arkansas I had all the
trappings of a good old country boy I
fished I swam in the creek I rode horses
and I pretended to hunt but no matter
how much I tried to fit in I always had
this song on continuous loop in my head
you might know the one from Sesame
Street the one that goes one of these
things is not like the other one of
these things just doesn’t belong well
that was me I’ll fast forward to when I
was 16 in 1977 I discovered drama and
the glorious miss Dianna Denton
miss Denton was a sexy vivacious middle
something drama teacher and director she
had the fire of Miss Ann Margaret and
the softness of Miss Audrey Hepburn
combined with the sassiness of miss
Katharine Hepburn she loved me and I
loved her and I loved drama I love
pretending to be somebody I wasn’t it
was perfect for me when I was a junior
in high school I landed the role of
Francis Pryor that’s Francis with an I
in calamity jane now if you haven’t seen
Calamity Jane it’s a pretty simple plot
line boy meets girl meets drag queen I
was playing Francis with an I pretending
to be Francis with an e calamity sang
this beautiful song in the movie you
might have heard of at door stay sing it
in its titled secret love and that song
had a lot of meaning for me at that time
in my life it goes something like this
once I had a secret love deep within the
heart of me all too soon my secret love
became impatient to be free now I
shouted from the highest hills I even
told the golden daffodils and now my
heart’s an open door and my secret love
no secret anymore but it was a secret a
deep dark secret a well-hidden secret a
secret I locked up because when I was
singing that song at the top of my lungs
in the shower and in the car I was
fantasizing about Kurt the foreign
exchange student from the hinterlands of
Germany and that was a secret sin that I
kept to myself I think the shame was
probably magnified and concentrated by
the fact that I grew up on the buckle of
the Bible Belt can you imagine the
thousands upon thousands of LGBTQ youth
today who feel that same guilt and shame
and fear of rejection just like I did oh
so many years ago we know that LGBTQ
youth who come from environments and
families that are rejecting of them are
eight point four times more likely to
attempt suicide than their peers who
come from accepting families this next
statistic is powerfully sad to me on a
lot of levels four point two percent of
heterosexual youth attempt suicide while
21.5 percent of LGBTQ youth attempt
suicide that’s a staggering statistic it
makes me wonder what would we do
differently how would we act differently
if we knew that by providing and
accepting and loving environment could
significantly reduce the risk of suicide
I know what I would do I know what I
believe and that is that a little grace
can save lives and I know for a fact
because my father took his own life that
shame and disconnection are killers now
this might sound overly dramatic for
those of you who haven’t experienced the
concentrated fear that shame creates let
me tell you shame is a corrosive toxic
emotion it uses the acids distilled from
fear to eat away at your hope and
happiness so what did i do I begin maze
making I built tall walls to create
shadows for my secrets to hide using
bricks made from the thick mud
shame mortar made from an old family
recipe ingredients supplied by my
alcoholic father my codependent mother
and their wounded child but this wasn’t
the only secret I kept I kept lots of
Secrets you see because I was convinced
that people wouldn’t love me if they
knew I was poor or that they would stop
loving me if they knew that my father
was an alcoholic or that I would be
rejected if they knew my mother was so
codependent that she couldn’t ask my
father to leave and she couldn’t leave
her self so what did I do I went about
my business and ignored my sexuality I
met the most amazing woman and fell in
love and we got married which is not a
rare thing by the way there are over two
million mixed orientation marriages in
the United States we had two gorgeous
children her grown now that we love
unconditionally we were married for 30
years and throughout those 30 years
happiness never eluded me once peace
eluded me there’s a difference peace sat
on the thin side of fear desperately
wanting to push through but it never
could not until about three years ago
when I reached a tipping point 2013 and
2014 were filled with punishing days the
time was heavy I was crumbling under its
weight I was leaking life force out of
my body i watch myself step into a deep
dark hole of a place I tried desperately
to get out but fear kept me in there it
was like a gravity pulling me down I
wept and wept and lots of people heard
me most of them ignored me some of them
would walk by and say they’re there Jim
everything’s going to be okay you don’t
worry now everything
is going to be all right let me tell you
when you’re in a pit of despair that is
not what you want to hear then there was
this group of people this tribe of
people who came down into that dark
shadowy place with me and they wrapped
me in their compassion they showed me
love they brought light to me and they
lifted me out into the light this rare
and wondrous group of people gave me the
courage and strength to face fear when
he said things like you cannot come out
you will lose everything you cannot slay
this hurt at the feet of your wife and
children so as I SAT atop that crag with
my feet dangling off trying to figure
out could I let this go could I let go
the shame and fear and guilt when I look
down guess who I saw there it was my
tribe my friends were there to catch me
so in 2014 I let go the edge of the
cliff and I surrendered it all I
surrendered the shame I surrendered the
guilt and I surrendered the fear and let
me tell you surrender is the master map
maker of my journey so after this I felt
light I felt free and I felt strong I
felt strong enough to look fear squarely
in the eye and say listen up bastard I
will not allow you to pimp my life and
my dreams any longer it was October of
2014 it was a dark night Melinda my wife
and I sat in our living room the light
was soft she said tell me what’s going
on what’s happening there was no
frustration and anger in her voice only
caring and compassion and as much as I
wanted to tell her right that second my
heart was beating so fast and so loudly
that I couldn’t figure out when to slip
a word in it was like trying to figure
out when to jump into a double dutch
championship she said just take a deep
breath and breathe oh my god i was about
to break this woman’s heart into and she
was coaching me thru the toughest moment
of my life I took a deep breath and I
said sweetheart what I’m about to tell
you is so heavy with hurt that I want to
lay it on the floor and promise me you
will not pick it up she said I can’t
promise that I don’t know but I knew
that the two little words these two
insignificant syllables that I was about
to speak were like the rats that could
carry the plague into Europe I took a
deep breath and these two words trilled
from my throat I’m gay and in the
milliseconds it took for those words to
reach her ears our worlds were changed
forever we both died a little bit that
night she might have died a lot I don’t
know how I expected her to react but I
thought she would get angry and throw
things and yell at me but she didn’t and
I said thank you thank you for being so
loving and she looked at me and she said
how did you expect me to be and in that
moment I realized that I had completely
underestimated the woman that I loved
the woman that I knew more than anybody
brought with her that day the courage
and strength and compassion that is
really unimaginable to me so what
happened later that year we separated
and divorced then in January of this
year we were all sitting around the
dining room table at my house Melinda my
son his wife my daughter and Melinda’s
parents i SAT around the table looking
at everyone and I caught the eye of my
fiance del Wallace he had this beautiful
back
smile and his lovely face and I thought
to myself this this is what it feels
like to be on the other side of the
storm I was so happy but more
importantly I was filled to overflowing
with peace and I understood that this
journey began by me drawing a circle of
grace around myself and accepting myself
loving myself and knowing that I’m
lovable and I’m enough and each one of
you are enough you’ve always been enough
we are all dealing with something maybe
it’s alcohol maybe it’s drugs maybe it’s
your weight maybe you don’t like your
hair but for whatever reason we Harbor
the shame and we carry these secrets
around brené Brown says secrets cannot
shame cannot survive being having its
story told I’m proof of that so what we
all need to do is draw the circle of
grace around ourselves and stand right
in the middle of it and say I’m enough
I’ve always been enough let it go let it
go and equally important and sometimes
more important is the power that we have
within us to draw that circle of grace
around someone else who is filled with
shame the LGBTQ youth friends that you
know who are struggling with whatever
that is draw the circle of grace and
give that to get them because I am
convinced through my life and through
what I’ve seen that a little grace saves
lives thank you [Applause]