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As a student of adversity,

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I've been struck over the years

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by how some people

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with major challenges

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seem to draw strength from them,

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and I've heard the popular wisdom

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that that has to do with finding meaning.

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And for a long time,

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I thought the meaning was out there,

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some great truth waiting to be found.

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But over time, I've come to feel

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that the truth is irrelevant.

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We call it finding meaning,

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but we might better call it forging meaning.

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My last book was about how families

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manage to deal with various kinds of challenging

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or unusual offspring,

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and one of the mothers I interviewed,

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who had two children with
multiple severe disabilities,

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said to me, "People always give us

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these little sayings like,

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'God doesn't give you any
more than you can handle,'

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but children like ours

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are not preordained as a gift.

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They're a gift because that's what we have chosen."

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We make those choices all our lives.

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When I was in second grade,

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Bobby Finkel had a birthday party

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and invited everyone in our class but me.

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My mother assumed there
had been some sort of error,

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and she called Mrs. Finkel,

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who said that Bobby didn't like me

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and didn't want me at his party.

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And that day, my mom took me to the zoo

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and out for a hot fudge sundae.

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When I was in seventh grade,

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one of the kids on my school bus

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nicknamed me "Percy"

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as a shorthand for my demeanor,

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and sometimes, he and his cohort

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would chant that provocation

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the entire school bus ride,

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45 minutes up, 45 minutes back,

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"Percy! Percy! Percy! Percy!"

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When I was in eighth grade,

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our science teacher told us

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that all male homosexuals

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develop fecal incontinence

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because of the trauma to their anal sphincter.

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And I graduated high school

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without ever going to the cafeteria,

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where I would have sat with the girls

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and been laughed at for doing so,

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or sat with the boys

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and been laughed at for being a boy

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who should be sitting with the girls.

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I survived that childhood through a mix

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of avoidance and endurance.

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What I didn't know then,

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and do know now,

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is that avoidance and endurance

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can be the entryway to forging meaning.

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After you've forged meaning,

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you need to incorporate that meaning

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into a new identity.

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You need to take the traumas and make them part

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of who you've come to be,

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and you need to fold the worst events of your life

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into a narrative of triumph,

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evincing a better self

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in response to things that hurt.

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One of the other mothers I interviewed

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when I was working on my book

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had been raped as an adolescent,

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and had a child following that rape,

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which had thrown away her career plans

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and damaged all of her emotional relationships.

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But when I met her, she was 50,

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and I said to her,

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"Do you often think about the man who raped you?"

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And she said, "I used to think about him with anger,

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but now only with pity."

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And I thought she meant pity because he was

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so unevolved as to have done this terrible thing.

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And I said, "Pity?"

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And she said, "Yes,

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because he has a beautiful daughter

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and two beautiful grandchildren

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and he doesn't know that, and I do.

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So as it turns out, I'm the lucky one."

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Some of our struggles are things we're born to:

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00:04:03,583 --> 00:04:09,088
our gender, our sexuality, our race, our disability.

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And some are things that happen to us:

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being a political prisoner, being a rape victim,

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being a Katrina survivor.

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Identity involves entering a community

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to draw strength from that community,

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and to give strength there too.

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It involves substituting "and" for "but" --

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not "I am here but I have cancer,"

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but rather, "I have cancer and I am here."

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When we're ashamed,

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we can't tell our stories,

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and stories are the foundation of identity.

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Forge meaning, build identity,

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forge meaning and build identity.

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That became my mantra.

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Forging meaning is about changing yourself.

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Building identity is about changing the world.

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All of us with stigmatized identities

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face this question daily:

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how much to accommodate society

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by constraining ourselves,

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and how much to break the limits

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of what constitutes a valid life?

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Forging meaning and building identity

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does not make what was wrong right.

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It only makes what was wrong precious.

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In January of this year,

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I went to Myanmar to interview political prisoners,

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and I was surprised to find them less bitter

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than I'd anticipated.

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Most of them had knowingly committed

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the offenses that landed them in prison,

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and they had walked in with their heads held high,

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and they walked out with their heads

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still held high, many years later.

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Dr. Ma Thida, a leading human rights activist

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who had nearly died in prison

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and had spent many years in solitary confinement,

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told me she was grateful to her jailers

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for the time she had had to think,

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for the wisdom she had gained,

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for the chance to hone her meditation skills.

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She had sought meaning

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and made her travail into a crucial identity.

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But if the people I met

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were less bitter than I'd anticipated

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about being in prison,

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they were also less thrilled than I'd expected

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about the reform process going on

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in their country.

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Ma Thida said,

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"We Burmese are noted

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for our tremendous grace under pressure,

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but we also have grievance under glamour,"

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she said, "and the fact that there have been

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these shifts and changes

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doesn't erase the continuing problems

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in our society

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that we learned to see so well

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while we were in prison."

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And I understood her to be saying

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that concessions confer only a little humanity,

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where full humanity is due,

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that crumbs are not the same

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as a place at the table,

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which is to say you can forge meaning

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and build identity and still be mad as hell.

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I've never been raped,

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and I've never been in anything
remotely approaching

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a Burmese prison,

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but as a gay American,

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I've experienced prejudice and even hatred,

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and I've forged meaning and I've built identity,

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which is a move I learned from people

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who had experienced far worse privation

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than I've ever known.

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In my own adolescence,

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I went to extreme lengths to try to be straight.

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I enrolled myself in something called

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sexual surrogacy therapy,

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in which people I was encouraged to call doctors

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prescribed what I was encouraged to call exercises

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with women I was encouraged to call surrogates,

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who were not exactly prostitutes

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but who were also not exactly anything else.

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(Laughter)

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My particular favorite

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was a blonde woman from the Deep South

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who eventually admitted to me

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that she was really a necrophiliac

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and had taken this job after she got in trouble

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down at the morgue.

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(Laughter)

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These experiences eventually allowed me to have

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some happy physical relationships with women,

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for which I'm grateful,

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but I was at war with myself,

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and I dug terrible wounds into my own psyche.

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We don't seek the painful experiences

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that hew our identities,

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but we seek our identities

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in the wake of painful experiences.

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We cannot bear a pointless torment,

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but we can endure great pain

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if we believe that it's purposeful.

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Ease makes less of an impression on us

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than struggle.

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We could have been ourselves without our delights,

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but not without the misfortunes

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that drive our search for meaning.

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"Therefore, I take pleasure in infirmities,"

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St. Paul wrote in Second Corinthians,

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"for when I am weak, then I am strong."

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In 1988, I went to Moscow

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to interview artists of the Soviet underground,

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and I expected their work to be

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dissident and political.

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But the radicalism in their work actually lay

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in reinserting humanity into a society

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that was annihilating humanity itself,

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as, in some senses, Russian society

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is now doing again.

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One of the artists I met said to me,

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"We were in training to be not artists but angels."

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In 1991, I went back to see the artists

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I'd been writing about,

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00:10:02,629 --> 00:10:04,778
and I was with them during the putsch

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that ended the Soviet Union,

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00:10:06,540 --> 00:10:08,829
and they were among the chief organizers

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of the resistance to that putsch.

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And on the third day of the putsch,

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one of them suggested we walk up to Smolenskaya.

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And we went there,

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and we arranged ourselves in
front of one of the barricades,

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and a little while later,

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a column of tanks rolled up,

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and the soldier on the front tank said,

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"We have unconditional orders

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to destroy this barricade.

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If you get out of the way,

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we don't need to hurt you,

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but if you won't move, we'll have no choice

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but to run you down."

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And the artists I was with said,

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"Give us just a minute.

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Give us just a minute to tell you why we're here."

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And the soldier folded his arms,

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and the artist launched into a
Jeffersonian panegyric to democracy

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00:10:53,794 --> 00:10:55,652
such as those of us who live

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00:10:55,652 --> 00:10:57,573
in a Jeffersonian democracy

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00:10:57,573 --> 00:11:00,868
would be hard-pressed to present.

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And they went on and on,

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and the soldier watched,

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00:11:04,627 --> 00:11:06,356
and then he sat there for a full minute

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after they were finished

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00:11:07,860 --> 00:11:10,645
and looked at us so bedraggled in the rain,

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and said, "What you have said is true,

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and we must bow to the will of the people.

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If you'll clear enough space for us to turn around,

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we'll go back the way we came."

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And that's what they did.

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Sometimes, forging meaning

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00:11:27,227 --> 00:11:29,847
can give you the vocabulary you need

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00:11:29,847 --> 00:11:33,105
to fight for your ultimate freedom.

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Russia awakened me to the lemonade notion

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that oppression breeds the power to oppose it,

259
00:11:38,814 --> 00:11:42,240
and I gradually understood that as the cornerstone

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00:11:42,240 --> 00:11:43,774
of identity.

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It took identity to rescue me from sadness.

262
00:11:48,459 --> 00:11:50,575
The gay rights movement posits a world

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in which my aberrances are a victory.

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00:11:53,426 --> 00:11:57,054
Identity politics always works on two fronts:

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to give pride to people who have a given condition

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or characteristic,

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00:12:01,566 --> 00:12:03,242
and to cause the outside world

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00:12:03,242 --> 00:12:06,770
to treat such people more gently and more kindly.

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Those are two totally separate enterprises,

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but progress in each sphere

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reverberates in the other.

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Identity politics can be narcissistic.

273
00:12:18,221 --> 00:12:21,549
People extol a difference only because it's theirs.

274
00:12:21,549 --> 00:12:23,948
People narrow the world and function

275
00:12:23,948 --> 00:12:26,999
in discrete groups without empathy for one another.

276
00:12:26,999 --> 00:12:29,484
But properly understood

277
00:12:29,484 --> 00:12:31,405
and wisely practiced,

278
00:12:31,405 --> 00:12:33,396
identity politics should expand

279
00:12:33,396 --> 00:12:35,923
our idea of what it is to be human.

280
00:12:35,923 --> 00:12:37,641
Identity itself

281
00:12:37,641 --> 00:12:40,190
should be not a smug label

282
00:12:40,190 --> 00:12:42,274
or a gold medal

283
00:12:42,274 --> 00:12:44,747
but a revolution.

284
00:12:44,747 --> 00:12:48,313
I would have had an easier life if I were straight,

285
00:12:48,313 --> 00:12:50,110
but I would not be me,

286
00:12:50,110 --> 00:12:52,775
and I now like being myself better

287
00:12:52,775 --> 00:12:54,828
than the idea of being someone else,

288
00:12:54,828 --> 00:12:56,476
someone who, to be honest,

289
00:12:56,476 --> 00:12:58,560
I have neither the option of being

290
00:12:58,560 --> 00:13:01,037
nor the ability fully to imagine.

291
00:13:01,037 --> 00:13:03,189
But if you banish the dragons,

292
00:13:03,189 --> 00:13:05,754
you banish the heroes,

293
00:13:05,754 --> 00:13:07,295
and we become attached

294
00:13:07,295 --> 00:13:10,423
to the heroic strain in our own lives.

295
00:13:10,423 --> 00:13:11,704
I've sometimes wondered

296
00:13:11,704 --> 00:13:14,486
whether I could have ceased
to hate that part of myself

297
00:13:14,486 --> 00:13:17,067
without gay pride's technicolor fiesta,

298
00:13:17,067 --> 00:13:21,568
of which this speech is one manifestation.

299
00:13:21,568 --> 00:13:24,465
I used to think I would know myself to be mature

300
00:13:24,465 --> 00:13:27,319
when I could simply be gay without emphasis,

301
00:13:27,319 --> 00:13:31,228
but the self-loathing of that period left a void,

302
00:13:31,228 --> 00:13:34,963
and celebration needs to fill and overflow it,

303
00:13:34,963 --> 00:13:38,657
and even if I repay my private debt of melancholy,

304
00:13:38,657 --> 00:13:41,413
there's still an outer world of homophobia

305
00:13:41,413 --> 00:13:44,302
that it will take decades to address.

306
00:13:44,302 --> 00:13:47,617
Someday, being gay will be a simple fact,

307
00:13:47,617 --> 00:13:50,466
free of party hats and blame,

308
00:13:50,466 --> 00:13:51,984
but not yet.

309
00:13:51,984 --> 00:13:54,733
A friend of mine who thought gay pride

310
00:13:54,733 --> 00:13:56,647
was getting very carried away with itself,

311
00:13:56,647 --> 00:13:58,211
once suggested that we organize

312
00:13:58,211 --> 00:14:00,233
Gay Humility Week.

313
00:14:00,233 --> 00:14:04,700
(Laughter) (Applause)

314
00:14:06,643 --> 00:14:08,838
It's a great idea,

315
00:14:08,838 --> 00:14:11,267
but its time has not yet come.

316
00:14:11,267 --> 00:14:13,252
(Laughter)

317
00:14:13,252 --> 00:14:15,451
And neutrality, which seems to lie

318
00:14:15,451 --> 00:14:18,205
halfway between despair and celebration,

319
00:14:18,205 --> 00:14:21,391
is actually the endgame.

320
00:14:21,391 --> 00:14:23,911
In 29 states in the U.S.,

321
00:14:23,911 --> 00:14:27,173
I could legally be fired or denied housing

322
00:14:27,173 --> 00:14:29,339
for being gay.

323
00:14:29,339 --> 00:14:31,960
In Russia, the anti-propaganda law

324
00:14:31,960 --> 00:14:34,937
has led to people being beaten in the streets.

325
00:14:34,937 --> 00:14:36,993
Twenty-seven African countries

326
00:14:36,993 --> 00:14:39,891
have passed laws against sodomy,

327
00:14:39,891 --> 00:14:42,130
and in Nigeria, gay people can legally

328
00:14:42,130 --> 00:14:43,588
be stoned to death,

329
00:14:43,588 --> 00:14:46,278
and lynchings have become common.

330
00:14:46,278 --> 00:14:49,368
In Saudi Arabia recently, two men

331
00:14:49,368 --> 00:14:51,273
who had been caught in carnal acts,

332
00:14:51,273 --> 00:14:55,940
were sentenced to 7,000 lashes each,

333
00:14:55,940 --> 00:14:59,339
and are now permanently disabled as a result.

334
00:14:59,339 --> 00:15:01,210
So who can forge meaning

335
00:15:01,210 --> 00:15:03,990
and build identity?

336
00:15:03,990 --> 00:15:07,317
Gay rights are not primarily marriage rights,

337
00:15:07,317 --> 00:15:10,253
and for the millions who live in unaccepting places

338
00:15:10,253 --> 00:15:12,430
with no resources,

339
00:15:12,430 --> 00:15:14,910
dignity remains elusive.

340
00:15:14,910 --> 00:15:17,922
I am lucky to have forged meaning

341
00:15:17,922 --> 00:15:19,988
and built identity,

342
00:15:19,988 --> 00:15:22,285
but that's still a rare privilege,

343
00:15:22,285 --> 00:15:25,114
and gay people deserve more collectively

344
00:15:25,114 --> 00:15:28,550
than the crumbs of justice.

345
00:15:28,550 --> 00:15:31,601
And yet, every step forward

346
00:15:31,601 --> 00:15:33,667
is so sweet.

347
00:15:33,667 --> 00:15:37,321
In 2007, six years after we met,

348
00:15:37,321 --> 00:15:39,378
my partner and I decided

349
00:15:39,378 --> 00:15:41,112
to get married.

350
00:15:41,112 --> 00:15:43,294
Meeting John had been the discovery

351
00:15:43,294 --> 00:15:45,150
of great happiness

352
00:15:45,150 --> 00:15:48,250
and also the elimination of great unhappiness,

353
00:15:48,250 --> 00:15:50,864
and sometimes, I was so occupied

354
00:15:50,864 --> 00:15:53,365
with the disappearance of all that pain

355
00:15:53,365 --> 00:15:55,717
that I forgot about the joy,

356
00:15:55,717 --> 00:15:59,464
which was at first the less
remarkable part of it to me.

357
00:15:59,464 --> 00:16:02,165
Marrying was a way to declare our love

358
00:16:02,165 --> 00:16:06,151
as more a presence than an absence.

359
00:16:06,151 --> 00:16:08,603
Marriage soon led us to children,

360
00:16:08,603 --> 00:16:10,210
and that meant new meanings

361
00:16:10,210 --> 00:16:14,462
and new identities, ours and theirs.

362
00:16:14,462 --> 00:16:17,389
I want my children to be happy,

363
00:16:17,389 --> 00:16:21,170
and I love them most achingly when they are sad.

364
00:16:21,170 --> 00:16:23,850
As a gay father, I can teach them

365
00:16:23,850 --> 00:16:26,527
to own what is wrong in their lives,

366
00:16:26,527 --> 00:16:28,320
but I believe that if I succeed

367
00:16:28,320 --> 00:16:30,640
in sheltering them from adversity,

368
00:16:30,640 --> 00:16:33,530
I will have failed as a parent.

369
00:16:33,530 --> 00:16:36,598
A Buddhist scholar I know once explained to me

370
00:16:36,598 --> 00:16:38,567
that Westerners mistakenly think

371
00:16:38,567 --> 00:16:40,922
that nirvana is what arrives

372
00:16:40,922 --> 00:16:43,665
when all your woe is behind you

373
00:16:43,665 --> 00:16:46,904
and you have only bliss to look forward to.

374
00:16:46,904 --> 00:16:49,069
But he said that would not be nirvana,

375
00:16:49,069 --> 00:16:50,579
because your bliss in the present

376
00:16:50,579 --> 00:16:54,578
would always be shadowed by the joy from the past.

377
00:16:54,578 --> 00:16:57,408
Nirvana, he said, is what you arrive at

378
00:16:57,408 --> 00:16:59,790
when you have only bliss to look forward to

379
00:16:59,790 --> 00:17:02,273
and find in what looked like sorrows

380
00:17:02,273 --> 00:17:05,126
the seedlings of your joy.

381
00:17:05,126 --> 00:17:06,837
And I sometimes wonder

382
00:17:06,837 --> 00:17:09,230
whether I could have found such fulfillment

383
00:17:09,230 --> 00:17:10,692
in marriage and children

384
00:17:10,692 --> 00:17:12,745
if they'd come more readily,

385
00:17:12,745 --> 00:17:16,770
if I'd been straight in my youth or were young now,

386
00:17:16,770 --> 00:17:20,192
in either of which cases this might be easier.

387
00:17:20,192 --> 00:17:21,771
Perhaps I could.

388
00:17:21,771 --> 00:17:24,108
Perhaps all the complex imagining I've done

389
00:17:24,108 --> 00:17:26,241
could have been applied to other topics.

390
00:17:26,241 --> 00:17:27,881
But if seeking meaning

391
00:17:27,881 --> 00:17:29,738
matters more than finding meaning,

392
00:17:29,738 --> 00:17:33,101
the question is not whether I'd be happier

393
00:17:33,101 --> 00:17:34,647
for having been bullied,

394
00:17:34,647 --> 00:17:36,319
but whether assigning meaning

395
00:17:36,319 --> 00:17:38,054
to those experiences

396
00:17:38,054 --> 00:17:40,470
has made me a better father.

397
00:17:40,470 --> 00:17:44,478
I tend to find the ecstasy hidden in ordinary joys,

398
00:17:44,478 --> 00:17:46,437
because I did not expect those joys

399
00:17:46,437 --> 00:17:48,965
to be ordinary to me.

400
00:17:48,965 --> 00:17:50,782
I know many heterosexuals who have

401
00:17:50,782 --> 00:17:53,048
equally happy marriages and families,

402
00:17:53,048 --> 00:17:55,909
but gay marriage is so breathtakingly fresh,

403
00:17:55,909 --> 00:17:59,213
and gay families so exhilaratingly new,

404
00:17:59,213 --> 00:18:03,472
and I found meaning in that surprise.

405
00:18:03,472 --> 00:18:06,910
In October, it was my 50th birthday,

406
00:18:06,910 --> 00:18:10,128
and my family organized a party for me,

407
00:18:10,128 --> 00:18:11,617
and in the middle of it,

408
00:18:11,617 --> 00:18:13,034
my son said to my husband

409
00:18:13,034 --> 00:18:14,700
that he wanted to make a speech,

410
00:18:14,700 --> 00:18:15,694
and John said,

411
00:18:15,694 --> 00:18:20,316
"George, you can't make a speech. You're four."

412
00:18:20,316 --> 00:18:21,830
(Laughter)

413
00:18:21,830 --> 00:18:24,166
"Only Grandpa and Uncle David and I

414
00:18:24,166 --> 00:18:26,215
are going to make speeches tonight."

415
00:18:26,215 --> 00:18:29,120
But George insisted and insisted,

416
00:18:29,120 --> 00:18:32,123
and finally, John took him up to the microphone,

417
00:18:32,123 --> 00:18:35,179
and George said very loudly,

418
00:18:35,179 --> 00:18:37,623
"Ladies and gentlemen,

419
00:18:37,623 --> 00:18:40,205
may I have your attention please."

420
00:18:40,205 --> 00:18:42,920
And everyone turned around, startled.

421
00:18:42,920 --> 00:18:45,027
And George said,

422
00:18:45,027 --> 00:18:47,358
"I'm glad it's Daddy's birthday.

423
00:18:47,358 --> 00:18:50,799
I'm glad we all get cake.

424
00:18:50,799 --> 00:18:53,957
And daddy, if you were little,

425
00:18:53,957 --> 00:18:57,224
I'd be your friend."

426
00:18:57,770 --> 00:19:00,601
And I thought — Thank you.

427
00:19:00,601 --> 00:19:02,900
I thought that I was indebted

428
00:19:02,900 --> 00:19:04,695
even to Bobby Finkel,

429
00:19:04,695 --> 00:19:07,432
because all those earlier experiences

430
00:19:07,432 --> 00:19:09,800
were what had propelled me to this moment,

431
00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:12,332
and I was finally unconditionally grateful

432
00:19:12,332 --> 00:19:16,107
for a life I'd once have done anything to change.

433
00:19:16,107 --> 00:19:18,152
The gay activist Harvey Milk

434
00:19:18,152 --> 00:19:20,680
was once asked by a younger gay man

435
00:19:20,680 --> 00:19:22,896
what he could do to help the movement,

436
00:19:22,896 --> 00:19:24,307
and Harvey Milk said,

437
00:19:24,307 --> 00:19:26,721
"Go out and tell someone."

438
00:19:26,721 --> 00:19:29,345
There's always somebody who wants to confiscate

439
00:19:29,345 --> 00:19:30,950
our humanity,

440
00:19:30,950 --> 00:19:33,738
and there are always stories that restore it.

441
00:19:33,738 --> 00:19:35,316
If we live out loud,

442
00:19:35,316 --> 00:19:36,982
we can trounce the hatred

443
00:19:36,982 --> 00:19:40,396
and expand everyone's lives.

444
00:19:40,396 --> 00:19:44,020
Forge meaning. Build identity.

445
00:19:44,020 --> 00:19:46,093
Forge meaning.

446
00:19:46,093 --> 00:19:48,840
Build identity.

447
00:19:48,840 --> 00:19:50,638
And then invite the world

448
00:19:50,638 --> 00:19:52,334
to share your joy.

449
00:19:52,334 --> 00:19:55,580
Thank you.

450
00:19:55,580 --> 00:19:57,006
(Applause)

451
00:19:57,006 --> 00:20:00,083
Thank you. (Applause)

452
00:20:00,083 --> 00:20:04,182
Thank you. (Applause)

453
00:20:04,182 --> 00:20:08,182
Thank you. (Applause)