When you think about it, it has been one hell of a century, let alone a decade for us. We have seen a flurry of legislation debated upon, voted upon, passed and defeated, as well as a host of programs birthing onto the scene recently, in response primarily to the continued attempts of those who would keep our community silent. Now, I must confess that I am rather young, and don't remember any political activities of the seventies or early eighties. During a recent conversation with a friend, who is sixteen, I reminded him that I was twenty-six years of age, which was met with a deer in the headlights stare that one would apply to meeting something from out of this world. This was surprising until my age was translated into 'gay years", which roughly came out to be in the neighborhood of eighty something, according to this punk, er, I mean, youth. Laugh as you may, or cry as I did, but it does make you wonder where our youth's sense of connection to history is.

We all have our coming out stories; how we fortified our closets, when we came to the truth about ourselves, how we responded, who was the first person we told, how mom and dad reacted, and when we had our first loves. Each story is part of the larger detail of history. We marvel at how these past few years have changed the scope of coming out for the generation of my friend, and wonder at the changing atmosphere, and generation of gay and been several decades after Stonewall, but more happened (good and bad) to further our identity in the world this past decade, and there is no sign of us slowing down anytime soon. This, too, is part of that larger history. We have gone from obscurity to having a rather prominent position in the minds and discussions of the general community. Our "gay ghettos' have become social hot spots, so much so that it wouldn't surprise me to see a safari bus slowly advancing along Santa Monica Blvd., filled with curious non-gay per-sons, in a National Geographicesque attempt to study our community.

Our history does give us cause to be proud, as well as offer hope for our future. Sure, we may struggle and battle in state capitols throughout the country, and we have to unfortunately stop to pray and weep over the murder of one of our own because homophobia still haunts us, but how many of us are galvanized by such historical moments, and look to our future generation, being shaped by the events of today, and find ourselves saying, "It's just a matter of time until we get our promised land"?

I believe that it is just a matter of time before we get where we are destined to be. There may not be much agreement as to what that is, or what it will look like, but this is just the beginning of the move towards claiming our birthright, as persons, and as a community. More history.

I remember when I was in high school (class of '91), there was no concept of institutions like the Gay, Lesbian Student Education Network (GLSEN), or even coming out, for that matter. I did not meet another gay man my age until I got to college. Sound familiar? Nowadays, there is gay youth, identifying as young as junior high, who are wide eyed with hope and awareness of what is going on. They know they are different, and that has a price. They know about our brothers Matthew and Billy Jack, but what else do they lay claim to as their history? How will their coming out stories take shape in this day and age?

We may not have had the opportunities that they have and are developing for themselves, but we can help them live better lives than we had at their age, because we hold our history. Should we be willing to share that history with them, and how we came to know what it means to be gay or lesbian, they will redefine the future in ways that we have only dreamt of. Our history, that legacy we each bestow upon the next generation, is something that we cannot afford to not share. Do we understand what that history is? I think that we do. If you were fortunate enough to have attended the conference, you would have heard Betty Berzon, PhD, MFT tell of her involvement in the activism within the mental health profession, a story that was truly a cup overflowing with fascination at the humble start she participated in.

Yes, there is the standard telling of turn of the century understanding of homosexuality, concentration camps in Europe, Stonewall, the 1973 depathologization by the APA, Barbara Gittings, Bayard Rustin, Henry Gerber, and our literary giants, GRID, HIV, AIDS, 'Don't Ask Don't Tell", Hawaii and Alaska, Kelli Peterson in Utah, and the martyrs we hear about and those we don't. Beyond that there is our personal story, how we weave our lives into this awesome history. We look at the turn of the millennium as our chance to help the next generation take shape, grow, and never lose hope, lest they become dispossessed of that spirit of claiming what is theirs, past and present. That is where our history and hope meet, and take their breath. When you think about it, we have one hell of a story to tell, so let's start telling it.