Continental promo
|| Home > Commentary  ||
< Back Comments (0)Post a Comment Bookmark and Share   
 

A revolution properly punctuated

An Advocate copy editor delineates her place in the gay rights movement
An Advocate.com exclusive posted September 13, 2007
A revolution properly punctuated

The Advocate isn’t the only one turning 40 around here. I too was born in 1967, just a couple of months after the magazine’s first cover date, and I hope I don’t seem presumptuous when I say that the old girl was founded just for me, more or less. As I emerged from that first, warmest closet, The Advocate, still a whelp itself, was already agitating for my civil rights—way before I was aware any were lacking. And by the time I came out of that other closet, at the tardy old age of 25—oh, hell yeah, I was so the last one to know—the brick-and-mortar foundations of the gay rights movement had been laid. A pretty sweet deal for me, really.

I think it’s only appropriate that I now work for The Advocate, given that it’s worked for me damn near its entire life. Let your eye travel down the masthead—just a little farther—and you’ll find me there among the copyediting staff. Mine isn’t such a glamorous job, jockeying all those commas into place, ensuring that our subjects’ names are spelled correctly, repeatedly visiting the hateful Web sites of Focus on the Family, Ann Coulter, Fred Phelps, and myriad antigay minions to make sure they actually said that.

It’s unlikely that my own 40th birthday will be marked with the same level of pomp as The Advocate ’s, which is a shame, because I’d love to hear what Nancy Pelosi and Joan Jett have to say about me and what my life has meant to them. I could coattail my own birthday party on the magazine’s 40th anniversary gala, which boasts an impressive RSVP list and is almost certain to be free of hilarious “over the hill” balloons. Having my 40th toasted by Ellen and that strapping hunk of lesbian hotness Jane Lynch would totally make up for the fact that Deepak Chopra wasn’t asked to predict my future.

But I like to think that what The Advocate and I truly share, other than a birth year, is a willingness, even eagerness, to sift through these last four decades to create a record of where we’ve been, who we are, and what we hope to be. With any luck, we can all take a measure of comfort in the idea that the more turbulent elements of our past—successes, failures, half measures, and missteps—have been in the service of creating a legacy, and that’s where this magazine strikes such a resonant chord in me.

Just as I consider The Advocate very much a part of my legacy—advancing my rights even during those first 25 years when, sure, some of my best friends were gay, but I was still steadfastly identifying as oblivious—I’m now part of its legacy.

 Working for The Advocate makes me proud, and that pride very nearly overwhelmed me as I worked on our 40th anniversary issue. It was a quiet sort of overwhelm, mind you—we copy editors tend to be quiet folk—but it spoke loudly of the reasons this is more than just a job to me. The first time I saw my name on the masthead, however far the eye had to travel to find it, I felt a swell of emotion, like I had become part of something so much larger than myself. I mean, listen, I know that in the scope of the movement I’m no Barbara Gittings, but surely I’ve earned a rainbow stripe or two for making certain her name is spelled correctly every time it crosses my desk.

I may be roundly ridiculed for having written this; copy editors are meant to be a cynical lot, not given to all this emotional incontinence and masthead pride. We need a good poker face, because it’s far too easy to fret that we’re noted more often for our failures—the factual errors and typos that slip through, the sentence we tweaked for clarity that, as it turns out, was the author’s very most favorite sentence in the whole article (I’m sorry)—than for any routine competence, and even passion, we may bring to each issue. But I honestly don’t think of my job in terms of the day-to-day tasks that have the capacity to alternately engage and enrage me. Rather, I like to think that in the long view I help to make each article and each issue just a little bit better, and that in doing so I help to further the mission of the magazine and, yeah, even the movement. The truth is, a hundred or so issues into my tenure here, I still look for my name in the masthead from time to time—and only occasionally to ensure that it’s spelled correctly.

When Teresa isn’t moving commas around in The Advocate, she overshares at Neurotranscendence.com.

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

Be the first to comment on this story.

Back to top

Submit a comment for this story:

*Type your comment here (Required, 1000 characters max. HTML formatting and hyperlinks are NOT permitted.):

*Name (Required): 

*Hometown (Required): 

*E-mail address: (Required, but will not be displayed)

Is this comment for publication? 
Yes   No

Daytime phone number: (Required for print publication only and will not be displayed)

Please enter the words you see in the box, in order and separated by a space. Doing so helps prevent automated programs from abusing this service.

  

If you would like to submit a comment for posting, please fill out the form above. 

All comments submitted via this form are subject to posting or publication. (To send a private letter to an Advocate editor or writer, please use the e-mail button at the top of the page, or use snail mail.) If you would like your comment considered for publication in The Advocate magazine, please include your full name, your city of residence, and a phone number where you can be reached during business hours so that we can confirm your identity. Your e-mail address and telephone number are strictly confidential and will not be shared or used for any purpose other than to contact you about your comment.

See the Contact page for sending comments for reasons other than responding to Advocate editorial and news stories.

Please note that comments sent by fax or snail mail are unlikely to be posted, although they will be considered for publication along with all letters received via e-mail or via this Web page. Comments that chiefly concern Advocate.com content will be considered for posting only on the Web site. The Advocate reserves the right to edit submitted comments for grammar, spelling, obscenities, or libel; we will, however, do our best to preserve the original comment's style and intent. Comments considered for publication in The Advocate magazine may also be edited for length.

More Exclusives
  • View From the Hill: The End of DADT?
    Defense Secretary Robert Gates revealed that lawyers are exploring ways to ease enforcement of the military's gay ban, but cautioned that the law doesn't leave much wiggle room. He need look no further than DOD history for a lesson in altering the policy.
  • Hot Sheet: Week of July 5
    When you get back from that big 4th of July barbecue, unwind with Sacha Baron Cohen's Bruno and your favorite B-movie-mocking, basic cable robots.
  • Hungry Like the Wolf
    A master of viola, ukulele, piano, and harp, Patrick Wolf is a music prodigy -- one who, the night before this interview, spit on a cop and got himself arrested.
  • Soapside: Advocate's Guide to Daytime
    Forbes March talks about playing gay, Otalia fans outraged, update on One Life to Live’s Patricia Maurceri’s firing over gay plot point, Phillip Chancellor III big reveal, and Erica Kane goes to Africa.
  • The Faces of Federal Prop. 8
    With the federal challenge to Prop. 8 moving full speed ahead, Advocate.com sits down with the two couples named as plaintiffs in the suit.
  • Mommy, the Gays Are Coming
    After a year of advancements and celebration for gay and lesbian Colombians, the community takes to the streets of Bogota for the country's biggest pride ever.
  • The Pride of Antwerp
    Advocate.com hits the gay-friendly streets of Antwerp with openly gay police commissioner Serge Muyters.
  • Excerpt: Mean Little Deaf Queer
    In an excerpt from her humorous and harrowing new memoir, Mean Little Deaf Queer, Terry Galloway recalls her early childhood, describing feelings of ugliness, confusion about gender, and being one of the boys.
  • Top Political Blogs
    From Joe.My.God to The Daily Beast, Advocate.com spotlights a few of the best blogs that cover politics, inside and way outside the Beltway.
  • The Diva of French Television
    A hot young screenwriter who has made gay OK for millions of French viewers, Nicolas Mercier sips champagne, dons a feathered hat, and says he wants to see Colin Farrell and Jude Law go at it.