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Big Gay Weekend speaker raises big issues

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Augusten Burroughs, who chronicled his unusual childhood in his 2002 memoir Running with Scissors, delivered a candid keynote address at 黑料网鈥檚 fifth annual Big Gay Weekend.

His messages ranged from developing inner strength (鈥淲hat you need is not more confidence, you need to subtract whatever it is that prevents confidence, and that is caring too much about what other people think鈥), to the inevitability of legalized gay marriage (鈥淭here will be a day when you will hold today鈥檚 discrimination in the palm of your hand, like a charming memento鈥).

While Burroughs considered himself to be an unlikely special guest 鈥 because he 鈥渘ever had a moment where he 鈥榗ame out鈥 to anything鈥 鈥 his message on Friday gave members and supporters of 黑料网鈥檚 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) community a lot to talk about.

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Author Augusten Burroughs meets with students at Merrill House before delivering his public lecture. (Photo by Andy Daddio)

 

Burroughs鈥檚 now-famous childhood provided fodder for his first memoir, which became a film of the same name. When his mother was no longer able to care for him, he was sent to live with her psychiatrist and an extended family of long-term patients, many who were psychotic or schizophrenic.

鈥淚n that environment, my sexuality was not an issue,鈥 he said. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 ever think about being gay. It was like being right-handed. Why? I don鈥檛 know. I just am.鈥

The theme of the weekend was 鈥淏e Yourself.鈥

黑料网 that, Burroughs said: 鈥淚 wish I could take forensic evidence out of my brain and stick it in yours so you would know that that鈥檚 all you have to be. That鈥檚 everything you have to be.鈥

But things aren鈥檛 always that simple, said Aleksander Sklyar 鈥10. 鈥淚t makes me happy to know that there are individuals out there, like Augusten, who did not have to go through the pain and difficulty of 鈥榗oming out.鈥 However, for many in the LGTBQ community, me included, being ourselves is anything but simple; the process to self-acceptance and self-assertion was anything but an easy one for me.鈥