{"id":955,"date":"2018-07-09T10:18:43","date_gmt":"2018-07-09T14:18:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/?p=955"},"modified":"2018-07-09T10:30:50","modified_gmt":"2018-07-09T14:30:50","slug":"being-the-first","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/being-the-first\/","title":{"rendered":"Being the First"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n<\/a>Remember all those jokes that went around that began “This is what people think I do” followed by either glorified or belittling pictures – or both – and then the punch line, “this is what I really do”? \u00a0Well, that’s kind of what being ‘the first’ is like.<\/p>\n

I was the first open lesbian student at Agnes Scott College in the late 70’s and the first open lesbian student at Columbia Theological Seminary in the early 80’s. A few people thought I was a warrior. Believe me, I wanted to be one. If I could have channeled Xena I would have been one happy woman. But I discovered not all warriors are Xena, some are just emboldened believers who are willing to make the grueling march through enemy territory. And the thing is, as a warrior, you really aren’t at your best when you are alone. It really does help to \u00a0have an army beside you. Being ‘the first’ is lonely. \u00a0But many saw me as a strong warrior like the woman pictured above.<\/p>\n

Then there were the majority who saw me as a destructive force that threatened to shatter institutions and bring down civilization. I am glad to report I did neither of these things. Sometimes I wish I had, but I didn’t. I had no interest in destroying institutions only in changing them and challenging beliefs, privilege, and systems of power. \u00a0I did that every day, sometimes by my mere presence, but with nowhere near the force or power that some assumed I possessed.\u00a0\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What I really<\/em> did was show up every day and try to be my best, most authentic self. \u00a0I didn’t always succeed, but mostly. Being the first means you probably won’t get where you want to go. It means you are plowing the field for someone else to sow and harvest. It means clearing a way so that those who you follow will be able to push even farther into the uncharted territory. Being the first is lonely and sometimes forgotten work.<\/p>\n

That doesn’t mean it is not important work. It has taken me decades to realize that being the first was enough for me and right for the time. It was a challenge I accepted and a grace I assumed. But really, being the first looks much more like this than what others imagined:\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The really cool thing is that now I am telling the story of what it was like to be ‘the first’ from my perspective. My memoir,\u00a0A Gracious Heresy:\u00a0<\/em>the Queer Calling of an Unlikely Prophet,\u00a0<\/i>is coming out soon. Stay tuned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Remember all those jokes that went around that began “This is what people think I do” followed by either glorified or belittling pictures – or both – and then the punch line, “this is what I really do”? \u00a0Well, that’s kind of what being ‘the first’ is like. I was the first open lesbian student … Continue reading Being the First<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,7,24,17,8,21,25,1,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=955"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":967,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/955\/revisions\/967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/connietuttle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}