Gay pride show to raise funds for June street fair

By Guy D’Astolfo

The weekend event will feature testimonials from gay and lesbian residents.

YOUNGSTOWN — A show built around testimonial readings from gay and lesbian residents entitled “When I Knew ... And How It Saved Me” will be featured Friday and Saturday at the Oakland Center for the Arts.

Robert Dennick Joki, a director and actor at the Oakland, 220 W. Boardman St., put the show together.

Youngstown has never been known as a socially progressive city, and that has tended to squelch the gay scene, Joki said.

“One of the many problems with the gay community in Youngstown is that there really isn’t one,” said Joki. “Outside of bars, they don’t congregate.”

Still, when he put the word out that he was seeking the testimonials, the response was strong, he said.

The “When I Knew” show has its roots in Joki’s own attempt to put his life in perspective.

“It started with a blog I wrote six months ago about my own journey,” Joki said. “It got a huge response, from people all over the country. They said I should share it, but I didn’t know how.”

Then Joki heard about planning for the city's first-ever gay pride event. While the first gay rights demonstrations took place in 1970 in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, in the nearly 40 years since the movement began, Youngstown has never had a gay pride event.

Pride Youngstown is planning the city’s first such celebration — a street fair downtown June 6. It’s being billed as a family friendly event, with live music, games, vendors and information booths.

Joki knew about the street fair that Pride Youngstown was planning, and when he heard the group was having trouble raising money, he used the idea of sharing personal self-discovery stories to raise funds.

Joki collected the stories by approaching various gay groups, including the Pride Center, YSUnity and the Unitarian Church.

“No one said no,” Joki said.

In this weekend’s shows, 10 people will read their own testimonials. In between, there will be spoken word, poetry, dance and musical performances. Other testimonies will be printed and displayed in the Oakland’s art gallery.

The performers for the 90-minute show are evenly split between gay and straight.

“It’s scary to put something like this out for everyone to see,” said Joki, recalling his own blog.

He said it requires bravery.

“We will become emotionally naked on stage. ... A lot of [the readers] have never talked about it before.”

Joki said the testimonials will put a face on the gay community.

“It’s not just discos and drag queens,” he said. “Many of us are active members of the community. We have jobs and families, and we vote and pay taxes.”

EXCERPTS

Robert Dennick Joki

College offered some relief.

For the first time in my life I was around other gay people. Beautiful, intelligent, hard working people ... who just happened to be gay. This was much different than the pictures that had been painted for me by my upbringing. It wasn’t long before I entered a relationship with someone truly special.

It was so unexpected. I wasn’t even looking for it. He knew exactly who he was and was proud of it. I adored him for that. He was everything I wished I could be ... but still held back from. And I loved him very much. Enough that I decided to come out to my family.

I was excited about our relationship ... and I wanted to share my excitement with other people. It was strange because I was still very convinced that homosexuality was something that had been forced upon me. I didn’t even know if I could be intimate with a man without thinking about things from my past that I didn’t want to think about.

How could something so beautiful be rooted in something so awful?

Kage Jonas Coven

I started life as a normal, every day, garden variety little boy. I played baseball, made mud pies, chased the girls on the playground. I had lots of girlfriends. I loved to play video games and play fight … to pretend I was Robin Hood. Yeah, you could say I was like every other little boy … except, I was born a girl.

Growing up, I don’t think I really knew what was wrong with me. I was admittedly one of the first “emo kids” in this area. I was really androgynous. I was depressed; I was lost. I know it sounds cheesy, but It was like I had this really huge empty cavity inside my heart that nothing could ever fill.

So I was a teenage bisexual. I had the biggest crushes on just about every girl I knew. I just thought it was natural. I sort of thought it was a phase I’d grow out of. ... I just didn’t think I’d do it the way that I did.