When I was a little boy I was very effeminate. I think that’s rare to find in a lot of other cities and it lends itself to creating some really amazing artistic experiences. The lesbians and the gays in Portland get along really well and collaborate a lot. There are so many radical and wild people doing amazing performance art and throwing these really avant-garde parties and it’s mixed. I think after spending the last ten years here and being recently single, you realize how incestuous it can feel. Gay life in Portland is lively but small. The challenge I think is approaching this diverse community of queens and queers with enough compassion and respect to leave room for everyone to feel totally accepted. Tight jeans, big hair, and a mild obsession with Tonya Harding. I only know how to do me, but you know what? I love it. I’ve had great success at finding a really amazing queer family, but within that I’ve learned to come to terms with the relative narrowness of my own experience and to respect other people more. Being queer is kind of a ‘fuck you’ to this big hetero-normative world we live in where you are controlled by expectation. I spent so much time being reserved about myself that I feel like I wasted time.
Casey, in his own words: “Being queer to me means living the life I was meant to live without reservation.
