Q&A: Tom House On Going Past Mere Acceptance To Pride In The LGBTQ+ Community

June was Pride Month, a celebration of the LGBTQ+ community and a declaration of purpose: It’s not just acceptable to be the person you are, it’s something to be proud of.

Pride Month has its roots in a celebration in June 1970 in New York City, a year after the Stonewall Uprising, but its first real celebration on the South Fork took place this year, on June 4, with the first-ever Pride parade in East Hampton Village.

Tom House, a resident of Springs and an English teacher at Bridgehampton School, helped found the event along with a new organization, Hamptons Pride, which seeks to build on the past ways that the region served as a haven of sorts for the LGBTQ+ community. Not coincidentally, the president of Hamptons Pride was once a bartender at The Swamp, the fabled gay nightclub in Wainscott, and has been involved in the effort to honor that spot as a local landmark.

House incorporated Hamptons Pride in April 2021, and earned 501(c)(3) status as a public charity in October. East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen had said a mutual friend had suggested a Pride parade and “a big show of public support for LGBTQ+ people and teens,” House recalled. “And he loved that idea. And the next question was, well, who would organize that? Who would do it?”

The mutual friend suggested Hamptons Pride.

“So my friend told me to expect a call from the mayor, which I was, like, ‘Why? How does he even know who I am?” House said. “But he asked us. I mean, what a different world than I grew up in, when the village comes to you, instead of you saying, ‘Please, may we have a Pride parade?’”

House spoke recently via Zoom about his efforts and why having pride on public display is so important, especially for young people.

I wanted to talk about the idea of “pride.” You’ve been involved in the gay community for years. Why is the idea of pride so important right now to the gay community, to the LGBTQ+ community?

Right. You know, as Roe v. Wade is overturned and people’s human rights are under attack, it seems more important than ever.

What I like about pride: EEGO dissolved, for all intents and purposes, about 15 years ago, and there has been a vacuum out here. There’s been no LGBTQ+ local support group out here. So we’re coming in and filling that as a local organization.

And what I love about the word “pride” is that it’s human. No matter how orientations change, no matter how identifications change, everyone sees the stripes of pride, and they know exactly what that means. Right?

So, for me, I feel that we were so lucky to be able to get the name Hamptons Pride. That is good forever. No matter what LGBTQ+ becomes in the future — and it will change — we want to be as inclusive as possible.

Pride is ever inclusive. It’s just human, right? And I always say: Our mission statement for Hamptons Pride is that we celebrate and commemorate the East End’s LGBTQ+ populations — and their allies. And then I always add, “And one day, that will mean everyone.”

So everyone is welcome with us, even in the parade — we welcome allies to march. We welcome the parents, if they have an LGBTQ+ identifying child, to hold up your banner and support. That means a lot.

I visited a lot of schools, and there’s still a lot of fear out here, which makes a pride organization so important. There’s still a lot of fear of walking down main street as a teenager: “What will my family say? Will I get bullied at school? What will be the social and emotional repercussions of that?”

So we got some teens to join us, I would say probably about a hundred, and people remarked, “We were so glad to see so many teens here,” And I was, like, “Well, we need many, many more times the number of teens that you see here in the future — like, all the kids need to feel safe to walk down main street.”

The parade was a huge event, right? I mean, that’s a big moment for the community here.

Yeah. You know, one of the local reporters said that it was a milestone in the history of East Hampton Village, and that was the first Pride parade in the history of the Hamptons — hard to believe, but it was.

But I want to give credit where credit is due. I mean, yes, that was the Hamptons Pride parade, right? But we would not have had the opportunity had not the East Hampton Village mayor, Jerry Larson, called me in the winter and asked me if I would organize it.

And I believe that this was from a pure heart. There have been a series of teen suicides at East Hampton High School over the years. And he, I think, as a parent, as a human being — we must do something to stop this. We must do something to help the teens who are in such need of support.

… I was so encouraged by the number of people who came out to cheer on, because that’s what young people especially need. I mean, everyone needs it, right? But young people especially need to feel that, yes, there’s support right in my hometown. There are people who honor me and respect me and love me for who I am.

It seems like the local Hamptons Pride event in particular, but I think maybe the Pride Month activities in general, are geared not just toward celebrating a community that’s existed for years — it’s about creating a new reality for young people who identify as LGBTQ+.

Absolutely. That’s what I want most to come from this. Or that’s what we hope most to come from this: That kids can just be able to discover who they are without fear. And also to see that there’s a lot of support in their hometown. That it’s not a place to flee — it’s a place they can live in and thrive in. Our mission is to make this a better life out here for LGBTQ+ people.

And so as a veteran educator, that’s your focus, to a large degree, is making sure that’s true for the youngest people, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Of course, my heart is here, and I started the first GSA at Bridgehampton School this year, and, just like the parade, it hit the ground running, and it was something that people were beyond ready for. They embraced it immediately. So that was good. It’s been needed here. It’s needed at every school. Not just support, like we’re going to help you because we know it’s hard, but pride. We like what you are. We celebrate what you are.

You asked before about pride. Pride’s about visibility. Many of us come from years of shame, being taught shame, and being in the closet, and being out in this spot, and this spot, but not that spot. Well, walk down main street and people cheer for you, and you’re a whole human being again.

It feels like you go from … there’s shame, then there’s acceptance, but pride is a step beyond that.

It is a step. Yeah. It’s not just tolerance. This is good. Like, I have something really valuable to offer exactly how I am. … I think it’s an amazingly positive step rather than just aiming for acceptance. It’s not just okay. You should be proud of who you are.

Celebrate it. Celebrate who you are.

Some articles came out this month that talked about the fact that more people identify as LGBTQ+. And it’s particularly more young people. How are we supposed to parse those numbers? Is that a case of more people in that community? Or just more people comfortable identifying as being part of that community? Was that an underground group of people that are just now emerging, or is this actually an expanding group of people?

Yeah, that’s a good question. I wonder if it’s answerable, because we won’t know how many people might have come out if they could have.

We had an event [on June 23] called LGBTQ+ Faith, where some people spoke about the repression that comes about through certain dogma that taught people to be ashamed, to think of themselves as sinful, etc., within their religious communities.

And people don’t know what they are because they were so repressed. They were, like, “This just wasn’t accepted. This just wasn’t a way of life. There was no room for this.” There was no language for it years ago. So it was hard to know.

I do know that students seem, in general, to be resistant of labels, which I think is healthy.

I think in adolescence, maybe even young adulthood, there’s a certain amount of finding out who you are. And I tell students all the time that you do not have to identify to be part of the GSA — which we call the Genders and Sexualities Alliance; we don’t say Gay Straight Alliance anymore: Genders, plural, and Sexualities, plural, Alliance. So the letters stay the same, but the language is more inclusive.

Our first rule is that there are no assumptions. When we meet as a group or when we have an event, people could be here, maybe they are LGBTQ+ identified, and they want to talk about that. Or maybe they’re there as an ally. Maybe they’re there because they just think we have fun parties.

Everyone is welcome, but there’s also no direct questioning. There’s no “Who are you? What are you? Are you gay? Are you lesbian? Are you non-binary?” Whatever. That’s not allowed. People reveal themselves as much as they want to in their own time. And maybe they never will. And that’s their prerogative.

It’s interesting. As we’re discussing it, the whole idea of LGBTQ+ is not a label. You can identify as being part of that community without needing any specificity. It really is a big umbrella.

Right. Yeah. I call it the rainbow spectrum. And also, I tell kids all the time that you’re free to change your identification at any time. You can try one on for a week, and if it doesn’t sit right, you can change it the next. Or you can say, “I’m just not identifying right now.”

You’ve taught at Bridgehampton School for 12 years. What’s the evolution you’ve seen among kids you interact with? I mean, there really has been a change, right? And in a fairly short period of time.

Yes. Well, it’s hard for me to separate the growth that I see in schools, because I have a small window. I’m not in every school. I’m in Bridgehampton School, which is a small school, but I have connections with teachers at other schools, and I hear about things, but I don’t experience it firsthand.

But it’s hard for me to separate the growth that I see, because there’s been a lot at Bridgehampton School, with my own personal growth.

I saw this video one time of some older octogenarians, talking about the coming out process. And one gay man said that he was really grateful for this interview, because it helped him to come out even more. He’d identified as a gay man for a long, long time, but he just sees it as a lifelong process that you come out more and more.

And I feel that’s happened for me personally: every year, a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more out and proud.

And the start of the GSA was really, like, so now I’m a gay man out 24/7, because I’m the facilitator of GSA. We have all the pride flags hanging in the hall. We have them in the classroom. I wore my Hamptons Pride T-shirt at the beginning of right around the parade time. And then I just taught in that. So it’s been a process for me, for sure.

And starting the GSA has been therapeutic for me as much as the kids. They help me. They know the constantly changing, or I say constantly growing, lists of orientations and identifications. They know them so much better than a person my age does.

So I’m learning all the time from them, and they teach me the language, and they help me be careful with my pronouns, so that’s very recent.

But it’s recent because I started the GSA. We didn’t have that place where we could just meet and talk, and it was so needed, and we needed it a lot sooner. I don’t want to diss Bridgehampton School in any way, because the new superintendent totally embraced the idea and made it a club immediately. And there are still some schools that their GSAs need to function better. I think ours is really kind of exemplary right now.

But I went to some schools, and their GSAs just decided not to march this year, for very good reasons. And I understand those. I understand the fear of walking down main street, out and proud.

So let’s talk about that. Is this a moment you worry about? I mean, there’s been backlash, and you’re starting to see some communities that seem to be pushing back against some of the Pride events this month. Is this a moment?

Yeah. I read about that.

Is it a moment of concern for you?

I think it makes me even more motivated. Now, when we’re talking about kids, that’s always slightly different, right? But for a grown person, I think this is a reason to be more apt.

You get to a certain point where you just can’t live in fear anymore of what could happen. It’s, like, no, I have every right to be here. I have every right to say what I’m saying. We’re talking about human rights. We’re not talking about special rights, and these are guaranteed to me — and I insist upon them.

… I guess there’s always a reason to be fearful, but you just can’t live life that way. I can’t. I won’t. I won’t be circumscribed by the fears of somebody who’s going to push back on a Pride parade.

So the mayor offered us the East Hampton Village Police, who closed the roads and made it absolutely safe for us to walk, where there was no trouble whatsoever. Not saying that there never might be, but there’s no way we’re going to stop. We’ve got our foot so far in the door. This parade’s going to be every summer. And the police will be there to protect us. They’ve been promised to us. They did a terrific job, and I’m sure they will continue to do that.

I think it’s all the more reason why the parade and organizations like Hamptons Pride need to work really hard, because of the cost of pushbacks like this. And I think, in the end, it won’t be successful, the pushbacks. And I think that the parade is a really good example for that.

I wouldn’t name names, but not everyone wanted it to succeed. And there were some roadblocks that were thrown in our way, but no matter what anyone did, they couldn’t stop it. So many people wanted it. So many people embraced it. People were crying, they were hugging me. I see people hugging — you have no idea, like, what this means and how important it is. I think that is going to win out.

It really felt like a moment. Like a landmark moment.

Yes.

So I want to put all of this into some context, too. I know that I had read that you were a bartender at The Swamp.

Yes!

Which is great, because I think that connects you to what, for a lot of the young people today, is sort of the distant past.

Yes.

But I want you to talk about this region and the fact that this region has always been comfortable with its LGBTQ+ community more so than many communities. I don’t want to paint with a broad brush here, but actually I’ll just ask it as a question: Has it been more welcoming, more accommodating over the years, and not just in the last few years, but dating back to your early time on the East End?

Yeah. So the 1990s was really the time when I can really speak about with any kind of authority, from the early ’90s onward, like ’88, I believe. Summer of ’88 was the first summer that I bartended. And for two summers, I bartended at Fire Island Pines before that.

So when I arrived, The Attic had closed. So The Attic was a bar down the street from The Swamp that opened in 1970 and closed in 1985, when the owner died of AIDS. … So I got a lot of history, and I’ve written about the history of the gay clubs out here, and I want to do a lot more of that. So a lot of what I know is just from research.

But, firsthand, I can tell you from 1990 on, because the first year is when I started — I was just like deer in the headlights. I wasn’t really understanding what was going on around me. But there was an unfortunate division between gay men and lesbians at the time.

So that was a problem for a while, which I didn’t understand, because I liked lesbians. I liked hanging out with lesbians. I didn’t understand the animosity there, and some women would not come to The Swamp cause there had been a policy where they separated women. So that’s changed a lot.

And I went on a campaign to make sure there were at least 50 percent women at the parade — and there were actually, I think, more women. So I was really happy with that, that this could not be like a middle-aged gay male event that we’ve seen so much of in the past.

… So when I was arriving, EEGO existed, the East End Gay Organization, right? That started, I believe, in ’78 [actually, 1977]. And they kind of dissolved before 2010 — 2010, it was really over. But even before then, their services had been severely curtailed and such.

So there’s been about a 15-year vacuum where there’s been no local LGBTQ+ organization. … And then The Swamp was the only gay bar left, a gay club.

… For many people, for most intents and purposes, gay clubs/gay bars, that was a safe haven. That was home. Without the doors of The Swamp, and The Attic and EEGO, I think there was still, even in a New York City satellite like the Hamptons, you couldn’t walk down the street. It wasn’t completely accepting, or it wasn’t as accepting as it is now.

Like, I’ll wear my Hamptons Pride shirt down the village street, and it’s very visible, which is what we want. We want it to be readable from very far away. And some people will say, “Like your shirt!” I don’t think that would’ve happened when I first arrived! People would’ve been afraid to do that.

… LTV was interviewing us. We had a “We Say Gay” rally on the Bridgehampton School front lawn, with the GSA, a protest. And this was in March, with the Florida bill, which is now signed into law by [Governor Ron] DeSantis — horrible.

And as I was being interviewed by LTV, there was a pickup truck that was — nothing against pickup trucks — but it was, like, going east, and [someone] screamed “Faggots!”

And I had some sixth-graders with me, right? And they saw that. I’m not even sure they understood it. It’s not a word that’s really in their vocabulary anymore.

What was their reaction to you?

The students? I was actually hoping they didn’t hear it, because they were kind of busy making posters and such. There was so much going on at that moment that I didn’t really perceive it, and I didn’t want to underscore it in case they didn’t hear it.

… But I believe that is the 1 percent now. Like, people might disapprove, but they’ll disapprove silently. They won’t be vocal that way. And how cowardly, speeding by in a pickup.

The idea of “pride” has a certain provocation to it. Being prideful about who you are says, “I’m here, and I demand to be heard.”

And I demand to be seen. Yeah.

But you’re going to get the potential of that kind of response. I think it sparks much uglier responses sometimes, too — which, quite frankly, I think can be beneficial, because it brings it out. That’s out there.

That’s true. That’s true. You know, what you say is absolutely right. I don’t like to focus on it too much with kids. I don’t like them to be fearful. I grew up with fear. I think I’ve finally maybe shed it completely, or I’d say 23/7. I’ve shed my fears. There’s still that hour that will never leave. I don’t know. Well, maybe it will, but I just know that it’s such a terrible way to live, to live in constant fear.

So if someone screams that word at you now, you’re within your rights to report that. So here’s the thing: I had a recent encounter in my neighborhood, like a dispute; all of a sudden there were homophobic remarks being tossed at me. I was, like, “Okay, now you’ve crossed the line. I’m calling the police.” And I did. And they came.

And by the time they left, I had talked to this terrific young woman. And she was asking me about the school. And I was, like, “Listen, would you ever think of coming to a school and talking to the kids about what their rights are, and what’s the smart thing to do if they ever encounter real verbal hostility or even physical hostility that’s clearly aimed at LGBTQ+?”

And she said, “Yeah.” She said, “And I have an LGBTQ+ co-officer who will come with me.”

So that’s what you do. You know what I mean? You take physical defense courses. You realize what your rights are and that the police are there to protect you. And that you don’t have to put up with that. Nobody has a right to harass you verbally.

But even that — kids today can grow up knowing that the police are actually on their side. And that wasn’t always true, right?

No, no. And just like any other population of people, not every one of them is going to be on your side. But we’ll find the ones who are, and they will help us.

So, yeah, I don’t want to look through rose-colored glasses. There’s a lot of work to be done. I’m so, so pleased and thankful, grateful to the mayor for allowing us the opportunity to show that people we’re beyond ready for this, and that there was such a groundswell of support for it.

I mean, June 3, 2023? Wait till you see the numbers that we’re going to have for that. It’s going to be — I mean, this was really impressive, but next year’s going to be quite something.

… I think this is unstoppable, and the more visible … Pride parades are about visibility, and the more visible we are, the less likely somebody’s going to toss that word out of that truck next year, I think. They realize that “I’m not going to get away with it” — or maybe that they’re wrong.

And that’s the whole idea of “pride” is to try, and that’s how you change things. By doing it.