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Out in Connecticut: Ray Tessier

http://cptv.vo.llnwd.net/o2/ypmwebcontent/Offline2/RT%20Final.mp3

I’m Ray Tessier and I’m Canadian . . . well, I’m a US citizen now, but  I come from Canada.  It was unusual how it happened.  My mother married a Navy man and because he went right in the Navy after they got married my mother stayed in Canada.  So we had a house there, we had a place and when my father got out, we stayed there.

It was very rare that we even got “I love you” from my mother and father.   My mom was . . . talk about sex and . . . oh, my God, she was very cold about that.  We learned about the birds and bees from my father, never from my mother.  Even my sisters had to learn from my father.  My mother was . . . she didn’t talk about that at all.

I knew I was gay as long as I can remember.  I think I can go back to like six years old.  My father was a sportsman and he always had sports books in the house, and I  . . . “muscle man” . . . and I used to get all excited looking at the books [laughter], when he was not around.  [Laughter]  Being on the farm, I’m gonna tell you, we had forty acres and in the fall my father would hire college kids to help harvest all the produce that we used to grow on the farm and we had a pond on the property.

You know, I knew there was something different about me and of course some of these guys . . . and it was hot in September in Canada . . . so these guys would be walking (around) in little shorts and whatever, so I mean it would turn me on.  That's when I really knew that I was gay, but I always hid it from my parents.  At that time, it was very hard to come out.  I had lots of pressure, as soon as I graduated from high school, I had a lot of pressure from my parents:  “When are you going to get married?”  “When are you going to get married?”

I knew I was gay, but I wasn't thinking of myself and I didn't want to disappoint my parents, so I said, “Oh my God, what am I going to do?”  So I went to a club, I seen this girl, six months later we were married.  [Laughter]  But in the two years that we were together, I realized that it wasn’t fair to her and it wasn’t fair to me.

I did have two children.  I have two daughters and I love my daughters they accept me for who I am.  They know that I'm gay now, ‘cause we separated. But when my mom passed away . . . my mom always said “I'll get you back together with your daughters.”  The girls loved my mother, so they came to the wake and the funeral and that's how we got together.  And after that we have (had) a great relationship and ever since then it's been like that.

I’m in the WE group.  It's been around for maybe seven years, but the last five years we've been in charge.  Right now we have about four hundred members.  We started, like any other group, we had maybe twenty-five, thirty and what people do is they talk to their friends and their friends would say, “Well, gee, I'd like to go attend a function.”  It's just a group to get together, to become friends, to talk and I think that's why it's such a big success.  It's a great group of men.  The oldest man is eighty two, the youngest is twenty two.  It's a lot of work for us ‘cause my partner is the one that does the invitations and everything.

We have doctors, we have lawyers, we have teachers, we have principals, we have just regular people.  I mean we have all kinds of people, but I know a lot of people, and you meet so many kind of people . . . so many gay people . . . and some are so closeted, some are so open, some . . . they just want a certain type of person they want to hang with.  And to me, some time there is a community some time there isn’t.  I myself, like I said, I’m an open man.  I don’t go out there and blurt to everybody “I’m gay,” but if they ask me, I tell them.  I’m not ashamed of it.

I’ve noticed in the years that I've been out and with all the jobs and all the people that I’ve met:  a lot of times the gay people clash amongst themselves.  One time I was in Rhode Island and I think they were . . . the senators were talking . . . they were trying to pass the gay Civil Unions.  And they were having a hard time deciding what they were going to do and one woman senator said, “Why don't we just leave it alone, because they clash amongst each other --- it's going to be forgotten.”  And that's what she said.  I mean, she said it in a few different other words, but to me that's the way she put it.  I turned to my partner at the time and I said, “You know that’s true.”

Because the gay community . . . I find a lot of them . . . is they are very materialistic.  They have to tell you how much they paid for the ring, they have to have the best clothes:  Calvin Klein and this and that.  To me, I find that phony.  It's more than clothing or more than being better than somebody else.  To me everybody should be together and I think if we were a GOOD community, I think we would get a lot further than what we are doing now, especially with our rights. But because they see that:  that we clash and there’s such a difference and there’s three or four different groups . . . I think it would be a lot different.

You know, since I’ve been gay, I've really seen a big change in families.  At the beginning when I came out, I met so many friends that their families threw them out because they told them that they were gay.  And today I think there’s the big change where they're accepting their children.  They’re saying, “Well, no matter if you’re gay or not, you’re still my son.”

And I’m the type of person, I look pretty strong and everything, but I don't like to be by myself, so I always had roommates. Well, I had a roommate and HE used to do drag.  Which . . . it doesn’t bother me, I enjoy the drag shows, you know, but I had never done it then.  I'm talking maybe twenty-five, twenty-six years ago and he entered me into a contest:  Miss Gay New London.  Now I NEVER had done drag in my life and here he wants me to enter a contest.  And to tell you the truth, I was nervous, very nervous, but it was fun.  I really enjoyed it.   I came in second . . . which I was very surprised and people were coming up to me and saying, “Oh, my god, Rachel, you look beautiful.”

Now, my name is Ramona.  I call myself Ramona.  I'm known as "The Country Girl of Connecticut," ‘cause there’s not too many people that do country.  The inhibitions are all gone when I get dressed as Ramona, because most people don't know who I am, especially if we’re going to other bars.  And I can act, I can be myself and people love it.

I don't wanna be a woman.  Don’t be wrong.  I’m happy (with) what I have.  I don’t want to be a woman, but because I’m a performer and people love it, that's what I'd like to do.  Being a performer, you want to make people happy and that's what I do

And I’ve performed all over the country.  One time I went to Florida and when I got there all of a sudden I see this sign in the corner of my eye and it says, “Country Girl of Connecticut - Coming.”  I said, “Turn this Jeep around” and (my friend) turned around and I said “What did you do?  I didn’t bring none of my stuff!”  I was so mad at him ‘cause I was going on vacation.

But of course I did perform and they LOVED it, because nobody does country.  That night, believe it or not, I made three hundred dollars for myself that night which was fantastic . . . which I was surprised.

So now, after that happened, every time I travel, it was always half and half:  Ray and Ramona.   They must have been really confused at the airport.  [Laughter]

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