The Purpose of Punk

Let's get one thing straight from the get go. I'm not. Everyone has the moment they sparked that "gay awakening" in them whether they know it or not. I know that when I was four, I wanted a Kim Possible backpack and that I that I definitely liked more than the average cartoon chracter. I know that I used to think everyone wanted to kiss their best friends and that I was totally normal. But the moment that solidified I was 100% not straight? Kristen Stewart dressed as Joan Jett in the 2010 movie, The Runaways. In that moment, at 13, alone in my childhood bed room, watching a pirated verson on my laptop, my only thought was "holy shit I'm a lesbian."

I've always grown up around music. My parents basically raised me on a steady cultural diet of 70s and 80s rock and punk since conception and had me in Grateful Dead and Beatles t-shirts before I was able to walk. My dad's favorite stories are the concerts that he saw while living in New York City and my mom has one of the most extensive vinyl collections that I have ever seen still to this day. All that to say, my rebellion should have been running as far from that genre of music as possible.

The journy Punk itself took to reach my parents and me by extension starts back in 1965 when The Who released My Generation and arguably launched the modern punk pock scene. My parents, just 2 and 5 respectively, had the childhood and teenage years steeped in the back drop of the sexual revolution, the summer of love, and the birth of Punk. My mom turned 13 the same year CBGB opened. My dad's first concert was the Grateful Dead when he was 13. And he was hooked, going to show after show for years. And by the time they hit college, the scene wasn't just growing, it was exploding.

But the scene drew me in in its own way. Several of my friends played in a band in high school and those nights of running off to the city and dancing with my friends were some of the most freeing and happiest of my life at the time. It was exciting and new and made our boring life in the suburbs feel like a distant memory. I felt high on the music, on the energy in the room, on making eye contact with some random girl across the room of a smokey bar and knowing that if I was brave enough I could go and talk to her.

And that right there is the draw of the scene. The freedom. The fact that even though I was weird and awkward at school, on those nights, in those bars, I was just myself. And there is a long histroy of the punk scene being a home for the weridos. There has always been a draw for those who felt like they couldn't be themselves anywhere else. And it gave us women that we badasses. They screamed and partied right along side the boys and most of them were even better than their male counterparts. They dressed how they wanted, said what they wanted, and the world worshipped at their feet.

So here I am. Out and proud. All becuase of Kristen Stewart. And the world that opened it's leather clad, screechy guitar arms to me when I wasn't even old enough to understand why it meant so much to me. Seeing women like Joan Jett or Suzie Quatro or Patti Smith or Debbie Harry just being themselves showed me that the coolest thing to be was myself. Punk is deeper than the music. It's kindness and empathy in a world controled by capitalists and oligarchs that kick people while they're down. It's embracing yourself when the world is trying to push you into a box and make you someone else. It's about standing up for each other. It's a community built on the idea that the people who the world pushed aside can kick and scream their way into the spotlight. So stop giving a shit about about the person you think you're supposed to be and look for the person you want to. You'll be a lot happier when you do.