Tom Goss is Gay on Christmas - and Every Other Day

It's been almost a year since Donald Trump plunged into the role of leader of the free world - a job for which he is uniquely unqualified in the history of the nation. That lack of fitness has been reflected in the choices the 45th president has made, from incendiary and flat-out untrue Twitter screeds and attacks to political appointments and judicial nominees that seem designed to reward the malicious and the ignorant, and to punish all Americans who don't fit the cookie-cutter limitations of being straight, white, Christian, and cis-male.

This waterfall of malice and incompetence threatens to hammer our community for generations to come, especially as regards our courts; as a recent Think Progress headline succinctly noted, "Trump has turned working against equal rights into a golden ticket to a federal judgeship."

If what we see being constructed before our eyes is a framework for decades of harsh legal oppression, the very basis of LGBT health - as well as that for women - has also come under attack and political rewriting. This past weekend news broke of the Trump administration placing a gag order on the Centers for Disease Control, forbidding the CDC from using words like "transgender" and "fetus" - as well as "vulnerable" and "science-based," terms that can only be considered political if the person censoring them has some sort of plan percolating to attack the vulnerable, and to base policy not on science but on fantasy or fabrication.

As if dealing with all this in the public sphere weren't enough, LGBTs now have to contend with a rising tide of overt hatred and harassment. Trump's ascent to the pinnacle of power has emboldened racists, homophobes, and "white supremacists" (a neologism for Nazis) to pick up torches and march in the streets chanting slogans intended to intimidate.

That rising anti-gay sentiment is present not "out there" in some distant city or rural hinterland, but in the homes of our own family members - a fact that many gay publications have picked up on. The gay press is full of tips and hints about how to deal with racist, anti-gay, anti-woman, and Christianist family members in the event that they should pair their ritual slicing of the holiday turkey with the verbal equivalent aimed at the gays and lesbians at the table. The overall message of those articles is that we need to be careful not to provoke or challenge in ways that will simply cement the opposition of closed-minded family members; rather, we should coax and gently encourage the haters in our families to reconsider, rather than calling them out as bigots and, if not fascists, then the very people that hard-core fascists rely on not to protest when the legal persecution kicks into high gear and the assaults in the streets follow suit.

But singer-songwriter Tom Goss has another idea to offer LGBTs anxiously contemplating what it will mean to spend the holidays with homophobic family members. In a new song and video titled "Gay Christmas" - composed just last week in a burst of emotional outpour - Goss advises his listeners to give the whole family thing a miss in favor of sticking with people who will love and value us as we are.

Of course, many of us are lucky enough not to have such anxieties -- or anyway, not to the extent that they overwhelm the happy anticipation of seeing beloved siblings, parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and other relations. Even if we have family members skeptical about us for being gay -- or, as might be the case more frequently, disposed to judge us if our experiences a sexual minorities have made us more liberal than they might be -- it's often understood that holidays are a time for families and friends to put politics and philosophical differences aside and enjoy time spent together.

But even if one might not be heading into a family situation where there's a risk that going home could turn into being told, in effect, that there's no room at the inn, it's hard to blame Goss for the sentiment he's expressing. Last year when he went home for the holidays in the wake of Trump's election, Goss found himself in a situation he describes as "unhealthy and damaging."

"I've always been a strange guy, an outlier for lack of a better term," Goss told EDGE in the course of a quickly-arranged interview. "Still, people knew me, respected me, and loved me for who I am. I had spent decades proving that I was 'good, loyal and worthwhile. Gay but not that kind of gay. A star athlete who thinks out of the box, artsy but not feminine.'

"I could go on," Goss said, "but you get the picture. I was an exception to the rule, 'assimilated and acceptable' regardless of how I think or who I love."

Then Trumpism swept the nation and overnight things snapped into retrograde mode.

"At some point people close to me started seeing me as 'other' without exception," Goss said, "and I have been treated as such. I've found myself on the outside looking in."

That's a painful place to be personally -- but for an artist, it can also be a place that informs and motivates the work they do. "Gay Christmas" is a document of pain and resolve, its story told with musical simplicity, with a lullaby-like melody, instrumentation that creates a music box sound, and lyrics that are soulful, wounded, and sometimes purposefully direct: "The GOP, I know they don't know me; I know it's not personal, it's a means of control," Goss sings. "But you're different. You came to my wedding. You saw me years fighting for something that you've always had."

The video -- like many of Goss' works -- features multiple characters of different genders and ethnicities, each with a different implicit point of view. In its variety of faces, the video feels inclusive, even though the people it's showing us are being excluded. If you've been through anything like what Goss is describing, you can't help but respond deep down.

But "Gay Christmas" has another remarkable aspect: The speed with which Goss has brought it to full realization in time for the holidays. For a song to be written and recorded in such a brief time is remarkable -- but a song and video?

"I'm very lucky to have talented friends all around me," Goss commented. "When I wrote 'Gay Christmas' I thought it was honest and could potentially be impactful, so I started calling friends to see if we could pull off the song and put together a video.

"Everyone put what they were working on aside to help bring this to life. I spent a day arranging and recording the vocals and instrumentals and Marr Zimm, my friend and collaborator got me a mix and master almost immediately. Nathaniel Siri locked down a visual story, and three days later we had a guerrilla music video shoot in Santa Monica.

"Unfortunately," Goss continued, "we got stopped by security before we even started shooting. Unbelievably, we talked to security and management and got them to let us get the shots that we needed, promising we wouldn't interfere with shopping and the holiday spirit. It was nine days from idea to release. One beautiful blur."

Asked whether staying away this year would make for a happier holiday, Goss spoke of his sadness and doubts. "I am certain I will feel a deep sense of loss," he said. "I already do. That said, last year was damaging and, honestly, I still think about it daily.

"Whether this year will be happier or not, I am unsure," the award-winning singer-songwriter added. "But it certainly won't have long lasting damaging effects like previous years (especially last year) has had. I've come to the realization that I need to stop being what people want me to be and just be myself, completely and unapologetically."

Then Goss gave voice to a thought that, were it to become the mantra of America's LGBTs, could transform us and our renewed fight for equality from within.

"Here's the thing, I am an amazing guy, full stop," he told EDGE. "I'm honest and fun, caring and open, smart and engaging, and constantly giving fully of myself."

Words that those familiar with Goss' canon of songs will feel to be fundamentally true.

"The only time I feel unheard, unseen and valueless is when I'm with my family," Goss continued. "That is real. That is hard. I don't like feeling like that, and at this point in my life I'm unwilling to put myself in situations where I feel as such. I deserve better."

In person as in his work, Goss is sweet, gentle, kind, and upbeat. I know this because - full disclosure - I have known Tom for years and consider him a good friend. It's impossible to begrudge him words of self-possession and confidence in his own worth, because he's so unassuming - so very much the opposite of arrogant and disparaging - that it actually feels sort of good to hear him draw a line in the sand, speak of himself so positively, and refuse to back down from his own sense of dignity and self respect.

The very act of creating in public - revealing yourself through songs and lyrics and, through the creation of music videos, imagery - is a courageous one, but taking this stand for himself and others has its challenges.

"Every word of this interview (and the song/video) scares the shit out of me," Goss confided, "but at this point in my artistic career I feel like I am accountable only to myself. I've been at this for over a decade and have tried a bit of everything. The only thing I've never tried is actually believing in myself and pursuing ideas, sounds and visuals that I want, regardless of what all the people chirping in my ears are saying."

One point worth noting on the lighter side is that Goss has recently grown a full beard, which he shows off in the new video. Asked teasingly about this sexy new facial hair, Goss replied, "2018 is going to be an amazing, strange, powerful and creative year for me. I suppose that sometimes starts with growing a beard."

Perhaps 2018 will be a year in which we seize our power and drag the world a little back toward justice, fairness, opportunity, and universal respect, and - mostly essentially - a renewed sense of community. It's art, after all, and the artists who create it that make a batter world possible by making it discernible to our imaginations.

Or, as Andrew Fletcher (the Scottish politician, not the member of Depeche Mode) is reputed to have said, "Let me write the songs of a nation - I don't care who writes its laws."