Once upon a time, there was a little boy who was always getting kicked out of kindergarten nap-time.

He would not curtail his habit of kissing other little boys.

The young man's name is Thandiwe Thomas De Shazor. Make no mistake, his playmates kissed him back. But since De Shazor was the constant factor in this game of inappropriate affection, he took the brunt of the blame.

This fairytale broadcast is now interrupted by the fact that too much genre-bending, especially in media, is likely to cause high levels of journalistic-anxiety.

All grown up, De Shazor and I agreed recently to do his interview at Lake Merritt. When I wrote to him for a specific location he replied, “As for where to meet … Fairyland, of course.” 

The boy-smooching was not to end in early childhood. When this middle-class suburban kid was old enough to leave his mother’s house, he went to work selling classifieds for Between the Lines, a Michigan gay and lesbian publication run by a lesbian couple. This experience served as a training ground - it was at this point that De Shazor “threw [his] whole body into gay”.  

His curriculum vitae reflects this immersion into queerness; it’s a balanced mix of business acumen and artistic versatility. This September, he acted in "Armstrong’s Kid," a play by Stanley Bennett Clay. De Shazor was marketing chair for Oakland Pride 2010, performed stand-up comedy at the Best of the East Bay 2009 (click here to see footage) and has worked as an account executive for East Bay Express. He was published in "If We Have to Take Tomorrow," an anthology of black gay writers edited by Marvin K. White, a man that De Shazor had admired for a long time. His one man show, "Children of the Last Days," premiered at the 2008 Queer Arts Festival and subsequently ran at the Noodle Factory (under the management of the Nursha Project) and the 2009 Afro Solo Arts Festival.

 "Children of the Last Days" is an exploration of queerness and the black church. De Shazor was raised in the Pentecostal tradition.

“God invented Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve … all of that!" De Shazor said. "I would pray that I would be straight. But look … Eddie Longs was a rabid homophobe! Republican senators, how many of them have been caught in bathrooms with their pants down, with boy toys! Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Whoever smelt it, dealt it.”

De Shazor’s early awareness of his sexuality conflicted with his religious upbringing, and he suffered for it.

“When I was in junior high, my mom got me a TV because I got straight A’s on my report card. Marlon Riggs documentary, "Tongues Untied," came on PBS. I was scared shitless; I had the volume down really low. It honestly saved my life … black men loving other black men!

“When I got to the Bay Area three years ago, I got to work with and meet people that were in "Tongues Untied." It was destiny. It’s a testament to why we do art. If I can save a life the way Marlon Riggs saved my life… .” (This year, De Shazor joined Brian Freeman, associate producer of "Tongues Untied," for a performance at Koret Auditorium.)

Though his past was riddled with religious tension, De Shazor has a solid foundation.

“My dad is an artist. I grew up in television studios. He used to produce local television; he did music videos and dance shows. I grew up behind the camera watching him edit.

“My parents divorced when I was 10. My mom was the rock. She was the one who kept us fed and in our home. I didn’t realize how hard it was for her, being a single mom. By the time my mom was my age, she had two kids and a mortgage. What do I have to complain about? She worked in insurance for a long time. Now she’s an administrator of a daycare. She’s an amazing lady. She’s in school again. She’ll call me up, ‘Did you hear about Mumia?’ She just read Food Inc. ‘Did you know this was going on? Did you know they were doing this to our food?’

“‘Yeah Mom, I’ve been trying to get you to shop at the farmer’s market for years.’ It’s so funny to see her get politically involved. It’s delightful. I love my mom. We talk all the time.”

De Shazor’s liberation comes with a sense of responsibility.

“The world is six degrees of separation," he said. "When you’re gay, it’s more like four. When you’re black and gay, it’s about two. You’re a part of a small community, so if you want to make a difference, you have to be able to put your best foot forward and realize that it’s bigger than your own needs. You’re going to affect people with the things you do. You have to be responsible. You have to think about youth. Think about the people watching you because there are always people watching you. There’s always a magnifying glass on you when you’re gay.”

Despite all this, he has no interest in normalizing LGBTQI reality.

“I like the word queer. I’ve gotten used to it. It may be just because it has a ‘Q’ in it. There are not too many ‘Q’ words around. A lot of people hate it. They think it means dirty or weird. Queer, politically, means that you’re different. You’re not ‘normal.’ I think that’s great. Normal is boring.”

In this fairytale, De Shazor the boy is saved and forever transformed by a moving picture, a movie by Marlon Riggs, the father-god of hybrid forms. It was De Shazor's destiny to stand face to face with his heros.

In this fairytale, Riggs must exist, still. He’s in the heavens, the invisible wizard watching through his crystal ball; he is the genre-bending genius directing this article, determining the textual angles and calling the shots. The literary montage-profile of Riggs’ young protégée should bend the lens of “other”.

What does a gay fairytale look like? LGBTQI struggle is often defined by our right to romantic coupling. Though De Shazor wants to find a partner and have children, same gender love is not the only destination of his happily ever after.

De Shazor has a higher calling. Look into his soft, dreamy eyes and you’ll see it. The world would be so lucky to let him have the stage.

In him, I see a sense of purpose, the art we have yet to express, the fantasies we’re forced to suppress, the release of the rawest and realest gay divinity and the lives we have yet to save.