Kansas City, MO — Presenting a lyrical year-in-the-life look at the political and cultural transformation of Kansas City’s gay community, author K.C. Sharpe shares his experiences bartending at a local gay bar as told by drag queens, drug dealers, and dancing divas in his book, “Lost Boys Found.”
The book focuses on what Kansas City gay life was like in 1993. It was the year Bill Clinton was sworn in as president, a gay rights march in Washington, D.C. drew over a million protesters, the military was debating Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and AIDS-related deaths had yet to reach it’s peak.
Based on true events that took place in Kansas City that year, forty passages cover the emergence of Fred Phelps and his ‘God Hates Fags’ protests at funerals of gay men who died of AIDS, the passage of a city rights ordinance that protected homosexuals and those living with AIDS, the Great Flood of 1993, and the death of a nationally recognized pianist who had returned to his hometown to deal with his HIV infection. Meanwhile, as the year progresses within the story, the growing popularity of a weekly Sunday afternoon drag show brings Kansas City’s gay and straight communities together as they raise money to cure AIDS.
“You don’t realize you’re living in the middle of history until you can look back and compare the life you’re living now to what you were living then,” Sharpe said. “I came out the year when it seemed like the only thing being talked about was homosexuality and that asking for acceptance was going too far.
“All the debates, the endless press coverage — there was this spotlight when we all got pulled into the culture wars,” Sharpe said. “I wasn’t marching or protesting. All I was just trying to live my life without making anyone close to me feel uncomfortable or scared.”
The book’s main characters work at a local gay club based on where Sharpe had bartended during the weekends. He had just graduated from Northwest Missouri State University and moved to Kanas City where he started teaching at a local high school during the week.
“Setting the book at a bar is significant to the story since that’s where our community connected,” Sharpe said. “We didn’t have digital options like social media networks and dating apps. Coming out to the clubs was a major milestone and a very significant life stage we all had to experience.
“The only safe place we could connect and come together were all these hidden clubs that intentionally stayed under the radar. They were the only places we could safely come together and be with others like us,” Sharpe said. “There was barely any fair representation in the media. We never learned how to interact with each other or understand what to expect. Regardless, we had no one to turn to except each other since coming out put our personal and professional lives at risk, so we learned how to compartmentalize and navigate different lives all at once.”
The stories compiled in the book provide a generational look back at challenges and achievements from the perspective of GenXers who were in their early twenties and Baby Boomers who were approaching middle age back in the early 1990s.
“For GenExers like me first coming out to the scene back then, we were young and blaming the Baby Boomers for AIDS while they were pissed at us for not appreciating what they achieved through gay liberation,” Sharpe said. “When I was bartending, hearing those Baby Boomers bitching about turning forty and feeling invisible because we weren’t flirting back at them — it was such a sibling rivalry going on between us within our own community.”
Intending to provide the LGBTQ community growing up in the 21st Century insight into the risks growing up in the 20th Century, Sharpe wanted to take the approach Christopher Isherwood, also a gay author, took writing “Goodbye to Berlin” which inspired the musical “Cabaret,” which told the story of Berlin’s transformation as Nazis took power in the 1930s.
“It’s not meant to be preachy to gay Millennials and Gen Zs who are out and proud on social media and sharing their love lives with their personal and professional connections,” Sharpe said. “These stories are meant to become songs to be sung with the emotional punch of significant moments that might be taken for granted without personal context and perspective.
“We need to understand what pride feels like with what we’ve achieved,” Sharpe said. “Those emotions will make the lasting impressions from one generation to the next. Our pride comes from the persistence and patience pushing and progressing acceptance, equality, and eliminating the stigma of a health crises this country ignored as it killed a generation of our best and brightest. We need to make sure we don’t forget the lives that were lost as we celebrate the lives that were saved.”
Having lost friends and family during two pandemics, Sharpe includes conflicting characters who cope with losing loved ones while trying to find someone to love. One politically outspoken drag queen who struggles with drinking and drugs finds focus helping raise money for AIDS research by persuading straight men to strip for donations in front of an audience of gays and lesbians that grows larger and larger week after week as word spreads through Kansas City.
Working with drag queens directly impacted Sharpe’s own internal homophobia, resenting them when he first came out.
“I was ashamed and blamed them for the discrimination. I didn’t want my friends and family to think I was like them,” Sharpe said. “When I got to see firsthand their fearlessness and bravery with all the hate and prejudice, they showed me how to fight when it was right and how to be seen and heard while I was just trying to lay low and go unnoticed.”
The work of one drag queen who unintentionally created a transformational performance that left a lasting impact on Kansas City as well as Sharpe personally is what inspired him to write “Lost Boys Found.”
“I can’t even begin to explain how lucky I am to have witnessed what came together during my time in Kansas City,” Sharpe said. “What the ‘Flo Show’ started back then inspired the core of this story. No one back then knew what it would turn into. As silly as it all was, it ended up brining Kansas City together — gays and straights — in a really fun way that brings me to tears when I think about the lives that were changed and saved.
“Sure, the performances were unbelievable, but getting the same people to keep coming back, bringing more of friends, giving more and more money week after week can’t be choreographed and sketched out,” Sharpe said. “That happened organically, authentically. That’s what you can achieve with the power of brining in people together.”
Work is underway to reunite many who were involved with the events that inspired the book in conjunction with upcoming drag competitions in Kanas City, including the Miss Gay Missouri America 2022 pageant on March 26 at the Arts Asylum. Reunion panels and live performances from drag queens reciting passages in character are also in development, leading up to upcoming 2022 Pride celebrations, KC Fringe, and more.
For more information or to coordinate press opportunities, contact author K.C. Sharpe at (214) 735-0291 or email ksharpedallas@gmail.com.
“Lost Boys Found” is available on amazon.com Learn more: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09CCH7KP9/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_VE0J8EGNCG5WVE85T8RJ
Copyright © 2022 Lost Boys Found - All Rights Reserved.
We use cookies to analyze website traffic and optimize your website experience. By accepting our use of cookies, your data will be aggregated with all other user data.