I Am...
- I am the boy who never finished high school, because I got called a fag every day.
- I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.
- I am the guy that lives on the streets because I am scared to go home.
- I am the prostitute working the streets because I can't find anybody who will hire a transsexual woman.
- I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.
- We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.
- I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.
- I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.
- I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.
- I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.
- I am the child that dreams of seeing my mum again. The courts won’t let me because she lives with another woman.
- I am the man who fears that I will never be able to be myself, to be free of this secret because I won’t risk loosing my family and friends.
- We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.
- I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.
- I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.
- I am the brother that gets called a fag just because my brother isn’t ashamed of who he is.
- I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.
- I am the girl that was raped behind my school because some stranger wanted to teach me to be a “real woman”.
- I am the guy down the street that can’t get a disability pension because my partner is a man.
- I am the woman who died when the paramedics stopped treating me because they found out I didn't have a female body.
- I am the man that is afraid of losing his job, for expressing his true identity.
- I am the mother that sees my son come home from school every day in tears because the other kids call him a girl.
- I am the celebrity that wishes I could tell the world who I am, but I'm too scared.
- I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.
- I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didn’t have to always deal with society hating me.
- I am the Youth Worker that sees hundreds of kids thrown out of home because they were honest with their families.
- I am the girl that struggles to get up in the morning because school is so cruel to me.
- I am the footballer scared to come out because I might lose my contract.
- I am the boy that always wanted a Barbie, but no one would let me have one.
- I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most: love.
- I am the person ashamed to tell my own friends I’m a lesbian, because they constantly make fun of them.
- I am the boy tied to a fence, beaten to a bloody pulp and left to die because two straight men wanted to “teach me a lesson”.
We are all around you. We are the millions that want the hate to end.
Isn't all this a bit melodramatic? I mean, I live in Ireland, which is so conservative, condoms only recently became legal. And already we have a Gay Right's parade, and probably more gay-oriented shows than straight ones.
ReplyDeleteMost of these "points" seem to be either extremely exaggerated and unlikely, or simple instances of "the other kids are mean to me", which has less to do with being gay and more to do with being different.
No, this is not melodramatic. Those points are the sad reality of a world in which being different, whether it IS homosexual or not, is unacceptable. People die every day alone because they have been beaten to death for being "different" and for being "unpopular" and they die alone because they were kicked out living on the streets or they were walking home and strangers jumped them.
ReplyDeleteJust because your country or city has a gay rights parade and gay oriented television doesn't mean you don't have homophobic people who will do anything to prove to you that they are superior and you are "wrong" to LOVE someone. Love is love is love. Whether it's between a man and a woman or a man and a man or a woman and a woman or a parent and a child. We could all use a little more love in our lives.
I'd like to say that if my son grows up and decides he is interested in men, that he should feel, if not fully comfortable, at least 90% ok telling me that. I would never kick out my child for their sexual preference. I can't even imagine the purple who do that, how horrible they must be.
Marriage should be the sacred bone between two people who love each other, not between a man and a woman. Homosexual couples should be able to walk down the street unafraid to hold hand our give a kiss on the cheek. They should be allowed to not be asked to leave spring events for celebrating a score the same way a hetero couple does because someone behind them "doesn't want/their child to see that" See what? A loving couple spending time together and giving a kiss on the cheek? Yes, I can see how terrible that is.
How many hetero marriages happen because of pregnancy? Now how many same sex partnerships do you think happen because of that? Obviously "the right thing" doesn't mean love. It means "you knocked her up so marry heer whether you care or not and then divorce or lave her in a few years making our divorce rate skyrocket and making the kid think possibly the whole imitation of marriage is a travesty" instead of what marriage was for. love, family, companionship.
Sorry kenny, tangent...
I seriously hate my phone for typos... Purple is people and spring events is supposed to say sporting events.
ReplyDeleteWell, Anonymous, I live in Ireland too and while we may not be as backward as some African countries like Kenya, Uganda or Malawi, don't bury your head in the sand and think that just because you're living in a progressive, European country with gay rights parades and whatever you consider "gay-oriented TV shows" that everything is fine.
ReplyDeleteA 2009 study revealed that one in four gays in Ireland have been beaten up in homophobic attacks, reported here in our national newspaper http://bit.ly/adksDI and if that's still too melodramatic for you then just a couple of months ago two men were jailed for killing a man in Dungannon for being gay http://bit.ly/aAEYAW
Having a one in four chance of being beaten up isn't "unlikely" and being beaten to death isn't "exaggerated".
I'm not saying homophobia doesn't exist. But I really hate the way people will twist everything into being about them and their cause. A person dies, and everyone will jump on that death like jackals, fighting over whether the person died because they were gay, or black, or because they played too many violent video games, whatever.
ReplyDeleteI just don't see why inciting hatred and trying to get everyone fired up could possibly help to foster peace or acceptance of anything.
And before you go on the defensive, you should read back over the original blog post and really analyse what each statement actually means.
ReplyDeleteExample: "I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didn’t have to always deal with society hating me."
That's just, so insulting in so many ways. To absolutely everyone.