Mon
18Its so, so small.
Earlier today, I was watching a special on Logo (A television network in the states geared towards the GLBT community) about coming out of the closet. Some of the stories these kids told absolutely blew me away.
One seventeen year old girl told her parents that she might be a lesbian. They put her through years of therapy thinking it was a mental illness, a genetic deviation of some sort that could be suppressed with therapy and drugs (HEAVY drugs that are usually only used to treat and/or sedate the extremely mentally ill). Something that could be choked out and eliminated because it didn’t fit their picture of grandchildren and a 6-figure husband.
Now, you’d never have to meet this girl to understand just how wrong and sickening that is, but seeing her talk about it, as well as talking about herself makes it all the more heartbreaking. This girl, this child, painted some of the most beautiful works of art I’ve ever seen. She took time out of her schedule every day to do community service work. She volunteered at nursing homes and inner-city daycares. She loved people. That whole bit isn’t meant to give you some guilt trip or a sappy explanation of her plight. The fact is, is that she loved. She loved her parents. She loved helping people. She also just happened to love women.
I am so lucky. I’m lucky to have accepting parents who have never cared who I love, as long as I’m happy and healthy. I’m lucky to have the definition of parenthood in my life. I’m lucky that as a result of their attitudes towards raising children, life and love, that I have no shame or negative thoughts regarding who I am. I sometimes even forget that being a homosexual, even today, is such a controversial issue for a lot of people. My sexuality is a private part of what makes me who I am. It isn’t all I am. One tiny aspect of my being, something so trivial and meaningless in the scheme of things, and yet people make it out to be the biggest chunk of who you are.
There’s certainly a difference in flamboyant advertising and simple acceptance. I don’t wisp around, hitting on men I know to be straight, or perpetuate stereotypes. At the same time, I have no shame in telling anyone that I am proud of who I am, all of who I am, which does include my sexuality.
It rips my heart from my chest to see the statistics of teenage suicides each year relating to homosexuality. It makes me want to sob uncontrollably that parents, would deny their very children, the purpose of their lives, communication or love because of such a tiny facet of who they are. Parents that have loved and cared for them their entire lives, but that suddenly changes because they like people of the same sex?
If parents, friends, relatives, teachers, loved ones, ANYONE, could look past this tiny, infinitesimal part of who we are as human beings, the world would be a much better place. If things that have no relative meaning towards our friendships, our acquaintances, or families and our colleagues could be overlooked and accepted as what they are, there wouldn’t be any more teenage suicides relating to homosexuality.
I’m obviously extremely biased, given my value of life in all forms, as well as my liberal upbringing, my love for people, and being a homosexual myself. But none of that should matter. What matters is, is that we have such a ridiculously short time on this planet. A tiny block of time, dedicated to helping others, to giving love, and to receiving it, no matter who it’s from. When you spend all that time focused solely on what you hate or what you wish you could fix, you completely miss out of all of the positive, joyful, loving experiences and people and things that are right in front of you.