A friend of mine came out to his first person today and it reminded me of my first time. He told me how he couldnt look the person in the eyes, how he went very quiet, how he closed his eyes as he was coming out, how he had to hold back the tears. As he was telling me his story, I remembered the fear. And it made me angry. We shouldnt have to live like this. My friend shouldnt have to be as brave as he is being. People make themselves our enemies because of who we love or who we have sex with. They make themselves our enemies because of who we are. And everyone is a potential enemy - Even our own mothers. Everyone MIGHT be homophobic. And we end up being the ones who look away when we tell someone what we find attractive. We are made to feel ashamed by the people who will hate us no matter what. I now know what Gay Pride means. I'm not proud to be gay but I am proud that I'm not one of the ignorant fucks who try to make me feel ashamed. They should be ashamed. They're the ignorant ones. They're the ones who dont understand sexuality as well as some of the kids do on this forum! They're so fucking stupid. I almost feel sorry for them.
lol. Imagine if being straight was frowned upon instead...that would be so hilarious. Only for one day I would like that to happen. Hahaha.
Actually, in the late 80s/early 90s, way before there was wide acceptance of gay people, Star Trek: Next Generation did an amazing episode with this exact scenario. There was a planet where everyone was homosexual, and there was a woman who was heterosexual, who fell in love with Riker (one of the main characters). The whole show was about the authorities on the planet wanting to do this "procedure" that had absolute, 100% success in turning straight people gay... but she gave an impassioned speech about wanting to be who she was. And the authorities talked about how much happier she'd be when she was "normal" They kidnapped her and did the procedure, and she *did* come out completely gay, and told Riker that it had all been a misunderstanding. The show made it clear that it was a heartbreaking thing to take someone's natural desires and mess them up, destroying a loving relationship in the process. The script was brilliant in getting the message across, in the only way they could have gotten away with it on network TV in that time, that being gay was OK. Robert's right. There's still a lot of ignorance and bigotry, and that affects all of us. But times are changing, and each step, no matter how small, makes a difference.
lol yeah I wonder about that sometimes. I'd like to tell straight people who say LGBT's should just stay closeted to pretend to be gay for a day. I wish we could ban straight marriage for awhile...imagine how different things could be if everyone just understood...
well the people who are proud to be gay are fighting for all our rights to be free to live our lives without fear, the least you or anyone can do is be proud of who you are, that in itself should be more than enough to show people we are not going to back down, its taken me a long time time to accept myself, but now that i have i feel like we as the LGBT community are letting ourselves down with trying to fit into a hetero lifestyle by keeping on believing that we are not gay and hiding/doing nothing to improve.
I'm one of the curators for this year's Melbourne Queer Film Festival, specifically for the short films packages aimed at teenagers. One of the films this year is about exactly that - a young teenage girl growing up in a world where being gay is the norm, the boy she falls for is too scared to come out as straight and be with her, her mothers try to force her into being gay and ignoring her straight feelings, and she's horribly bullied by her peers. It's intense, and it's beautifully done.
That star Trek episode was brilliant! It would be great if we didn't have to come out...that it wasn't assumed that I would fall in love with a man. Maybe one day it will be like that...but unfortunately thats not what the world is like just at the moment. If we spend our days depressed about the injustice then we would never move forward with our lives. We should stand up for what we believe in but we must also understand that society takes time to change...things don't happen over night. When Martin Luther King spoke his words for freedom, who would have thought America would ever get a non-white president! So I look at this way...yeah its not perfect...but at least I live in a time and a place where its ok to be gay. I know this for sure though... I proud to be who I am and I wouldn't change a thing.
Robert, thanks for finding the Star Trek clip. The speech was far more direct and impassioned than I had remembered. Gene Roddenberry and the the Star Trek writers took a lot of risks, and how cool that they managed to get this into the minds of a bazillion people at that time!
I think thats something I am starting to really realize. I am in a pretty good area, and I don't think there are that many people who hate gays not matter what. But, it seems like everytime I meet someone new or someone I already know, there is always a fear there. The first questions I find myself asking is, do they know I am gay? How will they react if I tell them? Should I tell them? Would they judge me negatively or treat me differently? ... There's always that need there to protect yourself. Is this normal? Will this always be the case or is it just because I recently came out?
