Words

[caraig]

Edit: Uncommented. Unrepentantly.

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody 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.

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 person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

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 domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

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 man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most: love.

Repost this if you believe homophobia is wrong.

Comments

[sodon.livejournal.com]

For every one of those, you can find a person who was hurt for the opposite reasons. For example, I'd like to see, "I am the man who died of AIDS, even though I was told my lifestyle was harmless and normal."

Spare me the heart strings. And if that makes me "homophobic", so be it.

[caraig.livejournal.com]

For every one of those, you can find a person who was hurt for the opposite reasons. For example, I'd like to see, "I am the man who died of AIDS, even though I was told my lifestyle was harmless and normal."

Spare me the heart strings. And if that makes me "homophobic", so be it.

Well, frankly... sorry, no, I'm not going to spare anyone anything who reads what I write. =) And if that torques anyone off, so be it. Though you're correct in that there's always more stories, different stories as you mention, I'm certain you don't approve of, for example, the high schooler getting beaten to death a few years ago.

As for being a homophobe, that's up to you and how you feel around homosexuals. There's rejection of homosexuality, and then there's outright and violent hostility bred from unreasoning irrational fear. There's rejection of that lifestyle, and then there's declaring anyone 'alternative' to be fair game.

[sodon.livejournal.com]

I fall in the middle of both extremes. Unfortunately, that still means I find this "people list" upsetting, in two ways it seems.

[sharkcowsheep.livejournal.com]

A nice thought, but the suggestion to repost it to one's journal if one agrees is probably not advisable.

1. People who repost it, by default, already agree with it. Nobody is getting enlightened.
2. It makes people feel like they've done something worthwhile without actually doing anything worthwhile.

[sodon.livejournal.com]

I hope it was this comment that gave rise to the 'edit', and not mine. Not as though I like the list. But I don't like seeing people say one thing to make me happy (or not say), unless they have actually changed their mind. So that wasn't my intent.

[collie13.livejournal.com]

What does "nvm" mean, and why did you delete it? If you're worried about people's reactions, put it behind an lj-cut, but I don't think it deserved deletion. It raised some excellent points.

[yotogi.livejournal.com]

It means never mind.

[collie13.livejournal.com]

Ah, thank you, Ian. I'm sorry to realize Jonathan feels that way.