Sunday, November 1, 2009
LGBT
In the novel Deliver Us From Evie by M.E. Kerr we as readers are faced with the dilemma of dealing with the main character "coming out" of the closet. Some people may think that there is nothing wrong with "coming out" that it is a natural part of life. On the other hand, there are those who think that homosexuality is wrong and unnatural. Write a couple of short paragraphs, drawing from personal experience (if applicable), and explain how that made you feel, any questions you had, and how were they answered. If nothing like this has ever happened to you, then please write a couple of paragraphs on what you would do if you wanted to "come out" or if your best friend was "coming out"
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My aunt is gay, and I didn't know until I was 13 or 14. There was a time before I knew of her sexuality when my mom asked me if I was checking out boys or something along those lines. Being the brat that I was, I responded with something like, "No, mom, I was checking out the girls." Later on my mom told me that I hurt my aunt's feelings and then she told me she was gay and explained everything to me. It didn't bother me it all, and I felt really bad for making comments that would hurt her feelings.
ReplyDeleteAnother struggle my brother and I had was saying the word gay around my aunt. It is kind of a generational thing to say "That's gay" meaning "That's uncool". And we said it all the time, but tried to refrain when we were around my aunt. But there were always those slip ups. It really embarrassed me, but I justified my use of the word as not meaning homosexual but stupid or not cool. But I realized later that by saying that it meant stupid was actually saying that I thought that gay people were stupid, which was the farthest thing from what I thought.
ASHLEY
Well, I came out to my mother when I was 18. I had known I was gay for the cast majority of my life, but I was raised in a conservative Mormon household that certainly did not embrace sexual diversity of any kind. I lived in constant fear of being "found out." I was made fun of at school, and actually changed high schools for a short period of time due to teasing. (I was also a ballet dancer, which didn't make my high school career any easier.) To make matters worse, I didn't know anyone who was gay. I hid my sexuality from everyone, even going so far as making fun of gay people and making homophobic comments.
ReplyDeleteFor anyone who has never done it, I can say in complete honestly, without any reservations, that coming out is one of the hardest things a person can ever endure. I grew up in an anti-gay household. I grew up hearing stories (second-hand) about people being disowned and kicked out for being gay. I had convinced myself that everyone would hate me, hate me for something over which I had neither control nor choice. At one point in the coming out conversation with my mother she said, "I would rather you had taken a gun and shot me than tell me this." She has come a LONG way since then and actually has no recollection of saying that. I, however, will never forget it. Lesbian and gay teens are among the highest at-risk groups for suicide. If teens (or even younger) could be taught to accept instead of fear, to embrace instead of hate, then no one would need a "safe space" or a teacher to whom they can go. Everyone will just BE, and be accepted for everything they are and everything they can offer.
"Our first rule, in forming our socialist government, is to shoot all the gays." These are words spoken by students in a group government project at my Lutheran high school. The teacher of this class shook his head in disapproval, but did nothing to reprimand the students for such criminal behavior. Being gay at a lutheran high school was as common as the flesh eating disease. In my lutheran schooling, students who were gay were expelled. And the few that weren't expelled pretended to be something they weren't and were forced to hide it. My family always told me that homosexuality is a sin- and those who committed such acts of immoral soddam and gomorrah sins were bound for hell.
ReplyDeleteIn the religious constructs that I grew up in, I remember what it was like to hide everything...to keep it buried...to be ashamed of myself...to be afraid of what everyone would think...and this is how I entered my first year of college- my first year outside of a religious institution. Coming out was perhaps the hardest thing I had or will ever have to do. And I still await the day when I have to tell my parents and family members that I am everything they have hated for so long. To live in a world where sexual orientation classifies a person as "weird" and "sinful" is not easy. The fact that people think sexual orientation is a choice is quite ignorant...if the choice was between staying depressed my entire life, because of an unacceptable societal norm, and living truthfully, then I wonder where the true "sin" truly lies.