The passing of Prop 8 has incited so many emotions in LGBT people and supporters. For me there was disbelief, then I was pissed the fuck off, then depressed. But now I’m hopeful. People are being more vocal than ever about their support of LGBT people, and even though equality was rescinded last week, I think we can definitely get there again in a few years.
As much as I support the continued efforts of protesting prop 8, I worry that some may go too far. There is still so much anger over this, and as much as it may be righteous anger, it can be dangerous when combined with a huge group of people who agree with you. Please don’t take it too far by protesting inside churches and temples, or stopping people from entering them. This is a serious affront to churchgoers and it will not do anything to make them understand our cause. We need to take the high road.
I don’t want to write about rage, but I have certainly felt it this past week. I felt it most when the girl I am dating — who has never dated a girl before — collapsed in her car and cried after the Prop 8 rally. She wondered aloud if we wouldn’t make more progress by just crying rather than yelling and being angry. I’ve wondered this a lot myself. Is it in part our anger and our frustration that adds to their anger and judgment? -Tegan Quin
We can’t fight hate with hate. Don’t give them fuel to preach about how immoral we are. We need to show them how human we are, and how it’s all about love.
I told my friend! I told my friend. Itoldmyfriend I toldmyfriend. Breathe damn you, breathe!
It was a little more awkward than I was hoping for, but I’m still very glad I finally did it. Once I mentally slapped myself enough and made myself just say it, “I think I’m gay,” it totally felt like an out of body experience. My mouth was on autopilot and my mind was…I don’t know…I felt like I was completely absorbed in watching her, trying to gauge her reaction.
She was surprised but supportive. I kind of got the feeling that she’s not convinced of how I feel. Or that she’s not convinced that I know how I feel. When I talked about my lifelong disinterest in guys she said something like ‘sometimes people just haven’t met the right person.’ I don’t think I was communicating myself that well. It was still hard for me to talk about my feelings. It always has been. So I think I understand where she’s coming from, but I think she just needs time to get used to it.
I haven’t felt an immediate weight off my chest feeling, but I feel way less tense. Seriously. Like all of today and last night I’d been freaking out and worried and I couldn’t fall asleep until about 4am.
I watched the movie “I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry” with my family tonight. It was kind of awkward…and I guess revealing in a way. When the son was tapdancing and acting all effeminate my mom asked “How can the son be gay when his dad is straight?” I laughed a little and asked her where gay people came from then. She said from having two moms. Sigh. Sometimes I wonder if my parents ever suspect me of being a lesbian. I get self-conscious even. Do I look like a lesbian? My posture? The way I walk? From what my mom said, I’m thinking they have no idea.
Then the part came where Jessica Biel is in her underwear. I think she is very pretty, but I’m not really attracted to her. My mom started saying that she doesn’t find Jessica Biel attractive. Then to illustrate her point she rewound the part. And we watched it again. I was kind of LOLing inside at the irony of the situation. Of my mom condemning gayness yet now, if I was attracted to Jessica Biel, well it would help me to ogle. (haha, dad..he was like ‘wait rewind it again?’) Then my aunt had enough of the gayness and was like ‘why are you even looking at her? Girls aren’t supposed to do that.’ Correct me if I’m wrong, but straight girls look too, right? I mean looking doesn’t necessarily mean you’re attracted. Like, “oh, she has a nice body.” Or, “my, what interesting wall coverings you have.”
Sometimes I wonder if my aunt is gay. People say that some of the most vehement homophobes are closeted themselves. I’ve never known her to have any boyfriends and she’s not really looking for love. Maybe she’s got really high standards or maybe she doesn’t feel a spark with guys. Just sometimes I think…the lady doth protesteth too much.
Anyways, here’s the kicker. My mom says, “Don’t you know i’m half lesbian? I used to have crushes on girls when I was in school.” I don’t know…I wasn’t that surprised. She’d told me before that she had little fixations on pretty and nice girls where she wished she was their friend or she wished she could be like them. I think she just got standard “girl-crushes.” I could be wrong of course, maybe she really is bi. But just…judging from intolerant or ignorant things she’s said, I think she is straight.
If she is bi, I think it might make it even harder for her to accept me if/when I come out to her. She might think that she knows how I feel, and that I could just choose to love a guy and suppress attractions to girls. If she is straight, well, it’s still pretty tough. She could dismiss same-sex attractions as just admiring other girls.
I’ve been feeling so much negativity regarding gay marriage (and homosexuality in general) today. This morning some neighbors-I think they’re Mormons, came by my house and wanted to talk to my mom about Prop 8. They went outside to talk but I listened in… My mom was saying that “she’s all for giving people rights but you have to draw the line somewhere.” This kind of hurt me, but it also made me angry. I hate this “us vs. them” mentality. LGBT people are everywhere and all kinds of things; sexual orientation is just one aspect of a person’s identity. It shouldn’t matter so much to people and it shouldn’t be used to divide and dehumanize.
Another thing about what my mom said… I’m sure lots of people felt that way when blacks and women were given the right to vote, or when the ban on inter-racial marriage was deemed unconstitutional. My mom makes me so angry sometimes…she is unapologetically racist and sometimes religiously prejudiced too but I think I (and a decade or so of living in CA) have helped make her more open minded. I keep trying to tell her that prejudice is just never okay.
I guess the reason I brought up the fact that the people going door to door were Mormons is because my mom has said that she doesn’t like Mormons. She said that “they only help their own” because at one of her past jobs Mormon people kept unfairly promoting and helping out other Mormons. But hey, she can get all chummy with them to diss gay people. I guess my point is that people can find things in common with everyone. How beautiful is that? All kinds of people can dislike gays, or Mexicans, or people who eat rice with ketchup, or puppies, in harmony! In all seriousness though, this is why I find prejudice so ridiculous. How can you hate people before you even get to know them?
Later, when I was watching the Olympics with my family, this commercial came on (only it just ended with the “what if you couldn’t marry the person you love?” shot). My aunt remarked that the commercial was “so annoying,” and I asked why, because I hadn’t seen it before. She just said “because it’s for gay marriage”. Which kind of annoyed me. Because so what? The way she responded to it just felt like maybe the commercial made her question her anti-gay stance a little. Maybe it intrigued her and after finding out that it was for gay marriage rights she felt betrayed. My aunt is like my mom, but more prejudiced (I try to convert her to open-mindedness too, man it’s tough being me =P).
During dinner my mom brought up Prop 8 and they (my mom, dad, and aunt) all started agreeing with each other how gay marriage will degrade society’s morality. I just kept quiet this time because I was getting kind of weary of thinking about it literally all day (I tend to dwell on stuff). My mom pointed out that I supported gay marriage and tried to joke that it was because I’m gay. I gotta say, my heart jumped a little at that. I didn’t deny it though, I just kept eating and watching TV.
I want to debate homosexuality with them in earnest. I have talked about it a few times but I always try to be all nonchalant. I’m afraid of debating it at length and in detail because I think they will suspect me of being gay.
I almost came out to my best friend today. I was so nervous the whole day, but I never really knew when to say it. We hung out with some guy friends then later watched TV at her house. We didn’t have a lot of time alone though, ’cause her mom came home soon after we did.
I’ve also been wondering if I should tell her I’m bi or a lesbian. I’m really still as confused as ever. Some days I feel completely gay, some days I don’t want to think about relationships *at all*, some days I even feel straight. Then I thought, why don’t I just tell her just that, all that I’ve been feeling? That I might be bi, I might be gay, that I’m still confused. I don’t know why I have such a hard time saying what’s really on my mind. A lot of times I don’t say exactly what I’m thinking, I say some pre-crafted answer that I think will fit in better with what people want to hear. I’m trying to stop this pattern, but it’s kind of complicated because a lot of times I have trouble explaining my thoughts, so I guess I’m afraid of fumbling around with words when I could just give an easy, not-quite-right answer.
I do trust my friend. I think she would be very understanding. I guess the right time won’t come and I’ve just got to do it before I chicken out. I want to tell her before we both leave for college. The next time we hang out alone, I’ll try again. Just..”Hey, I’ve got something to tell you..”
On the trip my mom and I visited with relatives and friends, some of whom my mom hadn’t seen in almost twenty years. This made her nostalgic but she also started talking about what things are going to be like in another twenty years, when I have my own daughter. She also lamented that one of my cousins is still single and in her mid-thirties, and told me how worried she would be if I ended up the same way. And just like that, just when I’d started to think that everything can be alright, all of my anxiety came back.
Our mother-daughter relationship would never be the same. I think in the future I may get the courage and strength to come out and endure a short ostracizing. But I feel like I so need their approval and love…I don’t know how long it would take for them to accept me. I fear that they wouldn’t love me as much, I guess. Most of all, I think I fear for what it would do to them. My parents are worriers. They think that my views and actions are their responsibility. So i’m worried about what the stress of this would do to them. They’re already feeling the bodily effects of getting older.
The next morning we went to a church and lit prayer candles (it was a very pretty and ornate church, but I don’t remember the name of it). I sort of surprised myself. After all that renewed anxiety about myself probably being a lesbian, I did not pray to turn straight. I guess I didn’t really think it would work, but more than that, wishing to be different felt wrong. I prayed to kick ass academically in college, to figure myself out, and to find acceptance and love.
Anyone who’s had homosexual feelings knows the fear and confusion that comes with exploring their sexuality and coming out. Well, here’s my story so far.
I used to be very religious; I was in the youth ministry group after going through confirmation and everything. So when I started feeling these things and suspecting I was gay, I felt very ashamed and scared. I was confused because I didn’t know how to change my feelings, how to be any other way than what I was. I prayed so hard to just be straight, to just be normal. My church taught that homosexuals should pray for God to like…fix them and in the meantime try to suppress all of those feelings. Before I knew I was this way myself, I never thought homosexuals were bad people. Still, while I could accept it in other people, it’s been so much harder to accept it in myself. After a while I got a little angry at God for creating me this way. But now I don’t think God ever left me or condemned me. All I ever felt was my own shame for going against what had been taught to me by the church, so that wasn’t his fault. I don’t feel guilty now, but I still feel scared about what my family will think. I don’t know anyone in my (quite large) extended family who is gay, and I know my parents are anti-gay.
When I brought up gay marriage to them when it was legalized in CA, my brothers supported it because they aren’t religious and said the church shouldn’t interfere with the state. My mom, who is religious, said that she was worried that we weren’t bothered by the sinning and how God would punish the state or something. I’m sorry. The whole eye-rolling teenager thing is cliched and all but sometimes it is warranted. I’m just glad that my brothers were open-minded and accepting of it. I think the world could use a lot more tolerance like that. But I’m still not sure how they feel about gay people. We’re not very close.
Although I think most of my friends would not disown me over this, it would undoubtedly change our relationships, and I’m scared of that. Would they shy away from physical affection? I think of them as nothing more or less than sisters. One friend I know would be weirded out a lot. I was talking to her yesterday about a friend of mine. She asked me if my friend was bi and when I said yes she expressed her disgust. She basically acted like my friend was a freak. I don’t really understand her homophobia though, because she is not really religious or highly scrupled. Is she genuinely grossed out by the prospect of same-sex couples? Are any gay people out there grossed out by straight couple PDA’s? Is this just a function of her not being used to it and being closed-minded?
Concrete Reverie 