Day Five: Sexuality
It's sometimes daunting, being queer in the United States. It seems there's never a moment to rest. We fight and fight for marriage equality, only to have to pause in our celebrations as legislators try and take the right away again. As gay characters become more prominent on television, as queer actors win awards, as celebrities speak out about LGBT rights, it feels like we can barely take a moment to smile before we're inundated with homophobic legislation and attitudes. It's exhausting enough to make anyone want to bury her head in the sand and live her own life in an isolated bubble.
It might be hard to focus on the good in those few breaths between disasters, but it's out there and we can't let the good slide to the wayside while we try to keep the walls from falling down around us. Yes, we need to keep fighting, but we need to remember why we're fighting. We're doing this so we can hold our girlfriends' hands in public with no fear. We're doing it so we can turn on the teevee and see characters whose lives reflect our own. We're doing it so that our nieces and daughters and granddaughters won't think twice about reading a book with queer protagonists or learning about gay role models in school. We're doing it so those same nieces and daughters and granddaughters won't be ridiculed if they find they don't fit into traditional heterosexual roles.
The "It Gets Better" project has been a rather controversial movement in the past few months, but I strongly believe that the sentiment is a good one. My life isn't perfect and I can't say that I never feel the sting of homophobic comments directed my way, but it's better than it was eleven years ago, when I came out of the closet, and I firmly believe that it will be better eleven years from now, when my hypothetical future children are attending school and talking about their two mommies. In order to get to this future, we have to keep fighting, keep loving, and keep enjoying what's around us. We need to make the future better for those coming after us and remind them that there's a future worth fighting for by celebrating what we have.
The Point Foundation is an organization that supplies scholarships, mentoring, and support to LGBT college students who may not have otherwise had the chance to attend college due to harassment, familial rejection, or assault, among other things. Astraea Lesbian Foundation For Justice provides support for lesbian-led LGBT organizations both in the US and internationally. First we need to educate, than we need to act, remembering all the while that we need to enjoy ourselves along the way.