Politics: One Town's War on Gay TeensI read this article yesterday, which is perhaps the most comprehensive article about what's been happening in the Anoka-Hennepin school district I've read so far
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We tell them that it gets better. Hang on, you'll graduate, it will get better. The problem is, I think that the people who say that forget how our sense of time changes from that age to ours. Four years? I can do that standing on my head, but back then, well a year was a full 14th of my life, and more like a 12th or 11th of what I could remember. A year was an eternity in practice, even if I knew intellectually that it would pass. A day was so much longer then...
Everyone should be loved and accepted for who they are. Period. The end.
I have a tough time understanding how anyone can feel that being gay is "contagious" without having been tempted themselves. How do they think it works? Fairy dust?
I'm straight. I've simply not felt tempted, because that's not me, in spite of the fact that I was a tomboy whose girlhood ambition was to grow up to be a little boy. Just... ummm... no. And no matter how nicely you asked, I wouldn't be tempted, because that's not me. So I don't feel threatened.
That hasn't stopped some people who looked at the way I dressed and moved when I was young telling me I must be gay. Saying this generally makes the uncloseted folk I know laugh, because to them, I simply don't read that way. It never bothered me when the accusation was made, because I knew in my bones they were wrong. Ignorant and wrong. So it was water off a duck's back.
But I was in the majority. I was loved and supported at home. I knew who I was. I could afford to laugh it off.
So many kids lack support at home. So many are still confused as to who they are. So many are discovering that they are not in the majority, not just in issues of gender and sexuality, but in interests, in outlook, in appearance, in ideas. It's a fearful thing not to be "normal" and they feel so alone. They feel that it makes them "wrong" and bad.
As adults we have learned, if we have any perceptiveness and wisdom, that it is those who are unusual, who are not "normal" that have a gift, that have something unique and wonderful to give the world. Utterly "normal" is utterly boring, with nothing new or valuable to contribute.
I hope that the Anoka-Hennepin district learns that before more of their beautiful children die of the pain of not being "normal".
Everyone should be loved and accepted for who they are. Period. The end.
I have a tough time understanding how anyone can feel that being gay is "contagious" without having been tempted themselves. How do they think it works? Fairy dust?
I'm straight. I've simply not felt tempted, because that's not me, in spite of the fact that I was a tomboy whose girlhood ambition was to grow up to be a little boy. Just... ummm... no. And no matter how nicely you asked, I wouldn't be tempted, because that's not me. So I don't feel threatened.
That hasn't stopped some people who looked at the way I dressed and moved when I was young telling me I must be gay. Saying this generally makes the uncloseted folk I know laugh, because to them, I simply don't read that way. It never bothered me when the accusation was made, because I knew in my bones they were wrong. Ignorant and wrong. So it was water off a duck's back.
But I was in the majority. I was loved and supported at home. I knew who I was. I could afford to laugh it off.
So many kids lack support at home. So many are still confused as to who they are. So many are discovering that they are not in the majority, not just in issues of gender and sexuality, but in interests, in outlook, in appearance, in ideas. It's a fearful thing not to be "normal" and they feel so alone. They feel that it makes them "wrong" and bad.
As adults we have learned, if we have any perceptiveness and wisdom, that it is those who are unusual, who are not "normal" that have a gift, that have something unique and wonderful to give the world. Utterly "normal" is utterly boring, with nothing new or valuable to contribute.
I hope that the Anoka-Hennepin district learns that before more of their beautiful children die of the pain of not being "normal".
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