Queer Youth
A few weeks ago, I went to a workshop aimed at responding to homophobia in the classroom. It felt really good to be involved in something resembling activism. Considering the rural area I’m in, I guess just being out - being visible - is activism. There was a panel of queer students from a mid and high school not far from where I teach. They spoke about their daily struggle with the overt discrimination, harassment, and physical danger they face everyday. Since I didn’t come out until near the end of college, this wasn’t something I could relate to. To get a real feel for what they experienced, I tried to remember the times I felt really afraid, fear that stemmed directly from me being queer.
I remembered the fear I felt when I woke up during the night in my childhood bedroom to find my dad sitting on a chair between my bed and my door. He was half praying aloud, half talking at me. I had recently come out to my family, and I felt trapped on so many levels. My family had been a mostly-safe haven before. Now I worried about being cut off, about having the car they provided taken away, about the frightening sides of my parents I’d never seen before. What would it be like if I was 5 or 10 years younger?
I remembered the fear I felt walking down a street in Portland with Lukka at my side. There was a man (though in my memories it feels like more that just one) behind us, getting closer. He jeered, questioned genders, spat anti-gay words. I remember some of my instincts - keeping Lukka safe, looking for ways to get away, wondering if it would be a mistake to look behind me, wondering if I could even defend myself. What if this was what it was like to walk down the halls at my high school everyday? What if there were no street lights? No bus stopping conveniently for us to hop on?
I’ve been pretty lucky. Really. Not that those are the extent of my fears, or the extent of my fearful experiences, but I’m OK. Really.