tw: homophobia in families, tw: for homophobic harassment, tw: depression
I toyed coming out to the rest of my family.
Or just. You know. Nothing big and showy. Maybe I'd update my facebook status as interested in women and let it get around from there. When my family goes dancing (lol we are such a stereotypical Mexican family the amount of times we go salsa dancing in a huge herd), and I'm drinking and happy and relaxed, I sometimes let things slip to my cousins. It's things you don't even think about but when I'm sobered up I sometimes live in anxiety I didn't act "straight" enough. That's not what this post is specifically about, but there's some of the context.
Then I woke up to this text this morning:
Today in the Blade (AN: our local paper) there was a story about 2 soldiers. Thats not all. The pic wz of 2 male soldiers kissing while one had his legs wrapped around the others waist. Im going to call the Blade about this disturbing pic because my our faith doesnt condone any of this in anyway. We have to speak out and let the Blade know that this pic is against Gods Word. I am going to call and email them. If u agree with me I ask if others do the same. Im not asking for a discussion I just am asking for others to speak out, although there may be some who disagree. The world is pushing this in our Christian walk and we must speak out
My aunt wasn't the creator of this message. But she forwarded it.
Here was the picture in question:
The fact that this man is a hero doesn't matter to the message senders. The fact that what I am getting most strongly from this picture
1) This man has been separated from everything his boyfriend represents (home, family, comfort) and it was to fight overseas to protect something he believed in, even if he never saw the faces of those people he believed he was protecting (I have huge issues with my country and its military, but this shows me a soldier who isn't pissing on corpses.). He's been away SO DAMN LONG because of that his first reaction seeing him is to leap and completely wrap himself around him. He does it tight and deep. He never wants to let his loved one go or go away again. He is a human going finally I'm home.
2) His civilian love, in blue jeans like blue collars, was waiting there like every waiting military wife or husband. He's been here in the "normal world," but not quite in it. They're a military lover/spouse, and half of them is always elsewhere, wondering and worrying. Here he takes his other half in, you're here, I'm whole again too just like the "traditional" families in this picture's background.
-- completely misses them. This soldier battling to LIVE comes home and these people want to bring the battlefield that is just being yourself. All because one of them doesn't have the opposite cisexual, "God-given" genitalia (gender stereotypes are another distressing point bagnewsnotes brings here).
Normally I'm good. Normally I don't let this bother me. The world is a shit place, the grass is green, etc. But I had been thinking JUST A LITTLE about letting more people know, and every now and then I get blind sided by what feels like a slap in the face. Because "being different" isn't just that. For people who identify outside of cisexual, heteronormative "lifestyles" there is a battle. It's fighting what feels like every second of every day not to give in again and HATE YOURSELF too, and try to squeeze yourself into that small heteronormative ideal you're too big and too differently shaped to fit. It's fucking exhausting, and for me, I just wasn't ready for this, I didn't even have time to wake up and subconsciously begin to repress my identity as a queer woman the way I've been conditioned to since birth. I didn't have time to wash my face and look in the mirror and, as a severely depressed person, coach myself on being normal. Take my pills to be functional. Take my other pill to mute my brain that tries to tell me to kill myself. I didn't get to do that. I just got hit on a bunch of different levels. So there I was in bed this morning, still half-dreaming, my cat curled against my arm making protesting noises against me moving, and I'm staring at this message from my family.
So I burst into tears right there.
I don't know who I'm more hurt by. The creator of the message, my aunt for sending it, my aunt for believing it, or me. For not getting my wall up fast enough. For believing that little bit that I could expect more. That I could want more and maybe have more. I remember I CAN'T even list my facebook status (if I wanted to) as interested in women, because of all the background checks employment does now. My current employer most definitely wouldn't approve. My manager and coworkers would support me, but the owner is a huge bigot. If she saw it, I would never have been hired. I could be fired if she found out even now. I dropped out of my second university because the Catholic environment was so stifling I couldn't even talk to the damn guidance counselor without feeling that judgement. That subtext into the session that I was wrong, God needed to "fix" me, etc.
Now I get from my close knit family that I'm still an outcast. My aunt doesn't even KNOW I'm gay, but this feels worse. I'm seeing what she really thinks without a filter of her love for me and it's hateful. She's a chill person, she's not a foaming at the mouth bigot. But she sees it and thinks "mmhmmm, that aint right" in that way of hers, and that casual dismissal (which IS hatred no matter how chill) shot down to my heart.
I contemplated just not saying anything as usual, but some part of me just couldn't do that this time. I texted back to my aunt not to send me these types of messages and that I loved her. I kept my emotions out of it, I didn't project my wealth of identity issues and insecurities into it. Short, sweet and simple right?
Wrong. I accidentally sent it to the ENTIRE chain developing around this message since the Blade's article barely a DAY ago. And my simple request has landed me phone calls and text messages that I don't even want to go into. I just thank God (ironically or unironically? I haven't decided) my voice mail is still the default recording that only repeats the number they reached. After the first two, I'm just going to start deleting voice mails I get today from numbers I don't know right off the bat.
I'm still not actively threatened against my life, I'm not being dragged out into the street and I'm still in a comfortable little home with my dad. I still have my grandma. I still have my job. So basically I'm still in a privileged problem? I'm a queer poc in a religious family in a religious town in a religious country in a religious world, but I'm trying to keep perspective that there are still people out there suffering so much more than me. These hateful assholes will retarget their rage to someone else who calls them out eventually. It's scary how thank I am they don't know I'm gay, so far I'm just a stained, faceless sheep tainting their flock.
But these harassing texts and voice mails have me torn between pissing me off and just making me want to crawl back into bed with a bottle, toss out my pills, and never come out into this shitty world again.
tw: homophobia in families, tw: for homophobic harassment, tw: depression
Or just. You know. Nothing big and showy. Maybe I'd update my facebook status as interested in women and let it get around from there. When my family goes dancing (lol we are such a stereotypical Mexican family the amount of times we go salsa dancing in a huge herd), and I'm drinking and happy and relaxed, I sometimes let things slip to my cousins. It's things you don't even think about but when I'm sobered up I sometimes live in anxiety I didn't act "straight" enough. That's not what this post is specifically about, but there's some of the context.
Then I woke up to this text this morning:
Today in the Blade (AN: our local paper) there was a story about 2 soldiers. Thats not all. The pic wz of 2 male soldiers kissing while one had his legs wrapped around the others waist. Im going to call the Blade about this disturbing pic because my our faith doesnt condone any of this in anyway. We have to speak out and let the Blade know that this pic is against Gods Word. I am going to call and email them. If u agree with me I ask if others do the same. Im not asking for a discussion I just am asking for others to speak out, although there may be some who disagree. The world is pushing this in our Christian walk and we must speak out
My aunt wasn't the creator of this message. But she forwarded it.
Here was the picture in question:
The fact that this man is a hero doesn't matter to the message senders. The fact that what I am getting most strongly from this picture
1) This man has been separated from everything his boyfriend represents (home, family, comfort) and it was to fight overseas to protect something he believed in, even if he never saw the faces of those people he believed he was protecting (I have huge issues with my country and its military, but this shows me a soldier who isn't pissing on corpses.). He's been away SO DAMN LONG because of that his first reaction seeing him is to leap and completely wrap himself around him. He does it tight and deep. He never wants to let his loved one go or go away again. He is a human going finally I'm home.
2) His civilian love, in blue jeans like blue collars, was waiting there like every waiting military wife or husband. He's been here in the "normal world," but not quite in it. They're a military lover/spouse, and half of them is always elsewhere, wondering and worrying. Here he takes his other half in, you're here, I'm whole again too just like the "traditional" families in this picture's background.
-- completely misses them. This soldier battling to LIVE comes home and these people want to bring the battlefield that is just being yourself. All because one of them doesn't have the opposite cisexual, "God-given" genitalia (gender stereotypes are another distressing point bagnewsnotes brings here).
Normally I'm good. Normally I don't let this bother me. The world is a shit place, the grass is green, etc. But I had been thinking JUST A LITTLE about letting more people know, and every now and then I get blind sided by what feels like a slap in the face. Because "being different" isn't just that. For people who identify outside of cisexual, heteronormative "lifestyles" there is a battle. It's fighting what feels like every second of every day not to give in again and HATE YOURSELF too, and try to squeeze yourself into that small heteronormative ideal you're too big and too differently shaped to fit. It's fucking exhausting, and for me, I just wasn't ready for this, I didn't even have time to wake up and subconsciously begin to repress my identity as a queer woman the way I've been conditioned to since birth. I didn't have time to wash my face and look in the mirror and, as a severely depressed person, coach myself on being normal. Take my pills to be functional. Take my other pill to mute my brain that tries to tell me to kill myself. I didn't get to do that. I just got hit on a bunch of different levels. So there I was in bed this morning, still half-dreaming, my cat curled against my arm making protesting noises against me moving, and I'm staring at this message from my family.
So I burst into tears right there.
I don't know who I'm more hurt by. The creator of the message, my aunt for sending it, my aunt for believing it, or me. For not getting my wall up fast enough. For believing that little bit that I could expect more. That I could want more and maybe have more. I remember I CAN'T even list my facebook status (if I wanted to) as interested in women, because of all the background checks employment does now. My current employer most definitely wouldn't approve. My manager and coworkers would support me, but the owner is a huge bigot. If she saw it, I would never have been hired. I could be fired if she found out even now. I dropped out of my second university because the Catholic environment was so stifling I couldn't even talk to the damn guidance counselor without feeling that judgement. That subtext into the session that I was wrong, God needed to "fix" me, etc.
Now I get from my close knit family that I'm still an outcast. My aunt doesn't even KNOW I'm gay, but this feels worse. I'm seeing what she really thinks without a filter of her love for me and it's hateful. She's a chill person, she's not a foaming at the mouth bigot. But she sees it and thinks "mmhmmm, that aint right" in that way of hers, and that casual dismissal (which IS hatred no matter how chill) shot down to my heart.
I contemplated just not saying anything as usual, but some part of me just couldn't do that this time. I texted back to my aunt not to send me these types of messages and that I loved her. I kept my emotions out of it, I didn't project my wealth of identity issues and insecurities into it. Short, sweet and simple right?
Wrong. I accidentally sent it to the ENTIRE chain developing around this message since the Blade's article barely a DAY ago. And my simple request has landed me phone calls and text messages that I don't even want to go into. I just thank God (ironically or unironically? I haven't decided) my voice mail is still the default recording that only repeats the number they reached. After the first two, I'm just going to start deleting voice mails I get today from numbers I don't know right off the bat.
I'm still not actively threatened against my life, I'm not being dragged out into the street and I'm still in a comfortable little home with my dad. I still have my grandma. I still have my job. So basically I'm still in a privileged problem? I'm a queer poc in a religious family in a religious town in a religious country in a religious world, but I'm trying to keep perspective that there are still people out there suffering so much more than me. These hateful assholes will retarget their rage to someone else who calls them out eventually. It's scary how thank I am they don't know I'm gay, so far I'm just a stained, faceless sheep tainting their flock.
But these harassing texts and voice mails have me torn between pissing me off and just making me want to crawl back into bed with a bottle, toss out my pills, and never come out into this shitty world again.
tw: homophobia in families, tw: for homophobic harassment, tw: depression