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and because of that, these bullying threads speak deeply to me. From a very young age, I vividly understood, I wasn't enough of a man. In PE, as a first grader, my teacher literally would call me names and make fun of my lack of athletic talent (and I surely lacked it). By middle school I literally began to think my name was faggot. My nerdy, bookish ways, my total lack of athletic ability, and my inability to be masculine enough, made everyone assume, correctly, that I was gay. By high school, I just wanted out. I worked my ass off for grades and got a nearly free ride for college. I made it out. But I surely wasn't anything like out and proud. Instead, I just did my best to get by. It took me several years before I could be comfortable with who I am and live as an out and proud man. But even now, when I read these stories. I remember the self hating coward I was back then. I own it, even as I don't like it.
Now as a teacher I try to help others not go through what I did. It takes a long time to get over being told relentlessly that you are worthless. I am not sure what the solution to this is. I know that it will take both the adults and the kids of our schools and the adults outside our school to find it. As long as one political party and half of the adherents of our dominant religion, paint gays as deviant threats to our society who bring plagues with their mere presence, gays will continue to be bullied. As long as the muddled middle stands by and lets it happen, gays will continue to be bullied. As long as our government, even under a Democratic administration and Congress, refuses to let us serve in the military, marry our partners, come as immigrants with our partners, serve in the military, or even give blood gays will be bullied. Until ENDA is passed gay teachers will stay in the closet in the districts where they are most needed to be out and gay kids will continue to be bullied. Kids are dying, and others are being told they are so worthless they may as well die. I could marry a supermodel, cure cancer, and become the next great actor, but I will still be that kid in middle school when I read stories of gay kids killing themselves from being bullied.
I was a self hating coward, I own that, even as I don't like it.
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