Homophobia
Homophobia and You: They're people too! Stop the hate and spread the love!


*I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

*I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

*I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

*We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

*I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

*I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.

*I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.

*I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

*We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

*I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

*I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

*I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

*I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

*I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

*I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

*I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

*I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I did not have to always deal with society hating me.

*I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

*I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

*I am the person who is afraid of telling his loving Christian parents he loves another male.

Re-post this if you believe homophobia is wrong. Please do your part to end it.

***

My comment on Kyou's journal, where I originally found this:

I'm so scared of a few of these things.. But I loved the ones about the parents, because this is right, it's not just the ones who are gay/lesbian/transsexual/etc. that are affected. Parents lose their children, and some children who live with gay families love their parents and are scared of being taken away.

And the services like the paramedics and domestic-violence ones.. I bet those are based on true stories. Not only is it sad that our world just can't accept things like this... it's pathetic.

This is the entire reason why I am teaching my children to be open-minded about absolutely everything, even if I'm not, sometimes. We are all human, and we all made judgements and mistakes... but these listed aren't mistakes, they're errors on the other person's part just because the person in question has a different preference.

I read an article about whether being gay was a choice or genetics, and he said that it didn't even matter, because it wasn't an issue of morality, it was an issue of whether you liked vanilla or chocolate ice cream. It's just a preference, like how some people prefer blacks or Asians as being 'hot'. Do we condemn them? No. And we shouldn't. But we also shouldn't condemn people for living and thinking and having the same freedom of choice/preference as the rest of us.

I'm scared of:

*I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.
(I'm so scared of my parents knowing, even though I know they're not really homophobic... It's still a fear I have in me. Imagine how scared someone with homophobic parents would be...)

*I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.
(If I were dying, my last wish would be to see Musha-chan and all of my friends. If by chance we are together at the time... I couldn't bear not being able to see her just because we're lovers.)

*I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.
*I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.
(I'm worried about getting hurt or possibly killed just because I'm a lesbian. I've gotten made fun of, by someone I didn't even know.)

*I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.
(I'm scared of having my own children taken away from me... That should be quite an obvious one.)

*I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I did not have to always deal with society hating me.
(It might be my paranoia, but I'll also have to deal with this once everyone finds out about myself and Musha-chan.)

*I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

I really hope people think about this. Next time you say, "Oh, that's gay!" think about who you might be referring to.