Long time, no see. :)
So the other day, I was at my town's middle school. The 8th Grade was doing a presentation to start their community service projects and the principal asked me to come and talk about my involvement with my high school's GSA. I agreed and so the principal sent me a list of questions that I would be asked during the assembly, one of which was, "Why is this work important to you?"
Now, the answer that immediately came to mind was that I'm gay. Which, you know, is also kinda the obvious answer. But I also didn't want to make the students uncomfortable by just being like, "Oh. And by the way..." so I e-mailed the principal, explaining that while I didn't want to make the students uncomfortable, I thought it would be really powerful if I came out and they were able to see that kids are out and okay with being out at the high school. I added that as a middle school student, I would have loved to know that there were kids at the high school that were out.
Her response was simply to tell me that she thought my instinct about making the students uncomfortable was right.
I though that I would be okay with that. But, as it turns out, I wasn't. I went to the assembly and explained that the reason the GSA is so important to me is because the struggle for gay rights goes beyond marriage. It's about people being okay with themselves. More than that, it's about people loving themselves for exactly who they are, regardless of what other people think. I told the 8th graders that if anyone tries to tell you that you are bad or wrong, then they're wrong. The only person that needs to be comfortable with who you are is you.
And that's all I said.
Don't worry; the irony is not lost on me. Here I am, going on and on about the virtues of being yourself, yet at that very presentation, I wasn't allowed to be myself. I have no problems with being gay. I love being gay. It's just who I am. I have no choice in the matter. Yet, on the off-chance that some 8th grader might not like it, I have to be somebody I'm not. I had to lie to a few hundred people about who I am.
And, yeah, you can say that I'm overreacting. But think about it this way:
What if suddenly it was decided that blondes were not as good as brunettes? So blondes bought wigs and nobody knew who was blonde and who wasn't, because everyone wore a brunette wig. Now, this sounds completely ridiculous.
But let's go further:
Let's say that eventually, people started to wise up and realize that this whole wig thing was a pain in the ass and, really, who gives a shit what color your hair is anyways? And so local middle schools started doing presentations and whatnot and eventually a blonde person was asked to come speak about why blonde rights are important.
And she was really excited and thought this would be a great opportunity for her to be herself and show other blonde people through example that it's okay to be blonde. But then, the principal of that school told her she should wear her wig and that she shouldn't tell anybody she was blonde.
If this were to ever happen, people would flip a shit. People would flip multiple shits. So many shits would be flipped that we'd have to leave the planet because of the smell. But, take this exact same situation and substitute sexuality for hair color, and suddenly this scenario makes perfect sense to millions of people.
Maybe gay people should just wear brunette wigs from now on.
