Accepted

by Laurel Keller

It took me a while to invite others into my head.  I didn’t want them to know that I was different from them; life as a preteen and an adolescent is hard enough.  I was an awkward, anti-social kid.  My communication skills never seemed to exceed “Fine, and you?” I would end any conversation by lowering my eyes, waiting for the other person to walk away out of pity.  I didn’t need the whole “that kid is gay” thing to add pressure to me, to spew more eyes across my face that would pick apart my every expression.  I got enough of that from mirrors.

When I liked my first girl I was about seven, but I didn’t come out for another nine years.  I wasn’t ready to change the life that I’d built—I didn’t want my friends to think I’d lied to them.  I suppose that I had, but somehow when I announced my sexuality I felt no traces of guilt.  No one punished me for the secret I’d kept.  I have never been persecuted for my sexuality, and I would never expect that kind of treatment.  I carry myself proudly, casually—because that’s what my sexuality is to me.  It’s not a stare or a community or a religion.  Sometimes I even indulge in a public kiss; I forget that there are people who will use my sexuality against me.

My girlfriend cried in my lap the day she told her mother she had a girlfriend.  I can’t imagine being submerged in that kind of coldness by my own mother—that daily, passive taste of rejection.  Being un-accepting serves no purpose; there’s no excuse for being any less than tolerant.  Coming out taught me that I could be the person I wanted, and that if I treated myself with acceptance, my peers most likely would too.  However, there are still exceptions to this rule.  The social stragglers—they’re far behind, clinging to the dead ideals of an exceptionally conservative society. I can’t change these people.  I might not agree with my girlfriend’s mom, but I’m never going to be able to grow wings and reach out to her sympathy.  So instead, I put my lips to the smooth ruffles of my girlfriend’s hair and say, “Your mom loves you.  She just doesn’t understand.”

No, I don’t have any great plans for subduing the conservative populous; never have I aspired to stand out on a pedestal and shout injustices in the street.  No stubborn person would so much as flinch at my words.  If that type of thing worked, then Matthew Sheppard’s story would’ve sent them reeling—a fumbling mess of reformed-intolerants headed for confession.  No, the people that I’m talking about are stone—cold concrete slabs, untouched by time, never moved.  I used to think that it hurt to be so cold.  Now I think they might not even see how they’re restrained by their own opinions.  They’ve grown too accustomed to themselves; they’ve mistaken their opinions for their identities.  Besides, my experiences with these people have done nothing but reveal my underlying cowardice.  It’s beneath a good amount of talk and a general annoyance, but ultimately I’m scared to be disliked for something I can’t change.  It’s terrifying to feel powerless in my ability to be loved.

Helping the gays can’t be achieved through preaching to the ignorant.  It has to be directed at the gay persons themselves—the ones out there giving mind to the grumblings of the intolerants.  I will always make an effort to assure the confused and the wounded that it’s okay to accept yourself.  The way a person is treated doesn’t make them any less deserving of equality.  I want to tell the world, anyone really—I’d step onto a pedestal and shout at the top of my lungs—someone is not weird, foolish, or damned because of their sexuality.  That person is real and deserving of respect.  And I am one, just the same.