Why I Can't Stop Talking About Being Gay!

Recently, someone gay asked me why do I write and talk so much about being gay? After all, he said, we are more than our sexuality. This isn't the first time I have been asked this very same question. My immediate response was I work for Metro DC Parents Family and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG). My organization educates supports and advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth and adults. But here is what is interesting about me doing dedicated work for this organization, if I hadn’t accepted this position; I would still have been comfortable with living in silence never understanding the importance of being 'out' and supporting the youth in our community.

You see, until I moved to DC, I had no thoughts of or any consideration to ‘coming out’. I’m from Virginia, and trust me, there are so many reasons why ‘coming out’ can be detrimental. There are people who are not accepting who would potentially cause tremendous harm to an openly gay individual. I refer to it as the ‘hate state’ for a reason. I grew up in Virginia and I worked in education there for five years. I am a former high school English teacher and although I’m sure my peers may have made assumptions (if you ask my partner she would say I was in deep deep denial that they knew) about my sexuality. Add to that, I’m sure my colleagues noticed that all of the openly gay and questioning students would flock to my class and spend time after school grading papers or just chatting me up, mostly about everything else, but being gay. When I told some of my friends about my openly gay students, some of my friends jokingly warned me about school girl crushes. I laughed with them, but I always reminded them that I have integrity, I am a professional and they are children. Indeed, I was more like a mother to my students. My teaching experience was enriched by these young people and I had mixed emotions about leaving my hometown, but I believe my destiny to become an advocate lead me to work in Washington DC.

Almost three years ago I accepted a position in the English department of a charter high school in DC. Soon the joy of my experiences teaching and mentoring young people was overtaken with sadness and fear. I was visited by this emotion in a very real way. What I saw happening to my young people who were openly identifying as gay, challenging gender stereotypes and questioning their sexuality was disturbing. While I taught students who felt comfortable openly sharing their sexuality with me, there were some who shared this with me in secret, lingering around my desk after class and after school. I witnessed alarming numbers of girls who were forming groups in order to defend themselves against some of the verbal and physical harassment they had been experiencing. I saw young women with internal struggles and no guiding force to listen,hear their cries of pain or advocate for them. Perhaps, my saddest day was to see three young lesbians who came from another high school to ‘battle’ a group of girls from my school sitting handcuffed on the curb in front of our building. I became fearful and sad that some of these young women could potentially find themselves in juvenile corrections, or worse, dead.

Currently, one of my responsibilities at Metro DC PFLAG is to teach LGBTQ Diversity Clubs in two DC high schools. Although the majority of both group’s members are young women who share stories of their struggles at home and in school, I am also sensitive to the young men who need understanding and a comfortable place to be themselves. One of the young men in my group was afraid to go to the boy’s bathroom for fear of an attack because he was openly gay. He used the girl’s bathroom, but when he mentioned this in the group, one of the girls warned him that he could also be harmed there because there were girls who were claiming gender territories and felt he was encroaching upon their space. I even worked with a young lady whose mother gave her a black eye when she 'came out' as a lesbian.

Working with these young people made me start to take inventory of my life. I asked myself, what are the dangers of being a LGBTQ youth or a youth who is ‘perceived’ to be gay simply based on gender stereotypes? How were these gender stereotypes now playing out with these girls engaging in violent acts? How does a transgender youth survive in often violent school settings without support of educated adults? What has to be done to educate our young brothers and sisters and keep them protected from further emotional trauma? And how can I assist them if I am silent?

Just this month a 14 year old boy who was openly gay was murdered in his English class. An 8 year old student in Maryland recently hanged himself because he was being bullied. One of my youth is at this very minute wondering where he is going to sleep, while another is couch surfing because her mother put her out of the house. Perhaps, a young brother is being beaten up by his older brother because he is not masculine enough. Inevitably, some of my youth will make choices that they will later regret. One of them may make a decision to end his/her life.

My point is that some of us have to speak out! Some of us have to work to insure that our youth are not bullied and harassed. Some of us have to answer the challenge of cultivating our youth on how to develop a sense of self-love. Some of us have to be ‘out’ and talk about the disparities among the poor lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth.

Somebody has to let parents know that it is not acceptable to push their child into traffic because they discover that they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or questioning.