Stranger in a strange land
What is it
like growing up and knowing that you are gay? Well, did you read "Stranger in a
Strange Land"? You feel alienated from everyone from the very beginning. Many
remember having crushes as early as 3rd grade. Oh, we knew we were not thinking
like we were "supposed" to think. We learn the word QUEER very early. Remember
the song from South Pacific titled "You've got to be carefully taught"? We are
taught from an early age what is acceptable and unacceptable and to hate that
which is unacceptable. Queer is unacceptable. And if you are queer, you do the
best you can to deny or disclaim any such feelings to yourself and to others.
Here is one such experience:
I did have my crushes in junior high school and I did have a lover in high
school. So imagine going out on dates with the opposite sex on one night and
having a best friend sleep over on the next night. That was how those years went.
I knew I was in love with my best friend but it was never spoken. We(my friend)
pretended that it was someone of the opposite sex. Yea, really! Oh, yes denial,
denial, denial.
In college, I dated and was miserable. Oh, I met a lot of wonderful people of
the opposite sex but I was never in love. I only fall in love with my same sex.
I took all the psychology I could to find out what was wrong with me, to try to
undo it. I could not undo it. I love the other gender. I have great friends of
the opposite gender. I have a wonderful relationship with both parents. I even
tried having sex with the opposite sex- many times. Now for those of you that
thinks that that is all there is to it, think again. Trust me. You can have sex
with anyone if you choose but with whom do you fall in love? It was never to be.
Thank God I spared some poor soul a short marriage with me. So I graduated
college and started working.
I met my second lover that next year. We stayed together for 20 years even
though it was all but over after that first two years. There was no way to meet
gay people in the small town I came from so we stayed together. We might have
broken up much earlier but who would we have lived with?
The life of the average young person who is gay is normally very traumatic. This
is because while most teenagers test the waters of independence during these
years, most gay teenagers either announce their gayness or they withdraw and get
depressed. Many of the ones that tell their parents get thrown out or hijacked
to some religious clinic that will supposedly will fix them. Some of the ones
that get depressed commit suicide. Some tuck it in and deny, deny, deny. Some
marry to avoid the "awful" truth only to find that it just doesn't go away.
Why do you think that you see so much "acting out" from the gay community? Could
it be that there is a little hostility about all this abuse? And I mean ABUSE.
You betcha!
Now I ask you is this a good thing? Hasn't this gone just far enough? What if
there had been no hate for gays? What if it was understood that just like some
people are born that are different from the norm in other ways as in unusual
blood types some people are gay?
Can we never learn?
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