Now I will tackle one more issue, gay people and bullying. I do not tell people, "look, I sleep with men and you better like it and not say a word about it. If you do, you need to go to prison or worse!" If I did, I would be facing multiple attacks daily. So for LGBT to feel that it's ok to wear who they sleep with on their sleeve and not have anything said about it, is a little ridiculous. I had a gay manager that went about what she did and did not make an issue out of who she slept with. We all knew but she wasn't ready to fight anyone who said anything about it, and for that reason to my knowledge, few, if any, said anything. If she had come in saying, "I'm gay now what do you have to say about it? You better flaunt and approve of me or you're screwed up in the head," the outcome would have certainly been different. Bullying has existed for years...but until LGBT...kids just suffered. I'm sure a law will eventually be passed for bullies of LGBT but as for the rest of the ugly, poor, disabled, African American kids, they will be lost in the shuffle and continue to suffer.
--Comment posted on my Facebook wall by a former friend
One of my earliest memories is an image of a man and woman in a brass bed riding down the street. It was a scene from the old TV series Love American Style. Those who remember it might recall that fireworks were used in the opening credits. Of course the big brass bed was the conjugal bed, and the fireworks symbolized orgasmic release. I didn’t understand this when I was five years old, but the iconography of heterosexual sex and romance were already being planted in my mind before I even started school. I’m not complaining about Love American Style. It was a fun show. I liked it. And I don’t think I was too young for it. But since I’m gay, I didn’t exactly relate directly to the heterosexuality on display. It would have been nice if I had seen some gay couples enjoying the comic bliss of romance, but they didn’t show that kind of thing on TV back in the early 70’s. Of course Love American Style was merely the tip of the ice burg. Lots of TV shows, movies, fairytales and stories depicted heterosexual romance and courtship. I knew that my parents were married. I knew that the couple that lived beside us was married. I knew many heterosexual couples were married. And that’s fine. I’m not knocking heterosexuality. I don’t feel as though I was exposed to it too early. I don’t feel I was damaged by it. But I wasn’t being told the full story.
When I was ten or eleven, some of my friends discovered nudie magazines, and they let me look at the ladies with them. Some of the women posed in ways that were quite provocative, not just nude, but highly suggestive. I began to pick up on how certain clues--short shorts, tight blouses, etc.--were meant to convey that a woman might be sexually available. About the same time, I noticed how men indicated that they were out on the make. Some wore tight jeans, stuffed their t-shirts into their back pockets and swaggered about bare-chested. There was something about the facial expressions of these men and women that told me they were searching for special company. And when they found a date, they let everyone know by holding hands, groping and kissing their catch. How could I miss the heterosexual dance? Or the fact that it seemed to have been going on forever?
While in high school, our local cable company offered a porn channel, and for a couple of weeks, it was given to everyone free of charge. Being the curious and hormone driven teenager that I was, I tuned in late at night a few times after my parents had gone to sleep. One scene involved an older woman seducing a teenage boy. She had him strip and then gave him oral sex. Then she had him put his penis inside her vagina after she had inserted a vibrator in her anus. She talked to him and gave him instructions as if he were a small child. She asked him if he could feel the vibrator in her anus providing extra stimulation to his penis while he screwed her. He shook his head yes like a dutiful little boy, and she told him how lucky he was that a real woman who knew how to please a man was taking his virginity.
There was some homosexual porn on that channel, too, but it was fake lesbian porn that had been produced to turn on heterosexual men. One scene was a period piece involving a young girl who was to get married the next day. The girl’s aunt and mother had a secret talk with the girl so that they could tell her about the facts of life. The aunt explained that her soon to be husband’s penis would get hard like a finger and that he would want to put it inside her. When the girl failed to understand, the mother held up the girl’s dress, and the aunt took down her knickers and fingered her until she had an orgasm. Then the mother and aunt took turns going down on the girl.
These images and scenarios were streamed into my bedroom when I was about fourteen. I’m not complaining. We all have our fantasies, and some of them are wild and woolly. And I dind't mind seeing the women either. I think women are beautiful. I just don’t want to have sex with them. In a way, the porn films were instructional. I learned a few things about female anatomy and how women got off. I was curious about those kinds of things. But what bothers me is that while growing up I didn't have the pleasure of seeing two men happily living together, or holding hands or kissing. Where were my role models?
Of course things have changed, and now in certain parts of the country, some gay people are as bold as brass. You might see a bare-chested lesbian on a motorcycle or a gay boy stripped down to his Speedos if you go to a Pride Parade. You might see gay people holding hands and kissing right out in the open if you go to certain neighborhoods in San Francisco, Palm Springs, New York or Key West. Some may make drunken fools of themselves as many heterosexual kids did every single weekend night while I was living in the college town of Morgantown, WV.
My former friend whom I quoted above went to Key West a couple of years ago, and on discovering that I was gay, she felt the need to inform me of all the lurid homosexual shenanigans she saw there--she told me about peeking in at a bar where go-go boys danced in their skivvies on tabletops and about a lesbian who made a couple of passes at her in the street. She told me that “decent” people were put off by such things.
It seems she forgot that there is a so-called gentleman’s club less than twenty miles from her house where young ladies pole dance for those fine, “decent” heterosexual men who live around her. It seems she has forgotten that more than a few of those fine, “decent” heterosexual men can come on a bit too strong after downing a few drinks.
If you don’t like people dancing in suggestive ways in bars with few clothes on, then fine. If you don’t like it when people don’t know when to back off after having had too much to drink, then fine. But if you’re going to hold gay people to a different standard, and suggest that all of us or most of us are always out there partying like the world will end tomorrow, then you’re a bigot.
My former friend also felt the need to tell me that she thought homosexuality was a choice, and that older men or boys seduced young boys into it before they knew what they were getting themselves into. She expressed fear that a pervy older gay man or boy would get hold of her son and “make him go wrong.”
I did my best to explain that being gay wasn’t a choice and that you couldn’t “turn” someone gay. I figured that maybe she was confused about the issue and that she had gotten hold of some bad information. But rather than listening to me, I found out that she was clinging to this idea of choice and recruitment a year later. That’s what bigots do. They ignore the truth and hold onto their negative stereotypes. They’re not really interested in the truth. They’re interested in maintaining the fiction that they’re superior.
The final straw came when my former friend posted the above comment on my Facebook wall. It seemed to me that someone who would say such things is not my friend. Aside from the fact that her statement is absurd, it is devoid of respect or consideration. This is a person who doesn’t care one bit if she hurts me.
I find it ironic that she accused gay people, and I suppose me specifically, of flaunting our sexuality. I’ve known this person since we were in middle school, and she didn’t know I was gay until we were in our forties. And she still wouldn’t know even now if she hadn’t asked me to friend her on Facebook. I saw no reason to tell her. We now live on opposite sides of the country. However, I didn't want to deny her friend request. She had been good to me in many ways in the past. But I think of my Facebook wall as my space, so I decided if she wanted to be there, then she was going to see the gay related news stories I read and pictures of men I think are attractive. I guess she wasn't expecting me to be so open and direct there, but if she thinks I’m flaunting it after thirty years of discretion, then whatever.
As for her claim that she has always been discrete and that she could expect to be attacked if she were open about her sexuality… Please. This person told me about the man she was dating back when we were in high school. She told me about her subsequent boyfriends after that. And nearly everyone who knows her is aware of the fact that she’s married and has a son. She may as well have STRAIGHT tattooed on her forehead.
You really find out who your friends are when you come out to them. Some don’t care. Some are shocked at first but come around in time. And others show their true homophobic colors. I never felt free to be myself back in the conservative little town where I grew up. That is where my former friend lives to this day. If she ever wondered why I never had a girlfriend or got married, she certainly never asked. I imagine that she did suspect, but when she was confronted with the truth, she seemed to lose the ability to remain civil toward me. I guess she thought that if I was “that way” I should just keep it to myself even on my Facebook wall and when she was telling me how “decent” straight people found my tribe disgusting when they let their hair down in the handful of spots across the country where we go to be free. Never mind that straight people are allowed to do the exact same things everywhere, even in our small conservative hometown. I guess she was willing to be my friend so long as she could say whatever she wanted while I stayed silent and remembered my place. Um…no thanks.
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A bigot is someone who jumps to negative conclusions about a group based on incomplete or faulty information and ignores evidence that would contradict those negative conclusions.
A revolting bigot is someone who jumps to still more negative conclusions about a group based on incomplete or faulty information after their first negative conclusions were proven to be questionable.
A revolting bigoted jackass is someone who does all of the above while posing as a friend of a member of the maligned group.
They're going to think poorly of you no matter what you do because that's their goal. They can't go on thinking they're better than you unless they do hold onto their bigotry, so you may as well flaunt it.
This was made two years after I was born. I find it to be chilling. I grew up listening to Mike Wallace. He is a legend in broadcast journalism. To hear him talk with utter confidence and conviction about people like me as if we are dangerous animals incapable of love, totally other, hardly even human, is profoundly disturbing. People like me had to live in fear of exposure. Many lost their jobs, their families, everything. Some were sent to prison and got longer sentences than violent criminals. Homosexuality was still considered a mental disorder. And this was the reality when I was born, and although I'm no spring chicken, I'm also not that old. This CBS News Report is less than a half century old. We may have a long way to go, but we sure have made a lot of progress.
I thank those pushy LGBT people and their straight allies who said no to the bigots back when hardly anyone was on their side. Thank you for standing up for yourselves. Thank you for not waiting until every last bat shit crazy person was convinced that you were part of humanity. Thank you for raising some hell and making homophobes know if they wanted to hold onto their hate and fear, they would have to defend it. Thank you for going out on a limb and risking your lives and the respect of your families and friends. I am so glad that the hate and fear exhibited in this report did not go unchallenged. Thank you for not giving the jerks spreading that fear and hate excuses. The homophobia on display in this report is mindless and without excuse. Thank you for making Mike Wallace ashamed of his role in this report. People like me can't love? How dare anyone make an assumption like that without bothering to find out if it's true or not.
I always find it rather sad and ridiculous when I hear gay people talk about how flamboyant gays, naked gays, flaunting gays are somehow holding gay rights back. When bigots point to such people, it is merely an attempt to justify their own revolting bigotry. There are all kinds of LGBT people. Always have been. Always will be. Just as there are all kinds of straight people. Look around. There are plenty of flamboyant, naked, flaunting straight people out there. I am of the opinion that such people, LGBT and straight, are just as much worthy of respect as anyone else. And I think the gay rights movement is grounded in the idea that people are people, and they should be allowed to decide for themselves how they want to live so long as they’re not harming others. I have absolutely no interest in trading in heterosexism imposed on us in large measure by Christianists for the arbitrary dress codes and strictures of some other class of self-proclaimed defenders of decency. A Buttoned-down shirt and a buttoned-down life does not make one morally superior.
Gingrich won in South Carolina, bastion of Christian fundamentalism and home of Bob Jones University. I'm not surprised after seeing that clip from the recent debate down there showing the audience giving Newt a standing ovation when he claimed the moderator was just short of despicable for daring to ask him about his second wife's claim that he had asked her for an open marriage.
The man has been married three times. He cheated on his first wife, and then divorced her when she was diagnosed with a serious illness. He cheated on his second wife and divorced her when she was diagnosed with a serious illness. Now he's on wife number three. While he was cheating on his second wife back in the 90's, he proclaimed in public that President Clinton was morally unfit to serve as president because he cheated on his wife and lied about it. And during this campaign, he's been talking about "family values" and how people like me are a threat to marriage and family.
I've suspected for quite a while that all of this "family values" crap was just an excuse for judging others. Those who preach it rarely apply the same strict and unforgiving standards to themselves.
What a bunch of sanctimonious, lying, bigoted hypocrites Christianists are. They use their religion to attack those they don't like and call it their morality while they embrace and engage in the very things they say they're against.
Just to be clear, I don’t care if someone cheats on their spouse, girlfriend or boyfriend, or if they’ve had sex with six people or a hundred. That’s their business. It’s just that it’s bad enough when self-proclaimed moral leaders such as Christianists and politicians who pander to them stand up and claim that I and people like me are a threat to everything good and decent--that’s a fucking lie on top of being degrading and insulting--but when you have someone like Gingrich who doesn’t even come close to practicing what he preaches being held up by people who are the most judgmental, the most intolerant as their standard-bearer… The hefty dose of hypocrisy on top of the oppression is just too much.
I studied the German-American theologian and philosopher Paul Tillich while in college. Tillich didn't believe in Biblical inerrancy, so he could be critical of ideas and views expressed in the Bible. One of the things he felt fell short was the Gold Rule. He said it shouldn't be "love your neighbor as you would yourself." Rather it should be "love your neighbor as your neighbor would be loved." In other words, love should take into account the fact that the one being loved is a distinct individual separate from yourself whose needs and point of view may be different from your own.
Martin Buber, the Austrian Jewish philosopher, wrote about the distinction between the I-thou relationship and the I-it relationship. In the I-thou relationship the individuals recognize one another as subjects where each individual respects the integrity and the mystery of the other. In other words each person allows the other to unfold naturally, reveal themselves in their own time rather than one placing their own prejudices and expectations onto the other. When you do limit the other person to your understanding of them, the relationship becomes objectified. It becomes an I-it relationship.
You often see this stark difference in the relationships between parents and children, even parents and their adult children. Parents often have a hard time accepting that their children don’t necessarily reflect their expectations of them and that they have matured into distinct human beings that the parent doesn’t own or control. The result is a constant battle of wills.
It has been my experience that many fundamentalist Christians get caught up in dogma, and they define the world according to that dogma. And they have a hard time seeing people as the individuals that they are. To a lot of them, you are what you should be according to their dogma, and if you don’t measure up to their dogma, you should be fixed so that you fit their dogma. For instance, if you're LGBT, they might believe that you shouldn't be LGBT because they have made up their mind that there is no place in this world for such a thing, so they set about to fix you or erase you. And they often have the same attitude in regard to the rest of their dogma. You are to believe what they believe. If you haven't "accepted Christ as your personal savior" then they have a tendency to want you to do that. And they want to hear that you have come around to their position, and they want you to use their vocabulary when you finally accept their beliefs.
I do not believe this is love even though fundamentalist Christians rationalize what they do by calling it love. It is infantile to expect the world around you and the people in it to reflect what's going on inside of your head. And to use your power over others to try to force them to reflect back to you the assumptions you’ve made about them is abusive. This is tyranny. It is not love.
A couple of years ago I had a conversation with a friend, a Christian friend, a person who is active in his church. The conversation was about a natural disaster in some remote spot in the world, I think South America. I don’t remember the exact nature of the disaster or where it took place. What I remember was that my friend had been in contact via the internet with someone from this place who also happened to belong to his denomination. He talked about how coming into contact with this person had inspired him to speak to members of his church, urging them to send money or to help this person in whatever way they could. He repeatedly emphasized that this was a “brother in Christ” who was in need. Now I understand that we most readily relate to people who are most like ourselves. This is natural and understandable. However, I also think that it is something that could cloud our judgment, lead us to treat others who are not like ourselves unfairly. But in my life I have run into Christians who make it clear that they think fellow Christians are more important than those who are not Christian. It’s not that they just more readily relate to other Christians and naturally gravitate toward them, they elevate their needs above others, and they give themselves cover for doing this by claiming they and fellow Christians are the heroes of the world.
The same friend who was galvanized into action when he learned a “brother in Christ” was in need also said something else that has stuck with me, something that represents an attitude that I’ve noticed in other Christians. He told me that sometimes he walks down the street in his hometown, and he looks at the various people going into the shops, the bank, the post office, and he feels pride because he knows something they don’t, “the truth”--meaning his religious beliefs. And apparently he feels a great deal of satisfaction in sharing “the truth” with others. That attitude has always struck me as especially self-serving.
Of course we all can be self-centered and full of ourselves. And to expect Christians to be any better is unfair. They are, after all, only human. The trouble is, so many have used their faith as a way of blinding themselves of this all too human impulse within themselves. And many enable other Christians to do the same. “It’s alright for you not to pay any attention to what these people are saying. You have ‘the truth’ and they don’t.”
Of course not all Christians are so self-indulgent. For instance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the 20th century German theologian who became involved in the Nazi resistance movement in the 1930’s, said in regards to what was happening to the Jews in his country that one must do more than simply "bandage the victims under the wheel, but jam the spoke in the wheel itself." He and others plotted to assassinate Adolf Hitler. I expect as a Christian, Bonhoeffer did not dismiss the intrinsic worth of Hitler as a fellow human being, but given the situation, he felt it was important to stop Hitler by whatever means necessary in order to save the lives of those who were being killed by his regime. He did not entertain the idea that he could convince Hitler of the error of his ways. He did not try to “build a bridge” to Hitler. Sadly, Bonhoeffer was caught by the Nazis and executed. He gave his life in an attempt to save the Jews who were being killed in Germany, men, women and children who were not his “brothers and sisters in Christ” and would likely never be.
Of course Alan Chambers is not Hitler. And in the larger scheme of things, the situation we face may not be as dire as the one Jews faced in Nazi Germany. But Alan Chambers is harming people, seriously harming people. And it’s not at all a stretch to say he is helping to create and sustain a milieu that leads to the death of some LGBT people, including LGBT youth. And I don’t see too many Christians trying to jam the spoke of the homophobic wheel that Alan Chambers is a part of. I don’t expect anyone to attempt to assassinate Alan Chambers or any other homophobic Christianist, but I see few who are willing to stand up and say this is wrong, people are getting hurt, seriously hurt, and some are dying, no matter what you believe, no matter if you think of yourself as a Christian or not, you must stop harming these people. Even on the part of Christians who accept LGBT people as they are, I see way too much deference to fellow Christians.
As someone who isn’t religious, someone who doesn’t belong to a church, what I saw on that stage wasn’t a group of people who were primarily concerned with the harm that’s being done to others and coming up with a way of jamming the spoke of the wheel that’s causing that harm. What I saw was a kind of unseemly chumminess and an overriding need to maintain cohesion, an esprit de corps within “the club.” For instance, when John Smid spoke, he admitted that a turning point for him was going among gay Christians and discovering that many of them loved Jesus and felt it was important to tell others about the love of Jesus. That sent a chill down my spin. Is he saying that it would be okay to harm LGBT people if they didn’t share his religious beliefs? Did Dietrich Bonhoeffer wait until the Jews of Germany loved Jesus to attempt to jam the spoke of the wheel that was killing them? Did he wait for confirmation of this?
I personally think that love is love, compassion is compassion, concern is concern, empathy is empathy. I don’t think there’s a premium on love that’s defined as “Jesus love.” I think the love and compassion a person feels in a remote part of India, a person who may only have a dim understanding of what Christianity is, if any understanding at all, is just as legitimate as the love of a Christian.
I think the best way for us all to get along on this planet is for each of us to let others lead their own lives according to their own lights as much as possible. Of course I have my own way of thinking, my own way of looking at things, and of course I gravitate toward those who are likeminded. I have my favorites. But I try to remember that the thing that binds us is bigger than my personal beliefs and that I don’t have all the answers. I’m sure I fail at this, but I try to remember it.
I have no desire to convince someone like Alan Chambers that he should believe as I believe or live as I would have him live. Do I think he’s living a life of self-deception? Yes. Do I think he would be happier if he accepted his sexual orientation and lived as an openly gay man? Yes. But I recognize that Alan Chamber’s life belongs to him. He can do with it as he pleases. I only wish he would afford me and other LGBT people the same respect. It is that wheel that he’s a part of, that wheel that would crush the spirit if not the lives of other LGBT people that I want to see jammed. I don’t want to interfere with Alan Chamber’s personal life or personal beliefs. I don’t need to belong to his club. Frankly, I don’t want to be in his club. Is Alan Chambers a victim of the very Christianist homophobic wheel that he’s become a significant part of? I think so. But I think it would have been far less likely that Alan Chambers would have succumbed to internalized homophobia if Christians in our society were more concerned with loving for the sake of loving rather than banning together and convincing one another that they can save the world by foisting their religious beliefs onto the rest of us.
I would love to see a well made documentary about the survivors of so-called reparative and “ex-gay” therapy. I would like to see some of them interviewed so that they can tell their stories in their own words. I would like the process explained in detail. I would like mental health professionals interviewed. I would like to hear them explain exactly how this is not mainstream therapy, how there is no scientific basis for the methodology, how it is not peer reviewed or held up to any kind of professional scrutiny, and I would like them to explain how a person could be harmed by this, how spending your life being coerced into making a change that really isn’t possible can damage a person, how you might end up feeling betrayed by your family, your church, and an organization that promised to help you change but only managed to make you feel shame, and took your money while doing it. I would not want the documentary to focus on what is and is not sin. I certainly wouldn’t want to hear what someone like Alan Chambers thinks is sin. In my opinion, the man is an idiot, and his opinions are worthless. When he talks, all I hear are two-bit rationalizations for his abhorrent behavior. I also don’t want “their” side given equal weight for the sake of some foolish quest for balance. We’ve already heard enough from the “gay=sin”, “change is possible” crowd. They don’t need yet another platform to spew their lies.
I don’t know much about filmmaking, or how much money it would cost, or who would be interested in directing it, but I think such a documentary, if it was well made and compelling, could be a very useful tool in educating the general public as well as family, friends and ministers who might be thinking about recommending (or mandating) ex-gay therapy.
Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling explores the anxiety people feel when they put into action what they have come to accept on faith. Tillich talked about doubt being an integral part of faith so much that many wondered if he was really an atheist. But I don’t see much fear and trembling on the part of Christianists. For them it’s all about certainty. It seems to me that they closely associate their opinions and ideas of God with God. Some don’t even seem capable of understanding that there might be a difference.
I find the idea of reaching into someone else’s head with the intention of manipulating their dreams, thoughts and fantasies to be alarming. I think if anything should give one pause, that would be it. And to blithely do that to a pubescent kid… Explicit sexual thoughts and fantasies are new to them, and they might find them to be frightening to some degree, so it might be traumatic to have some judgmental, know-it-all jerk come in and claim that some of those thoughts are evil. Has it ever occurred to these arrogant people who would impose their ridged, unyeilding sexual ethics on our youth that maybe nature knows what it’s doing in planting those “sinful, lustful” thoughts in the minds of pubescent kids? Maybe it’s an important part of the maturation process. Maybe it’s one of the ways young people come to know that they’re separate from their families with dreams and desires of their own and that they need to start preparing to go out into the world to fulfill those dreams and desires.
I don’t think Christianists care much about maturation and independence. I think their goal is to keep people emotionally dependent, locked in a state of puberty, always worried that they might have a “dirty” thought, always seeking the approval of authority figures who have set themselves up as the lawgivers, the ones who speak for God.
Sexual urges are very powerful. And we see people getting in trouble because of their sexual urges all the time--unwanted pregnancies, the lies and manipulations of seducers who don’t care about the feelings of their partners so long as they get what they want, cheating that leads to broken homes and ruined friendships, saying “yes” when there’s no condoms around and being told six months later that you’re now positive. No wonder some people want to believe there’s some kind of rule book that will protect us all from harm. No wonder some are quick to believe that any sex that’s not approved of by the self-appointed messengers of God is an addiction, something evil in and of itself, something that must be avoided at all costs even if the core of their being is telling them the lawgivers are wrong.
We have heard so much from the Christian Church, and Christianists in particular, about how we should be afraid of sex. But maybe we should be worried about authority, too--the desire to surrender our individuality to it, as well as the flip side of that, the desire to pretend we have more knowledge than we actually do. How many wars have been unnecessarily fought, how many people have been unnecessarily killed, how many dreams have been delayed, cast aside, lost, how many have gone through their whole lives half awake because some of us are too quick to stand up and claim we know more than we do, while others are too quick to follow blustering fools because they’re too afraid of the uncertainty, the fear and trembling, the doubt that comes with thinking for themselves or because their courage to face those things was ripped from them at an impressionable age or during a period of vulnerability?
Thankfully, I have never had to endure so-called reparative therapy, but I am an adult survivor of childhood abuse. In fact, I was in a psychiatric hospital several times in my twenties and I was placed in a special ward for survivors of abuse.
As a child, I was taught that what I feel and what I think don’t matter. Scenes in movies that show adults speaking to children with great care and offering comfort and understanding will remind me that no one ever did that for me. My mother loved me, but she suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. We didn’t have heart to heart conversations. I found out early on, if I told my mother something personal, what I got back was crazy and sometimes scary. My father was concerned for my welfare, but he was not a nurturing person, and he was wrapped up in fundamentalist dogma. And he was often not even there. I learned early on that society was disapproving of sissy boys and boys who didn’t fit a certain stereotypical view of masculinity. Later I learned that society disapproved of boys who like boys. I was bullied at school, and those in authority there seemed indifferent to the hurtful names, the marginalization, and the threats of violence. Home was not a safe place. Home didn’t provide comfort. Home was chaos and condemnation. My older sister was desperate for approval and acknowledgement from our damaged parents, too, and because of the deficit, she turned to sibling rivalry. She belittled and berated me constantly, and my parents ignored this. When I was twelve, I performed a striptease for a neighbor boy. I already knew I was gay at that point, and I wanted the boy to like me. I didn’t know what I was doing or how to go about finding a boy who was interested in me, so I acted out in this foolish and embarrassing manner. My father caught us, and I’ll never forget the look of shame on his face. He was disgusted with me. And to add insult to injury, he told my sister about the incident. For years she regularly humiliated me by bringing the incident up…out of the blue, whenever she felt like making me feel like shit. I was terrified that someone would find out my secret.
Even though it might be irrational, I grew to believe that I couldn’t trust most people and that my inner thoughts and feelings must be protected. In my 20’s, I was diagnosed with PTSD and social phobia. I suffered from severe anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. I am more stable than I was in my twenties, but to this day I have never had a proper boyfriend, never been on a proper date. All I have are memories of one night stands and the unrequited love I had for a young man I knew in college. I never found the nerve to tell him what I felt for him, and we were close for just one year before he graduated and moved away. I don’t work. I’ve been on disability social security since the early 90’s. I don’t drive. I don’t leave the house much, and when I do, I avoid talking to people. If there’s a knock on the door, I often don’t answer it. I have caller ID and an answering machine, and I never answer the phone unless I know who is calling. The internet is my primary social outlet, and I can literally go a year without having a real face to face conversation with anyone.
Alan Chambers publicly and repeatedly states that there is something wrong with LGBT people, and that God will not accept them until they reject their feelings and identity, and he’s highly praised for this, labeled “Man of the Year” and given money for spreading the lies, while I live in a roach infested government subsidized apartment in a town I don’t like, in a neighborhood that is described as a ghetto. I see things like this, and it drives me further into my shell and reinforces the belief that has been ingrained in some primitive part of my brain that I can not trust people, I can not talk to people, I can not tell.
