“How come all the Cool Chicks are Lesbians”
“Leessbeeannn. Lesbean. All the cool chicks are Lesbians,” My little niece read. I was going through some boxes of jewellery when I heard her reading it out. She can read quite well and takes pride in the ability. She was holding onto a little rainbow pin that I first got from Ian after I came out as a bi at university. I looked down at it and smiled. She looked down at it and smiled too, admiring my handful of pins that I had stored in with my jewellery. “That’s one of my favourite pins, I didn’t make that one, it was a gift from my friend” I told her. “That can go with the rest of my jewellery that I’m taking home.” She smiled down at the little rainbow pin and read it again and again. “How come all the cool chicks are Lesbians!” She looked up at me smiling happily. We continued to look through boxes as I got my stuff organized. The phrase stayed with her as she played through some of my select things. She held onto it for hours, every once in a while, rereading it out loud. Eventually, as I was packing up things, she decided to run it upstairs and tell grandpa about the pin she snitched from me. She came back down the stairs and came up to me with her hands on her hips. “Its not allowed, papa said it was inappropriate.” She said matter-of-factly. I just rolled my eyes. Anything along an lgbt topic and he would tell me to shut it. The kids started a new game of tossing back and forth the new word. “How come all grandmas are lesbians!” “All the hotdogs are lesbians too!” “How come men are all lesbians!” the giggled as they went back and forth. My nephew stopping for a second in mock horror at the last phrase before breaking down into giggles for the next five minutes. Then as they were calming down she finally asked me, “What is a lesbian?” “Its not a bad word, papa was being a goof, lesbian is just a type of girl, or what a girl can be, like girls can be tomboys.” I said. “Oh.” She said, confused by my dull answer, and ran off to play with her brother. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Hours later after spending the day hanging out with the kids they headed home. Given the chance to think I thought out loud :“Crap, she held onto that pin for hours, I never got it back, the little thief must have taken it.” I laughed a bit. “Oh, no, he threw it out.” was the reply from my mom in the living room. “What!?” I said, standing there a little stupefied. “He threw it out,” my mom repeated. “Of course I did,” he said, “That’s completely inappropriate to give a kid.” I was still a bit stunned and grasping for words. “She took it from me obviously, she liked it, I didn’t give it to her.” I said as I hurried into the kitchen and pulled out the trash. Having to dig through it I felt humiliated. The pin was surrounded by grime and grease. Thrown away and discarded. “Ian gave it to me years ago.” I felt the heat and frustration rise to my face. “What the hell dad! Seriously, throwing something of mine out like that. And why is it inappropriate? Why would you say that to them? Like it’s a bad word? Something that we aren’t allowed to say? Something dirty? Why would you teach them that? That’s what they did you know. After you reacted like that, they came downstairs and tossed it around like it was a new swear word. Don’t you understand what you are doing?.” I could tell he was fed up and going to stand by it. I felt tears start to run down my cheeks. “Fuck Christmas. Fuck Family. I cant stand this.” I left the room, grabbed my stuff and left. I managed to be okay in the car ride home with my brother but the moment I got to my door I was in tears again. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the last couple months my mothers been amazing. She finds out about some of the bad policies or issues that lgbt people have to deal with and are fighting right now and tells them to me, asking if I heard the latest news on it. My brother amazes me every time with an understanding and acceptance that really fills me with happiness. Sometimes my mother says something and my bro rolls his eyes at her and tells her how its stupid because of such and such and tells her how it is. She listens to him, they talk about it and she gets told by him about how she has some silly stereotypes. She laughs it out and I just listen with honour that my little brother is telling her how she believes too much TV. Though there are stereotypes, all it seems to take is some talking about it to fix things and they have both realized so much on their own it really helps me feel at home. I have been involved in the LGBT collective on campus for 5 years. I am one of the most out people in Brandon and proud to be. I have been working my ass off trying to help people and create a good space and comfortable friends to help people come out and deal with everything that comes with it. I have helped numerous people come out, and shared a lot of tears and shared a lot of happiness they felt about the reactions of their friends and loved ones. I’ve been told numerous painful stories and joyful ones, the painful ones always stick with me. Dreams of being a teacher crushed as they watched their schools parents petition to remove a gay teacher from their school until he finally couldn’t take the harassment anymore and quit. Loosing your best friends to coming out cause they cant deal with what other people might think. Another girls parent finding out that her daughter is dating this ‘lesbian’ girl from school and getting the teachers and principal on board for a rule of ‘the lesbian’ not being able to come within three feet of any other girl throughout high school. Enforced by everyone. Being told by your mother that you are disgusting. Hearing your brother talk about how he bashed another fags face in today and being afraid that one day he will find out about you too. I went through years of harassment. Years of bullying, of teasing. I was the fucking dyke. The stupid butch. The beast. Even my friends would hurt and tease me. I would walk home without fear, despite the things people would say to me. They would tell me they would teach me all sorts of things how it was suppose to be, to teach me how to like cock, telling me how they were going to cut me, how they were going to slice me open, telling me how they were going to fuck me up. They pulled out a knife, and I told them how it was a good thing they brought one cause it gave them a better chance to win the fight. I was filled with frustration, it fuelled me. I felt so caged, so backed in a corner and threatened that I could lash out with words of my own. Bless my stupidity, because intimidation saved me. No one stabbed me, no one beat me, they feared that a knife wouldn’t stop me from hitting them right back. They feared my spirit would hold up. Years of girls putting my clothes in the garbage’s during gym. Of taking my binders and pencils and throwing them in the cafeteria garbage. Of Fucking Butch or Stupid Dyke being scrawled on everything I owned the minute I left to go to the bathroom. Of pop being poured in my hair. Of being shoved around in the hallways. All the rocks. All the spit balls. All the snowballs. All the ice. I spent my high school life as trash. “How come all the cool chicks are lesbians” In a sea of hate. Disgust. Of being the punch line of every joke. What does the word butch or dyke feel like to you? This one time its positive. This one time there’s a shred of acceptance. There’s flattery. Pride is such a relief, such a happy time to reclaim ourselves. You say its biased? You say its telling girls that its only cool to be lesbians? In what world? Our world surrounds marriage, something a huge percentage of people feel is wrong between women. The media and world surrounds straight people dating and meeting the perfect man. Straight people having families. Which parent bothers to say the positive things about LGBT people or their struggles when explaining anything to their kids. How much hate is out there. How much teasing? How many derogative things to call us. So why, in this world full of negativity is this a threat? One shining gem of acceptance through all the painful years. We all hear the shit being said. We hear people calling each other fucking faggots, butches, cock suckers, carpet munchers, fudge packers, fairies, or a fucking queer. Its something said to straight people to tease them, to taunt them, saying they are the creeps of society. Just like us. People stay silent, they wont talk, so we get to live in a world dominated by the only people speaking being the ones who hate us so much that they cant shut up about it. That’s why I couldn’t hold back in the end, that’s what caused me to say something. Everytime you tell me that I have to find different friends. Cause mine are not normal, cause mine are all queers(by the way, they aren’t, it was never a requirement). Everytime you tell me that that is the end of discussion cause I mentioned that I liked girls. All those times you cut me off from talking, the times you turned up the music to train me that the minute I mention something LGBT that you wont listen. Everytime you told me to shut up about it and any issues I had to deal with involving work or discrimination. Its who I am. Its who I date. It’s the discrimination I face and fight. Its my job. Its my thesis. Its my friends. I would rather say nothing than have to censor my entire life. This that you are putting me through, weighs down on me. Everytime you do it.
1 Comment
C-Rae
12/19/2010 11:40:06 am
Wait! Did that happen today? At your family breadkfast? Tommorow can come and make you supper or better yet, you can come to my place and we'll bake something.
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Kris
I am a Bi+Trans geeky student who is all about Gaming, Music, Drawing, Writing, Anime, Comic books, and Web comics. Categories
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