So yesterday was International Coming Out Day. It's a great day to think about how lucky we are here in Canada to be able to come out without facing being thrown in prison. But we still have a long way to go. Today is the anniversary of Matthew Shepard's murder. For those of you who don't know the story of Matthew Shepard, he was a young man who was tortured to death by his peers for being gay. This happened 14 years ago. His murder was a stepping stone in hate crime laws in the U.S. In 2009, after an eleven-year struggle to have violence against LGBTTQ* people recognized as a hate crime, President Obama signed it into law--known as the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.
I first heard the story of Matthew Shepard when I was in grade 11. My teacher played us the CBC radio coverage of it. At the time I was pretty far in the closet. The gruesome details of his death hit me very hard and if anything pushed me further into the closet. I was so afraid that if I came out something similar would happen to me. I was positive that at the very least I would be kicked out of my home, and lose most of my friends and my family and most of my friends were very Christian and I had many discussions with them about gay rights. Most of them believed that homosexuals shouldn't be granted the right to marry or adopt children. I look back on that now, and while I think my fear was reasonable, it was perhaps unneeded. I came out after going to University and having put some space between me and my family and my friends. My family was very accepting, and I only had a few friends who chose to no longer be a part of my life. And it still pains me that those people left me, as I was very close to them. It hurts to know that they could have cared for me through so many of my issues like depression and self-harm, that they stood by me and promised to always be there for me, but as soon as they found out I liked women as well as men, they abandoned me. I still feel the loss of these friends, but since then, I've made friends who accept me as I am, and kept close with the friends who said who I love made no difference to them. I can't express in words how grateful I am to have such wonderful people in my life who are a fantastic support network for me. Being involved in a lot of public LGBTTQ* rights, I'm still a little frightened that being so open and public leaves me vulnerable to be physically attacked. I have been verbally attacked about being openly bisexual, and yes, words hurt and bullying is a huge issue. But I've developed a pretty thick skin thanks to high school, and it takes a bit of the sting away. I know I'm not the only one with this fear, and I hope that by the time the next generation comes around--hopefully before that--that fear is completely unnecessary. I hope there will no longer be a need for gay rights movement, because we will be have equal rights and be treated with equality. I hope that coming out will no longer be a big deal. That when a teenager goes on their first date, there won't be the assumption that it's with a person of the opposite sex. That when a person wants to go through transition, they will have the necessary resources and support to do so.
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So I definitely owe you guys a new blog, and I definitely owe you some positives in my life. I feel like all I do on here sometimes is rant and vent. I've realized I need to vent my frustrations every now and then, but I shouldn't be using this blog for that and I should be more positive. I'm also gonna try to be more open. I usually talk about things I'm a little more comfortable with on here. I don't really share the more personal things, and I think I need to work on my trust issues and open up on here more. So in the interest of openness and honestly, there's a few things in my life I should probably discuss
I'm dating an amazing man. It's been about 7 months that we've been officially together now. I can honestly picture spending my life with him, and want it. I can't imagine being this in love with anyone but him. A few months ago, I started taking anti-depressants. It's something I honestly should have done years ago. Now I don't spend the majority of my time hating myself and blaming myself for everything. They're really helping me feel a lot better about everything. I have a few things that I'm really looking forward to this summer. Winnipeg for Ai-kon, a couple weddings, and going to Montreal for a kick-ass music festival. I also went to Winnipeg for Pride last month with 2 of my closest friends, and had a fantastic time. Had a lot of fun running around the exchange district in particular and eating almost nothing but seafood. MP, you have no idea how much I adore you <3. That's pretty much all I have to update for now, so until next time, be good. Hey guys. So I should definitely be studying right now, but I need to rant. I got into a fight with one of my best friends last night and I feel pretty terrible about it. She's been going through a rough time lately and it was really uncool of me to bring up certain things at the time that I did. But the more I think about it, the more I'm realizing that I really can't take full blame for it. I'm gonna quickly go over what happened and then go over my thoughts on it. We'll call my friend "Teresa"
Me: Did you hear there's gonna be an election? I'm exited. It'll be the first time I can legally vote. Teresa: Yeah. I knew before everyone was talking about. You know these things when you're a poli-sci student. Me: Jeez, you sound like a hipster douche. "I knew about it before it was popular!" Teresa: You shouldn't use douche in a derogatory manner. It gives a negative connotation to femininity. Me: Fine. You sound like a hipster cumwad. Teresa: You shouldn't use masculine things an insult either. I know you're all feminist and stuff, but that doesn't mean you should put down men. I believe in equal rights. Actually I just call that being human. Believing in equal rights. Me: I'm not one of those feminists. I do all of my essays on how men have issues too and how the gender studies program shouldn't just be always focusing on women's issues. Teresa: Calm down, jeez you're always so uptight. It's not like I called you a radical or something. Me: Yeah, but you always do that. You say something to me that's actually kind of incredibly insulting and accuse me of being something that is basically against everything I believe in. You-- Teresa: I was just joking! How come other people can joke about political stuff but I can't? Me: Because you don't ever sound like you're joking. You say it the same way you say everything else and you sound like you believe it. Maybe if you're joking you should actually change your tone and not say things in a serious tone and act like you're totally serious. Seriously, you do this all the time. Teresa: I do what? Me: every time we hang out you shoot down everything I say and make me feel terrible about myself. And if I ever have an opinion that's different from yours you actually start yelling and screaming about how you're right. You don't actually talk calmly and discuss why you're right. You just yell and scream about how right you are. Teresa: Well maybe if I'm such a bitch you shouldn't hang out with me. And then she stormed out. I called and texted her multiple times and basically just got a big "fuck off" in response. I'm starting to think that maybe it's for the best. I actually have to cheer myself up after hanging out with her because she just shoots down everything I say. I honestly don't even talk around her that much because every time I say anything she just shoots me down and makes me feel horrible. And every few weeks she's say something that's deeply insulting towards me, like she did last night, and I have to be careful to just try and keep quiet and not say anything at all because I know if I try to defend myself at all, she'll just get offended. I have to do this because I have extreme mood swings that she is completely aware of, and knows that they can be triggered by how people around me are acting. But then, while I was trying to calm myself down so I didn't snap at her, she starting going on about how uptight I was and I thought that maybe I should actually talk to her about how she's so negative towards me all the time, and that's why I was "uptight" when she totally insulted me. But I forgot that she's the only person who's allowed to have a mood disorder and freak out at people and have everything be okay afterwards and no one else can ever have a problem with her because why would they? She's perfect and she never asks anything of anyone! She actually has gone on to me about how she always sacrifices so much for her friends and will drop everything for them, but when she needs help she would NEVER ask anyone to sacrifice their time for her. She said this after asking me to stop studying for a test I had the next day and walk over to her house so that she could talk about how much her friends suck and no one cares about her. She refuses to see that people obviously care about her, because I'm not the only person who's dropped everything to go make sure she's okay. I just don't know if I can keep hanging around with someone who makes me feel like shit all the time. I'm tired of everything revolving around her. Ugh. I am in so much pain right now. I recently had my tonsils removed, and despite the painkillers, I'm still in enough pain that I want to break things.
My surgery was in Saskatoon, where my best guy friend lives. I was looking forward to being able to see him and hang out. But that didn't happen. He lives with his grandparents and his psycho ex. His psycho ex hates me because she thinks I'm a threat and I'm gonna make out with him and "steal" him from her. I tried calling and she yelled at me about how I wanted him to go to my grad 3 years ago, and she blocked my number. I can't talk to the person I've been closest with for roughly 7 years because his psycho ex who thinks she still has a chance to get back together with him, thinks I'm gonna be all over him or something. I'm just completely pissed about this. And I'm angry at him for not doing something about it. I haven't talked to him in months. FML. So recovering from surgery, can't talk to my best friend, and on top of that, I was kinda dumped by the girl I've been sort-of seeing. We weren't serious or exclusive or official or anything, but it still hurts. It was a semi-mutual thing, but I did really like her. And she got me rainbow roses. *sigh* Ok. I got most of the whining out of my system now. There's this quote from One Tree Hill that was a big deal in the earlier seasons. "People always leave". That quote is the reason I started to really like the character Peyton Sawyer. I could identify with that. People always leaving, always stabbing me in the back.
I have this fear of people leaving me. Call it abandonment issues or trust issues, whatever. I'm not sure when they first started, just that they intensified throughout high school, particularly in my grade 12 year. But that's a different story for a different time. I've been thinking about this whole trust issue thing a lot lately, and maybe it's because I'm just not the type of person people want to be around. Maybe that's why people always leave. Wow, this sounds a lot more emo than I intended it to. I used to push people away when I felt them getting too close. To a certain degree, I still do, but there are a few people in my life who managed to get through that stage of friendship where I panic and withdraw from people. In fact, I don't think a couple of my friends who are probably the closest to me even went through that stage. It just sort of got by-passed because they were all I had at some point in my life. I'm so terrified of people leaving me, but am I pushing them to that point? That's the main point I'm trying to get at. I try to stay connected with everyone, but maybe I'm not trying hard enough. If one of my friends feels abandon by me, then it's obviously my fault. I'm not trying hard enough to keep up with everyone. I need to work on that. I tend to get pretty absorbed with school and some days I just want to be a hermit. But if my friends are suffering because of that, then obviously that's something I need to work on. I don't want to let someone I care about down. That's really all I can say for now. Maybe I'll do a part 2 later, explain a little bit more or try to make this make more sense. Today was a fun-filled day. I am again up at 4 in the morning because my roommate is snoring. So I might as well be productive as long as I'm doing this nocturnal thing. So here are the events of my day leading up to this moment. This is what you're supposed to talk about on a blog right? I'm kind of treating this as a diary, but with less juicy details. Anyways...
As I stayed up until 9am yesterday (This morning) because...my roommate woke up at 9am...I didn't get up at 10am to get myself down to the mall and get my phone fixed. I instead slept in until 2:30pm. So once I got out of bed and showered I got myself down to said mall much later than I had originally intended. The journey was somewhat interesting... Firstly, you know how it's really awkward when you're walking the same direction as some random person for a long time? Well this guy was walking behind me for like, five blocks, and then when we both arrived at the mall, decided that would be the best time to hit on me. And what was his brilliant pick-up line? "You're hot." Yup. Freakin genius. And let me just say that I am the most awkward person to hit on ever. Ever. So my just as brilliant response was: "Sorry?" and his repetition of "You're hot" (sorry for all the paragraph breaks by the way but I'm sticking to the format I was taught in English class) I managed to stammer through another brilliant response to this, "Ummm....Thank you?" "So what are here for" he asked "I...my phone...needs to get fixed" "Oh so you're going to MTS?" "Yeah...." "Cool...What do you do?" "I'm a student" "Cool...You wanna chill for a bit?" "I'm actually into girls." Yup. That was my oh-so-intelligent way of squirming out of an uncomfortable situation. And techniquely, I didn't lie. I just left out the part where I was also into guys. And it's not like the guy wasn't good looking or anything, he was actually pretty damn hot. But if the best pick-up line you can come up with after following me for five blocks is "You're hot" you are not my type. Seriously, a little creativity would be nice. He kinda seemed like the type who was used to coasting by on his looks. Totally not my type. Anyways, his response to that was; "Oh so I guess we have something in common" "Yeah I guess" I said...and then I walked away. Because I am awkward. I'm gonna leave out my visit with MTS because it would involve a lot of profanities. As soon as I got home from the mall, I went to set up for Games Night. It was a good time. The alcohol flowed, the games were played, there was chatting and merriment all around. Huzzah! This was followed by going to a friends for a few drinks, and the bar for dancing. Dancing was fun....yup..........oh yes....so much fun................................................................................................................................Sorry my thoughts trailed off for a bit there. All you need to know is that I had lots of fun dancing. Have a good one! xoxo |
T-Girl
The one with estrogen. Bisexual, student, poet. Intrigued? Well good thing there's an entire blog for you to read then. Archives
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