thereishopeforlgbtqpeople-blog

[thereishopeforlgbtqpeople-blog]

Open Letter to Every Person with Homophobic Attitudes and Beliefs

Dear Everyone.

I consider myself a citizen of the world, and just like everybody else, I too have a story of my own. Today, at 21 years of age, I decided I was going to share mine with you, in order to illustrate one possible way of perceiving homophobic bullying as a victim and in hope of making at least one person realize how wrong it is to discriminate against someone solely based on their sexual orientation.

I would like to start off by highlighting a couple of important facts regarding sexual orientation and homophobic bullying in general. Usually, we discuss three categories of sexual orientation: heterosexual, bisexual and homosexual. An individual is born the way they are, sexual orientation is a stable pattern, and it is in no way acquired from the (social) environment. It is a really important part of every person’s life because it defines the group of people within which they are most likely to find a fulfilling and satisfying romantic relationship, which is a crucial component of personal identity for a large number of people. Homophobic bullying is based on an individual’s actual or perceived sexual orientation.

For as long as I can remember, I have thought about the word gay (in my mother tongue) as something wrong, shameful, humiliating, prohibited and unworthy of existence, so naturally, when I started to realize that at some point I was probably going to identify myself with it (because boys got my head spinning, and not girls), I entered a period of my life marked with self-disgust, self-loathing, horror and panic. Now, I am going to describe it in detail from beginning to end, but before that, I would like to point out one thing. I am not one of those miraculous, truly inspiring people that made the best out of their hardships by learning and growing strong out of them - I am one of those people whose stories remain buried and not attended to forever, because they are too depressing and crazy for the average person to care about.

It all started as my childhood was drawing to an end. More and more individuals, mainly males, started to call me names, laughing at me, humiliating me and making insulting rhymes about me, mostly. The verbal abuse was constant throughout the years. I don’t exactly remember when was the first time I got physically assaulted, too, but I think I was 10 or 11 - two classmates body-slammed me to the ground and hit me with their belts.Then, at 16, a group of older guys started chasing me in order to beat me, but luckily for me, I was fast enough to escape their rage over my perceived sexual orientation (I’m still “in the closet”, so no one really knows I am gay). At 17, someone threw stones at me. These are just some of the happenings I went through while growing up. Eventually, I stopped going out of my room unless necessary. I was terrified to even go to school, because every day, there were a lot of people on the train or in the hallways and I wasn’t ready for another round of abuse. I rarely, if ever, went to any party. I had no hobbies because I was afraid of meeting new (more) people that might label and bully me.

I never dared to tell my teachers, parents, grandparents or siblings, because I was too afraid they might blame what was happening on me and my way of living which was apparently disclosing my true, negative sexual orientation. That is what I did as well - at first, I tried really hard to become the average male teenager, and when that didn’t help, I started blaming myself for being a “freak”. Every night I cried myself to sleep, praying and wishing from the bottom of my heart the next day I would wake up straight, because that way, all of my problems would go away. I was really disappointed with, if not angry at, God and fate and whatever I thought was what made me the way I was. In the end, it took me a really long time to accept myself and the fact that I was just never going to change. But before I did that, I used to think about the craziest things and ask myself the craziest questions. I used to, for example, look at random people I saw on the street, at school, on social media and think to myself how perfect their lives were and of how lucky they were to be “normal”. Oh, how I wished to be them. Then, I used to have lunch with my relatives and try to asses how many of them would stop talking to me, stop loving me or even hurt me if they found out the truth. The hardest part was being afraid of losing my parents. If someone asked me whether I was gay, I got really offended and asked them how could they think "so little” of me. At some point, I just started to wish something would happen to me so the suffering would finally be over. 

Somehow, with the help of a couple of amazing friends, I managed to accept myself. However, things haven’t got much easier for me. I am still terrified of losing most of my friends and family. I am stressed when I have to walk the streets in my town. I am sad beyond compare when I watch the news and I hear about torture camps for gay people, police officers encouraging families to kill suspected LGB people in their circle for honour, public lynchings of LGBT+ individuals, death sentences and what not. It’s all a bit irrational to me - why would anyone do these horrible things to someone just because of their sexual orientation? And how can they manage to do it? Do they have no conscience or sense of morality?

I beg of you - if you know of someone that is being harassed because of their sexual orientation, help them. Let them know they are not alone. And that there are others with similar stories out there. THEY MATTER, too. Their mental health is priceless, too, just like yours. Act, before it might be too late.

If you are a homophobic bully, then I ask you to consider what I wrote. Please try hard to change your beliefs and attitudes, meet some LGBT+ people or do whatever will make you realize everyone deserves respect and to live freely and peacefully (as long as they’re not hurting others). I implore you. You’re hurting them for nothing. Like me and you, they neither chose to be born nor to be born (and perceived as) gay (or any other sexual orientation). Both things happened naturally and they had no influence over them whatsoever.