Recently, I had the blessing to experience some really great things. As I have said before, I have a fair few friends that are gay. They mean just as much to me as my straight friends but they go through an emotionally internal struggle that even as a straight person, I can never imagine understanding. Straight and gays spend their life trying to figure out who they are, who they want to be, and what life holds for them, but gays struggle with something that is more than that. They struggle with not only coming to terms that they are not what most societies deem worthy of a sexual preference but also coming out to their families and friends. This is a major conflict because there is always a few roads as to how it can go. I've heard accounts of people being removed from their homes, disowned, bullied, etc when they came out. I've heard all the name calling and what those zealots do to them in the name of our loving God. And we have heard stories of friends of friends who have taken their own lives because they were either bullied too much or they feared the reaction of the ones they loved for being homosexual.
Only other gays can truly know what is like for other gays. I won't even try to come close to understanding the torment they go through. Just after I wrote my previous blog, I was sat talking to a friend about that person's experience with coming out. It was difficult for that person because they had tiptoed around it with the parents and sibling. With that person's friends, they knew, they accepted. It was rewarding for them to know, but with the people that mattered the most, it has been hard. I sat here listening to the person pour their heart out to me, it was so heartbreaking because I couldn't understand and all I wanted to do was help but have been too ignorant to know where to start. I think I started in the right place. I told the person, 'Be who you are because YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL just the way you are. Your sexuality isn't what defines you. It is just another element that makes you the best person you are. I love the person you are. You were born to be this person.'
This friend still struggles and in time that person will be ready but his gift to Charlie* was the gift of courage to come out. Charlie is another friend that didn't know his own sexuality. He was confused and just didn't feel the need to make an effort to know until recently. He spent a better part of a year just living. With our other friend's inspiration, Charlie came out to Zack.* Zack has been Charlie's best friend for years and someone he sees as family. It meant a lot to Charlie that Zack accept him. He knows he will still have to come out to his parents and other friends, just Zack, to Charlie, needed to know. Let me confirm some confusion, it is very easy to tell faceless people on the computer you are gay than it is someone you have known physically for years. So, you can understand the position of how I knew the struggle. I was one of the faceless people Charlie was comfortable talking about it to.
Charlie sent Zack a message, via the world famous Facebook, coming out. He continued his chatting with his inspiration to face who he is. A gay man in America. After our friend went to bed, Charlie Skype'd with me. He kept babbling about our friend, I found it cute, but then I asked Charlie, "Are you gay or still bi?" He told me, "I fucking love penis. I am gay." I giggled at the first part and told him I was so proud of him. We continued to talk of his thoughts and feelings. He told me what our beloved friend inspired him to do. Then he got into the grit of how important it was to tell Zack. I never felt so much emotions or heard so much from Charlie in all my life, that I couldn't help but tear up for him because he is such an amazing person. And I wanted this one thing to work out for him. I feared with all my heart that it could go wrong and I prayed to my LOVING God that it worked for Charlie.
Telling Zack could go a few ways; he could end the friendship over ignorance, accept him, or ignore it. Charlie, I think, feared a bit of being first and latter. But in the end, Zack responded to him. He accepted Charlie. More so, he confided to him something that isn't of this topic but still important to him. Finally, Charlie shared with me that Zack made him feel like nothing had changed. That is what is important to any gay person coming out, don't treat them differently. They are human.
In conclusion, experiencing Charlie's first coming out and acceptance has not only warmed my heart and soul to know that being gay isn't a disease. It is an affirmation of love. A man loving another man, a woman loving another woman, a transgender fitting into the correct body and loving their beauty. To witness this again (since I have seen part of it with another friend) is truly a gift. If only we could just make it easy for all gays like Zack did for Charlie.
Thank you, Charlie, for sharing letting me be apart of this journey with you. I love you. The same quote I told our friend that inspired you; it applies to you as well. You are wonderful. I take my stance for homosexuality for you, now, my friend, as well as every gay, lesbian, and transgender in the World. YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL. It gets better.
Rise Against Homophobia with 'Rise Against.' Take a stance to be who God intended you to be. Yourself. No labels. Just you. Because it DOES get better!
"Some of our fans approached us and wanted to tell us that they were gay, but they didn’t know where we stood on it,” the singer and guitarist [Tim McIlrath] said. "When they finally did, I couldn't believe that [the] band hadn’t made it perfectly clear that we wouldn't ever condemn someone being gay. It broke my heart."
So McIlrath wrote "Make It Stop," which appears on the band's latest release, "Endgame" (March 2011). On the surface, it’s an anti-bullying song for the masses, but it also has a strong focus on homophobia." From The Wall Street Journal.
Rise Against Homophobic Bullying
https://www.facebook.com/rahbstandup
LGBT Rights
The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center
It Gets Better Project
*Names changed for anonymity
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