TSZ Magazine: June 2016 (Issue #1)

Homophobia is Real - and It's Here

by Alecia (@eleutheromanial)

I am a member of the LGBTQ community. My identifications are genderfluid, panromantic and asexual. I didn't figure out that I was asexual until later, so I won't be talking about that. Currently, my pronouns are she/her, but that's subject to change.

I didn't grow up knowing what LGBTQ was. In fact, it wasn't until I was about seven years old that I even recognised what "gay" was - and a year after that for "lesbian". My family isn't religious, but my parents always kind of skirted around the heavy or important topics. When I was eleven, I grew interested in my sexuality and mentally labeled myself as lesbian - I knew I wasn't straight and that was basically as far as my level of knowledge went. And then came the gender struggle - I transition genders every few months or so, not usually as fluidly as some genderfluid people, so when I began feeling very masculine at age twelve and frankly, uncomfortable with the girls in changing/bathrooms, the adults kind of freaked out. My parents took me to one conversion therapy session after being urged by my mum's good friend (who was a Mennonite). It wasn't that they were homophobic or anything (they accept me fine now, even if they're a little perturbed), but it was just a very taboo thing. After a month or so, they calmed down (and then I abruptly transitioned back to a [demi-] girl three days later).

But that one homophobic person was only a taste of what was to come.

Then I turned fourteen (I'm going to talk about the period of time that my Orthorexia wasn't as bad). I had done some research in the library and had labelled myself the elusive and very unknown sexuality and gender; genderfluid (cor-rect!), and pansexual (kinda-ish!). After the infamous scare of me being male for a month, I tried to keep my gender on the down low a bit more, but my parents knew (and theorized that I had some deep-rooted insecurity issues). Anyway, we moved into this new neighbourhood. The house was smaller than our old one, but we were a five-minute walk away from the community pool and were in a "crimewatchers" neighbourhood.

The one thing that we didn't understand until all the papers were signed and everything was dealt with was that we had moved into a neighbourhood of Jehovah's Witnesses (I am not criticizing or stereotyping anyone's religion or beliefs here. I am simply stating what these people ended up doing to me). The first night there, we received a knock on our door at 10PM, and there stood a lady from across the street with some freshly baked cookies and a flyer basically instructing us to go to church. And that was the least of it.

At this time, I was struggling with internalized homophobia and living in fear of what these people would do to me if they were ever to find out. You see, homophobia from external sources is like swimming across a lake and being pushed under when you come to the end. Internal homophobia is swimming out into the middle of that very lake and attaching little weights to yourself one by one.

I started going to a community school that was comprised of four small, gated communities. The kids in my neighborhood all went there, and although it wasn't a strictly religious school, there was an option of Bible Studies as a class and a chapel next to the gym.

One year above me,there was this girl. She was plain and out lesbian and basically shouted it from the rooftops whenever she felt like it. The religious kids tormented her, attaching cruel notes to her back, catcalling her, telling the teacher outrageous lies, swapping assignments in for jokes, planting incriminating evidence in her bag and telling the principal (who also, coincidentally, was a part of my neighbourhood). The list went on and on.

Once, I tried to stand up to one of the kids as they were in the middle of doing something really mean - I don't quite remember what, but I do remember thinking, I'm even more messed up than that girl and imagining what terrible thing would happen if they ever found out about me. Anyway, I walked up to this kid - a boy - and tapped him on the shoulder gently, "Stop it," I said seriously. He took one look at me and burst out laughing. I stood there awkwardly while their Christian Telepathy worked its magic and other kids began to swarm me. "Hey everyone," one of them shouted, "Alecia's in the kahoots with *Mary*. Guess this one's gay too!" If people were to do that to me nowadays, I'd tell them that gay isn't an insult, but back then, I suffered from so much internal homophobia that I just stood there, took it, and believed it.

One of them threw a rock at me and shattered the right lens of my glasses. I ran home crying as they taunted me. After that, I didn't let myself be gay or a "gender-bender" (as named by the kids in my school) for as long as I could.

I stole my mother's expensive lipsticks, wore them to school incessantly, got bras in sizes that nowhere near fit me (stuffed with cotton), let my grades drop, and tried so fricking hard to be a "normal" girl. Even when I identify as a girl nowadays, I never feel the need to emphasize it with unnecessary accessories like people in the media nowadays. So it was hard for me, but eventually, I got what I wanted in terms of refuge. (of course, I'd rather have been able to be myself without fear, but acceptance due to a fake transformation worked fine-ish). The popular girls kind of accepted me and I wasn't told that I was gay or a gender-bender for a while.

*Mary*, however, was still being mercilessly brought down by these kids. I will always regret not doing anything about it, but I can't go back. One day, it got to be too much for her and she attempted to commit suicide. She was put into the psychiatric ward that I had been in previously and (would be) placed in in the future. I came back from school the day I heard feeling absolutely and completely bedraggled - I'd attempted before as well, and I could have done so much to stop her pain. The next day, I came to school as a male and declared that I was pansexual and genderfluid abruptly in the middle of a schoolwide assembly.

The kids kind of stayed away from me in terms of physical abuse for a while, but the month where they just whispered snide comments in the middle of class and snickered behind my back at everything I said was probably one of the hardest times in my life. Three weeks before the last day of school, we had a field trip to a beach.

Five or six of my classmates surrounded me and beat me up. One of my teeth was knocked out, and my entire body was a bruise. Two days after I came home, my parents packed up our things and moved out of the neighbourhood. Me being beat up was definitely a good excuse, although they had been having their issues there too. I had been conceived before their marriage, and they were notorious for their simultaneous cheating. Needless to say, my family and I were the black sheep in that all-white and mega-religious place.

I am so fortunate now to have an accepting group of friends and family members, but I'll never forget the torment that people inflicted on me simply for who I do - or don't - love. Living LGBTQ in an unaccepting place is an ordeal I hope not many have to go through.