This feels horrible. The way I feel when I talk to my parents and the way my parents treat me like I’m subhuman and that my feelings aren’t valid all make me think that I’m going through abuse, but I don’t know if it counts or not. I’m not physically beaten or hit, but I feel like this is a different kind of abuse, maybe mental or verbal or something. I havent spoken up too much individually about the treatment of trans individuals, mostly because I havent much known what to say. Most everyone I know already agrees with me, and those that dont, in most cases, just wont listen. Im aware that part of that is because I dont have the words to do so myself. So instead, here are someone elses, someone who has been so deeply hurt by prejudice that it led to her taking her own life in protest. If you need proof for the harm that prejudice can cause, find it here, because it is not possible to love the person but hate the lifestyle when that lifestyle is such a fundamental part of who that person is. Whether youre aware of it or not, that sort of tolerance is a painful rejection of the only person that trans folk know how to be. I want Leelah Alcorns story to be an isolated one, but I know it isnt. Suicide rates among trans individuals are distressingly high. They face prejudice not only from the mainstream of society, but even at times from LGB individuals who are themselves fighting for acceptance. They are a cultural fringe within a cultural fringe, and as such are some of the most isolated members of our society. So dont isolate them. Be a friend, a listener or supporter if needed. Not because they are trans, because they, like all of us, are more than their gender or their orientation. Because theyre human. Im not asking you to love trans folk because theyre different, and especially not in spite of it. Im asking you to love them because, in all the ways that it matters, we are all the same.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 21:36:49 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015