When I was growing up, people used to make jokes and say that I was a lesbian because I was boyish. I liked sports and always wore baggy clothes. My mom would immediately rush to my “rescue” and tell them I wasn’t and that I was just going through a tomboy phase as every other girl allegedly does. (It wasn’t a phase and not every girl experienced that.) They weren’t wrong but it still made me uncomfortable. I was only seven years old, for God’s sake.
At twelve years old, I made my first queer friend. They were older than me and knew a lot more about the queer community. What I didn’t anticipate was the number of labels being thrown my way; labels I didn’t even understand or fully grasp at that age. I didn’t know I was gay and when I tried to express that, I was slapped with an aggressive “You’re gay!” or “You have to be at least bi,” in return. Instead of getting to experience a beautiful moment of self-discovery, my awakening was rushed. Ripped from me.
Nonetheless, it was still my first encounter with the LGBTQ+ community that wasn’t filled with hate. Every time before that had taught me that gay was bad. I was raised to be homophobic.
“It’s unnatural. They need psychological help.”
“The gays don’t belong here.”
“They’re going to burn in hell.”
They’re going to burn in hell. Once I came to terms with the fact that I was gay, it was a constant battle with what I had been raised to believe. I spent years crying myself to sleep and praying that somehow God would find it in him to “un-gay” me. If my existence alone was already a sin, what was the point of existing? I was never going to be able to tell my family, so there was no point.
It took me five years to accept who I was. For some that may be longer, while for others it may be shorter; the queer experience is never the same. Historically, gay people have been silenced and taught to repress our identities. We’ve been conditioned to hide who we are from the world, and yet we’re still here. Many of us can’t go out without getting talked about or looked at in a certain way. But while we’ve learned to live with it, we shouldn’t have to.
Queer resilience is something that never should have existed in the first place. The idea of ostracizing people in society based on who they’re attracted to or how they’d like to present their gender is a modern one, barely dating back a couple hundred years. The ancients 一 such as the Greeks, Egyptians, and even pre-colonial Filipinos 一 didn’t really mind sexual fluidity. Why should we? Why should millions of people be forced to hide who they are just to make a few people comfortable?
Homophobia is all fun and games until it’s someone we care about. What about when it’s a family member or a friend? Queer people are everywhere. They’re our aunts and uncles, our cousins and our friends, and even our parents. We refuse to let our existence continue to be trampled over and silenced. We all deserve a chance to love who we want to and be who we want to be on our own terms, without fear of being hate-crimed.
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