“…I don't know if you can relate at all and it's really none of my
business, but it's not easy to grow up gay in a heteronormative society.
Everywhere we turn, we face messages that tell us that what we're feeling is
dirty and disgusting, something that we need to feel ashamed of. In movies, on
the internet, and everywhere in real life there are heterosexual couples
achieving their fairy tale endings while we're left there, wondering if we're
ever going to experience the same happiness. I can't speak for anyone else, but
I know that when I realized I was gay, I felt this crushing sense of
realization knowing that I would never get to have the future I had imagined
for myself as a little girl. Every one of my fantasies had always revolved
around settling down with a nice boy, and knowing that I would never get to
have even that was and, to an extent, still is the most terrifying thing that
has ever happened to me. Many of us are made to feel torn between our faith and
ourselves, which adds to the feeling of isolation. We don't need you to remind
us that we're outsiders, that you don't want us. You're just making it harder.
And now I speak from personal experience. I am no longer writing
from the perspective of…the LGBTQ community in general, but rather imploring
you, from one human being to another, to sympathize with just one tiny fraction
of what I'm saying. As you probably know, I am platonically married to… [my
friend] Elle. She is one of my best friends and has saved my life more
completely and wholly than I can articulate with words printed on a screen,
more times than I could ever hope to count. I don't think I'll ever know what
exactly it is that makes this so, but there is love and I don't want you to
take that from us. Frankly I don't care who's told you that it's against nature
or what your God thinks about it. I have spent too many hours, days, weeks, and
months torturing myself over this. Do not insult my very being by telling me or
my friends that we can't love who we love and be who we are…Now what do you
think Jesus (peace be upon him) would have thought about that?”
I did not write that letter. But that fact that I didn't write it makes it no less deep or true or heartfelt. There is still at least one person out there feeling that.
