I gotta say first of all that it is quite funny to me that I created this space to run away from mysef while at the same time it was a space to be fully myself even if I only ever glanced at myself back then and didn't want to see or call things as they were. This post, is in a way, a closing of a moment, coming full circle, maybe. Over ten years ago, when i first posted, I never thought I'd be where I am now both in the good parts and the bad parts of my current life but unlike back then, I have at least the notion that I can be proud and not just fearful of what and who I am. This is not what I had planned to write about but just opening blogger brought up the feelings of back then and I had to say them out loud especially with the tittle I had planned for this one.
So, here I am, fearful still but proud as well.
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Now for the actual post I had planned:
I?ve been listening to different interviews by a page dedicated to LGBTQ+ topics in my country. It is qute rare and I found it by chance. Because of the global pandemic from the start of the month they announced that there was not going to be a pride parade as there has been for the last ten years apparently (Something I didn't know). Instead they were going to host these interviews online and they were going to stream music "live" and they posted videos of past pride events. This whole situation with the pandemic is the worst but I am pretty happy that it forced the organizers of the pride parade to do something different this year. It has allowed me to learn about things I didn't know were happening, groups I didn't know existed in my country.
There has been a couple of interviews that have touched me . One of them was with a trans woman that has co-founded a non profit organization to help other trans women. In her interview she talked about how at 14 she was kicked away from home for being trans and how she had to work as a prostitute for quite a while to survive. Later on she mentioned her family was and is stilll religious and at both those moments I felt my heart squeeze, I remembered the fear I had back when I first opened this blog, the fear of not being able to even come out to myself let alone my family because as most people in my country they are religious people and just like it happened to my own mother when grandma didn't approve of my father for her and kicked her out, I thought I was going to have to live that hardship. AT the time I had done my best to have something to fall back . So I waited for some years from the time I opened the blog, enough time to have my own place and a job in case my mother kicked me out of te house.
She didn't kicked me out, she wsant happy either and that first night she turned her back to me so that I stopped talking about it, I know she just didn't want to hear it. For quite a while we didn't talk about it but by then she knew and thought I knew she didn't like it or understand it she still loved me and I was and I am grateful that her love was truly unconditional. The other night when I heard about this woman, that like many other LGBTQ+ people in my country are kicked out from their home or wosrse, I felt so grateful that I didn't have to go thorugh that.
Later when i talked about that with my mom, she told me she understand and that at the time she felt a ot of fear. She still feels a lot of fear. She fears for my safety. She is afraid for me because the world is cruel, because people are cruel, because there are no legal protections in my country for not straight people. She wants to protect me and as part of that sometimes she'd rather I didn't talk about my not being straight, at least not where other people could hear and know about it because she doesnt want anyone to hurt me.
I understand and I am afraid too but I think that we shouldnt be afraid, or at least we shouldnt let out fear keep us hidden. I remembered this story I?ve been told a thousand times.
Back when my father learned he was going to be a father and despite the fact that it got my mom kicked from her house, he was so happy and sure that he was going to be the father of a baby girl. Back then, when a man realized that he was going to have a girl they were always sad and disappointed. Even mothers got sad and disappointed, having a girl was no motive for celebration because a girl was less, because a girl came to the world to suffer, because being a woman was too hard.
My father was an exception to the usual, to the normal of back then, instead of being afraid, instead of thinking how tough it was going to be for me to be a woman in a sexist society, he was proud and happy and he wanted to celebrate the fact that I was going to be a girl.
That, I think, is what we all should do. We shouldn't be afraid that our children, our brothers and sisters might be part of the LGBT+ community we shouldn't be afraid to be part of it, we should celebrate and be proud because maybe, with time, like how nowadays fathers are happy to have little girls as little boys as children, maybe one day, parents won't feel the need to kick out their children, parents won't feel an overwhelming fear if their child comes out to them.
Of course, it is important to be cautious, fear is there for a reason, fear is there to protect us and keep us from dangerous situation but it is not there to keep us from being ourselves, from being proud of who we are.
