I Could Breathe Now

Let's talk about telling the truth.

I've learnt something over the past 5 years: once you say something it becomes real. Once said, you cannot take it back. Keep a truth unsaid and everyone can go on pretending that it doesn't exist.

Not talking about something plasters it over. There is an implicit understanding that talking about it, having a discussion about it is laborious. If you were a government, not taking a public position on something also gives you the leeway to deal with it on a case by case basis. This also allows you to deny any support for it when convenient or necessary.

I grew up in a staunchly Catholic household and attended Catholic schools for 12 years. More, if you include kindergarten. The education I received was excellent and all rounded. Our teachers cared a lot for our well being. But being gay was never discussed in any of our moral education or sexuality classes. It was something skirted around.

Somewhere in secondary school, I started to understand there was a difference between the admiration I felt for peers I looked up to, and being smitten with others. This wasn't something I spoke about except in vague terms to a select few. After all, my two best friends in secondary school were hauled to the school counsellor for dating each other. It wasn't until years and years later that I whispered the words out loud hiding under my blanket in my dorm room at uni. And I cried.

I cried because I spent years praying to God to make me straight, to make me normal. I spent my first year at university suffering from terrible insomnia, turning the same thought over and over in my mind. Late at night, when I sought out positive representations of lesbian couples online, I felt guilty, ashamed, unclean. Gay conversion therapy pamphlets were in the Sunday bulletin even at the chapel at UBC.

I internalized the homophobia. I believed I would never love or be loved the same way I saw my friends fall in love. I despaired. It took me 10 years to understand God didn't hate me, that I was always normal. It was 10 years of self-hatred and building walls to protect myself.

When I finally mustered up the courage to tell my closest friends, I felt an immense amount of relief. It quite literally felt as if a huge boulder had been removed from my chest. I no longer felt like I was drowning in shame and guilt. Those feelings still existed, but became more manageable.

I could breathe now.

The friends I told? God bless them, truly. Their reactions ranged from excitement "finally!" to nonchalance "okay cool."

When my eldest brother helped me tell my parents I was lesbian on the other hand, they took it about as well as I expected. I've absorbed the many tremendously hurtful things said, things that do not need to be rehashed. Much of it to do with religion, much more to do with disgust and shame.

Someone recently told me I was lucky to be growing up as a lesbian today. I asked him why. He said it's because being gay is cool now. It's "in." I just looked at him incredulously. He clarified that he was bullied in school a few decades ago because of one of his parents' sexuality. By comparison, today's enthusiastic showing of support for the gays is sunshine and roses.

It doesn't feel that way.

Tell a gay person growing up anywhere that being gay is cool now and they'd likely give you the same look I gave him. All the evidence points to higher rates of bullying, self-injury, suicide, and homelessness among the LGBT population. Being gay looks "cool" partly because that's how it's being marketed by companies who want LGBT individuals and their allies to spend their money on products.

It's also not that more people are gay now, it's that they're not hiding any longer. If the focus seems to be on shining a positive light on gay people today, it's because so much of history has been focused on beating them down.

It takes a lengthy amount of time to question a big chunk of what made you who you are today and then reassemble it all in a functional healthy way. Even then, when it all seems to come together, it's a continual learning, unlearning, relearning process. It's difficult and tedious.

I had a conversation with a priest last week. He told me that a Christ centred life is one based on truth and love. That attractions and identities change, but striving for truth and love in God's name never does. That loving someone is not wrong.

It turns out, after all this struggle, that the Catholic ideals of love and truth are parallel to the life I strive to lead.

Holding Hands Should Be Simple

All we were doing was holding hands. But someone was staring. There's always someone staring. The stares vary- hostile glares, disgusted looks, some furtive side glances. Most days we don't let go, we continue walking, eyes straight ahead. Occasionally we feel unsafe, unsettled, and we do. Other times I meet their eyes evenly until their gaze shifts away.

Pause for a moment to consider how ludicrous it is to be grateful no one has verbally or physically attacked you for holding the hand of the person you love. Bracing for an affront is always in some small dark corner at the back of my mind. We're fortunate to live in a city where we can hold hands and even show some small gestures of affection in public. Small gestures, because even for a city as liberal as Vancouver, people can get attacked for appearing to be anything other than heterosexual. Most people get to walk down the street holding hands without a second thought about feeling unwelcome or harassed for doing so. A safe society is the most basic building block of any city.

There are many things we could explore about hand holding. We could discuss at length how hand holding helps couples experience a closer bond, about how it reduces pain and anxiety. We could talk about how comforting it can be or how our hearts race when we first hold the hand of a lover. But we won't, not today.

That's because holding hands should be simple.