“You’re so gay!” …Yeah, so what?

Have you ever been called braceface? Maybe you’ve been called a dyke, a fag, or perhaps ugly, fat or stupid? Maybe all of those? Or maybe none at all? Perhaps you were the one calling people these names?

Name calling has been around since kids discovered mischief; which is basically since the dawn of humans. When we think about name calling, we see an old 80s movie playing in our heads showing a victim standing helpless in the middle of a dozen kids chanting “braceface!” or “doofus!” at the top of their lungs. For others, we see more serious images of a teenage girl getting called a fat whore. Whatever the case, whatever the severity, we all know what name calling is.

But is it really that terrible?

As a teenager, I’ve been subjected to many cases of name calling and verbal harassment. As an early teenager (12 and 13), I went through a year of cyber-bullying where I was called things that cannot be mentioned in a blog post. I took a lot of these things to heart, and began taking a lot of it out upon myself, and to this day, I still struggle with self-esteem issues that spawned in result of this incident. The names still resonate in my mind sometimes, and on the worst days, I believe that I am what they said I was, but on other days, I can successfully convince myself that these things aren’t, and were never ever true.

As I’ve grown and gotten older, moving on from that troubled time in my life, I’ve had time to think and put together an opinion on the situation of verbal harassment. I do not undermine the current severity of this issue, but my question is: does it really have to be so bad?

This increasingly worse effect of verbal harassment among children (and even some adults) is not the result of time progressing and things evolving. It’s the fault of our entire generation, the media and everything that surrounds today’s trending cultures.

Yes, you may be thinking that I’m to go on an anti-media rant where I declare that all advertising in this world is bad and dishing out tons of bad messages to the people receiving them…and in a way, I am. But at the same time, I am not. This isn’t about the media itself, it’s about the message the people as a whole are sending. Despite countless attempts to raise the self-esteem of people everywhere – no matter how many ads scream at us that we are beautiful the way we are, we are constantly bombarded with things that force us to believe that the opinions of our fellow peers matter, and play a crucial part in our lives. We are told that we have to look a certain way, like certain things, and essentially be a certain type of person in order to be socially acceptable, and we learn the hard way that if we act out of character, we get rebuked…and you guessed it, verbally harassed. You are told to believe that Jane Doe’s opinion that your fashion sense is like that of an elephant is the epitome of your life. You are told that when she says you’re ugly and your makeup skills look like that of a three-year old, it is actually true. If someone believes you are fat, ugly, gay, a fag, a whore, a freak, or whatever they might wish to call you or label you, you are told and led to believe that this is the be-all end-all of your life.

And this, ladies and gentlemen (in a nutshell) is why verbal harassment of today is so bad.

As a teenager, with time to grow and develop my own opinion, I’ve realized that name calling is possibly the silliest attempt at bullying known to man. After all, why call someone out as they are when attempting to be derogatory? Name calling is silly, and pointless. It’s a childish form of teasing that emotionally (and sometimes physically) wounds more people than it should. When someone calls me a fag, I simply smile and acknowledge the fact that they know I’m gay. When someone calls me fat, I smile and accept the fact that they realize I have more weight on my bones than some of my peers. Yeah, I’m 115lbs and have a little bit of a tummy. So what? When someone calls me a whore, I turn around and tell them my sex life is of no worry to them. The fact that I may have a little or a lot of sex doesn’t really affect them now does it? When someone calls me braceface, I smile and simply shake my head at their silliness. Do they not know that I’m going to have straight teeth after this metal wire comes off in 2 years? Do they really think that calling me out for a bit of metal in my mouth is going to make me feel bad?

Before anyone assumes I don’t know how verbal harassment hurts, I truly, 100% do. I know that it’s not easy to shake these things off when you’re in the heat of the moment. Someone calling you a whore to your face really does hurt! Words are hurtful, and they can sometimes be the worst torture, but words only have the power that we give them. And this is why I believe we should teach our youth, and those in this world to simply be happy with who they are.

But to get people to love themselves for who they truly are, we cannot sugarcoat their condition. Lying to their faces about who they are is depriving them of things they need to accept to feel beautiful and perfect. If someone is fat, we shouldn’t say that they’re a twig. Yes, they are large, but that doesn’t make them any less beautiful. If someone is gay, we don’t need to downplay their sexuality. Yes, they like the same sex, but regardless, they don’t deserve any special privileges for being gay. Being a homosexual does not give you a VIP pass to life. They are human just like the rest of us, and should be allowed to love who they wish to love, that’s all.

We need to teach people that the opinions of others don’t matter in their life whatsoever. In life, you will surround yourself with people who love you for who you are, no matter your weight, sexual identity, sexual orientation, disorder, addictions…or whatever comprises YOU. And those who don’t accept these things about you do not belong in your life, simple as that. If someone calls you fat, turn around and say “yes I am, but I am beautiful” and then surround yourself with the beautiful people that are your friends.

Words contain only the power that you let them have in your life, so choose to let the negative ones have no power at all. You are beautiful, whatever and whoever you are! I love you for you as a person. You will not ever be able to please all 7 billion people on this planet, and you will never ever be everyone’s definition of perfect. But those who mind, don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.

Stay strong, and stay beautiful!

LGBT – the fight for humanity

A dear friend of mine posted a status that reads:

“don’t teach kids homosexuality, it will just confuse them”
No???
???
Teaching them that it’s okay to love whoever you want won’t confuse them. Teaching them that homosexual love is the same as heterosexual love won’t confuse them. 
Love is love.
It’s not that confusing???

And this brings something to mind I’m not necessarily proud about in the LGBT community.

While some people in the community understand this, I find many are stuck in this misunderstanding and misinterpretation of what the LGBT community is and should be. 

What comes to your mind when you think of the LGBT community? What do you see? What are we – the lesbians, the gays, the bisexuals and the transgendered – in your minds eye? What are we, to you? 

Some might say we’re a bunch of crazy lunatics kissing and screwing around with everyone in sight; while others might see a raging mass of people, painted neon and waving a rainbow flag. Some might see a community of people fighting for humanity for gay and lesbian people – and all of these are viable, logical opinions, though some of them may be more truthful than others.

The true reason why the LGBT community exists is often lost behind its stereotype. Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people use the community more as a title than a lively bunch of people bound together to fight for equality. “Oh, he’s gay, he’s part of the LGBT community” is a phrase we all hear often. Everyone uses the community as a stereotype, and totally miss the true meaning; why the community exists in the first place. The LGBT community is attempting to put itself onto the world stage of societal norms. Gay marriage is only legalized in 100-some areas of the world, which in reality, is not that good of an improvement; so I can sympathize with their efforts to be seen by other people.

However, by fighting for equality and legal marriage of same-sex couples, we are masking the true fight of the LGBT community. What the LGBT community is fighting for (in the long run) is the right for all gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people to be viewed as human, regardless of sexual orientation. It’s the way the world should be. Instead of saying “I am gay,” I want to say “I am human.” I shouldn’t need the title of gay. I shouldn’t need any titles at all. I should just be human – and if my natural human instinct is to love girls, then that’s just who I am. I do not need the LGBT stereotype, I just need humanity. I want and need my basic human rights to love and live life to the fullest extent, just as my fellow straight friend may. 

And in saying that, I believe the LGBT community should not be exclusive to simply those fighting for same-sex marriage, or the right to be who they are without discrimination or criminalization of their sexual orientation. This community should open up to all people fighting for humanitarian rights. It should be a place where all those fighting to make the world a better, more equal place come together. We should quit attaching the stereotype to ourselves and really focus on equality – which starts in more areas than just same sex marriage. This community should be more than legalizing gay marriage; it should be about pride, and being happy with who we are: human. No matter what we are fighting for, everyone part of this community fighting for global equality should be proud of who they are. 

Going back to the origin of my friend’s status and summarizing my own thesis stated here, we can make change in this world as easily as clapping our hands. It starts with the children which will be raised in the next generation. A child does not come out of the womb broiling with hatred. It does not come out ready to discriminate – it is taught this negativity. If we teach our children to accept everyone as human, the world would see a wave of change. If we teach our children to love unconditionally, no matter who it is, we will see hate slowly ebb away into oblivion.

Love is love, and love cannot be trumped by anything. Love is our soul – it is the force that drives all men and women to live and breathe. If there was no passion, there’d be no life. So why don’t we live life the way it should be, and teach our children to do the same? Let’s go back to the fundamentals and simply just be human and love one another.