I pen this as a strong opinion piece.
Anyone who is a part of the LGBTQ community knows the struggles we face to live a life of serenity. Our struggles come from our outside environment and usually from an early age. We learned early on how hostile the world can be towards us for simply existing.
I mention here and there about how I was bullied in grade school. I was just existing, and here goes little light-skinned playground mate with taunting. It amazes me how people observe another person who may be sitting quietly to themselves and feel the need to threaten them, bully them, or preach to them.
What is it about LGBT that makes you so uncomfortable? What is it that you hate? If hate isn’t the word, describe to me what it is because I do not understand.
Homophobia is a term that has become popular to toss around. When we consider what it is to have a phobia, we may assume that saying someone has a phobia of homosexuals is a reach. However, when I observe how the world reacts to LGBT advances, it just seems…like a phobia. What are you afraid of for real?
I grew up in a heavily Christian culture, and one thing that is preached against the hardest is homosexuality. So much that it created much internal conflict in me. I learned to preach to myself about it before anyone else had the opportunity to do so. Self-hate began to sit in as I began to acquiesce to the internal phobia my outside world had about me.
I told someone recently, “Why don’t you just mind your business?” If you’re not gay, don’t get gay married, don’t buy pride gear, just don’t participate in it. But why must one make it their business to speak to me as if they have the authority to tell me about my life?
Those in my culture, particularly black gay men, have a reputation for being bold, sassy, and quick-witted. Some of us are just gifted to be so, but many of us have had to learn how to keep people who are constantly on the offense off our backs. They make it their business to mind, and I don’t understand why they are so invested.
I’ve had some use religion as their motivation, but being a taught man of the Scriptures, I understand now that it is only a smoke-and-mirror presentation. As I watched family members break all other types of law in the scripture but yet take a holier-than-thou stance about the gay members of the family, I began to lose respect for their religious position.
Don’t get me wrong, I respect anyone’s beliefs, thoughts, or feelings, but I no longer tolerate uninvited criticism and conversations about MY life. It took many years for me to gain this type of boldness. A family member requested to speak with me and my husband about our life. I respectfully declined and told them I desired to protect our mental health. To which they replied, well, the blood is no longer on my hands. Before I realized it, I told them the blood was never on their hands, and that was precisely the problem.
For anyone else that feels they need to mind gay people’s business, here is a word for you: Mind the business that pays you and mind the sins you commit.
LGBT people just want to exist. That is all. We just want to exist and see a representation of ourselves in the world we live in. This is why I write the stories I write and am so vocal. Generations of LGBT people behind me need not have to continue the social fight I have endured since I was ten years old.
Those who get so bent out of shape when you see gay people or pride symbolism should sit down and ask themselves, “Why am I so invested?” And don’t say because it’s against God because that’s a load of crap. I’m in a position now where I’d rather a homophobe own up to their bigotry and just say they don’t like gay people because if they continue to make it about the Bible, then they’d have to single out every one else in the world because there is a scripture in the Bible for every behavior under the sun.
There is not one, not any, none, that is perfect. As we approach Pride month, mind the business that pays you.