Homophobia: It's A Disease

Homophobia isn't just an uncool thing people feel. It's a disease. It's a blight on our society and we need to all reach out to those who feel it, and try to cure them.

Members of the queer community-- gays, lesbians, bisexuals, the transgendered-- and their allies need to have the guts to confront homophobia where they find it. If people are making jokes at work, call them on it. If you see a kid picking on another and calling him a sissy or a fag, tell them why that's wrong. Engage in debate with those who say it's a choice. Challenge the notion of a "gay agenda." Support politicians who protect and try to extend our civil rights. Encourage artists to express their truest feelings.

Above all, realize this: all the gay pride in the world won't make a damn if straight people don't open up their minds and hearts and accord us the rights we want. Our future is in their hands, like it or not. We need as many allies as we can get.

For those who think the teasing and discrimination doesn't have an effect, read this piece that Abby posted on the MySpace bulletin board. Some of you may have read it already. If you haven't, take a minute, it's pretty powerful. I don't know if she wrote it, but thanks to her for sharing it. After you read it, pass it on to your straight friends. And ask them to do the same.


I am the boy who never finished high school, because I got called a fag everyday.

I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.

I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.

I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.

We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.

I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room.

I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.

I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.

We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.

I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.

I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.

I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male.

I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.

I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that.

I am the woman who died when the EMTs stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.

I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didnt have to always deal with society hating me.

I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.

I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.

I am the person ashamed to tell my own friends I'm a lesbian, because they constantly make fun of them.

I am the boy tied to a fence, beaten to a bloody pulp and left to die because two straight men wanted to "teach me a lesson."

It's time to end all this madness. Play with the gay, but educate the straight. My love and peace to all of you.

Tom