Читать книгу The Savvy Ally - Jeannie Gainsburg - Страница 27

“Mom, Dad& please sit down. I’ve got something to tell you. I know this is going to come as a surprise, but for a long time now I have known something about myself and it’s time that I shared it with you…. I’m, um … straight.” Nope. It never happens. Straight and cisgender people don’t have to come out. They are pretty much just out.

Let’s think about that for a moment. Why is that? Straight and cisgender people don’t have to come out because we meet all of the expectations of who we “should” be. (Please notice the quotation marks here.) I was assigned female at birth and that fit for me. I never questioned it. My parents expected me to grow up to be straight and I did. How do I know that my parents expected me to grow up to be straight? Because everything I ever heard from them regarding a future partner (boyfriend/husband) and every book they ever read to me was heterosexually oriented. Straight/cisgender people don’t ever have to come out because our orientation and gender are correctly assumed; we have met expectations and we are on the “right” course.

What this means for our LGBTQ+ friends, of course, is that unless they have grown up in a completely isolated, super-inclusive bubble—where they didn’t go to school, had no contact with other children, weren’t a part of any faith community, didn’t play on any sports teams, didn’t watch popular movies, and didn’t read popular books—they have gotten the impression, as they figured out their identities, that they were on the “wrong” course.

As the education director at the LGBTQ+ center where I worked, I was in charge of training all of our volunteer Speakers Bureau members. Therefore, I had the privilege of hearing hundreds of coming-out stories. One of the things that struck me was that every speaker had an extremely difficult time coming out to their parents. This was true even when their stories involved parents who constantly let their child know that they would be loved no matter what, who made a point of talking positively about LGBTQ+ people, and who had LGBTQ+ friends who were welcomed into their homes. What these speakers shared with me was that the negative messages they received about being LGBTQ+ from the outside world were much stronger than the positive messages they were getting inside of their homes.

Since the legislation of marriage equality on a national level, I find that people often believe that we are now in a pretty good place in our country regarding LGBTQ+ rights, inclusion, and acceptance, and that our work is done. It’s not.