You Dont Want to See Me Anymore

you

don’t want to see me

anymore you can’t listen to me

laugh out loud

you don’t want to see me dance

you can’t even take the chance

that it might reflect on you

thus from hold me in your heart by cindy

lauper

when i was growing up my friends

plastered their walls with posters of

david cassidy and the osmond brothers

and so did i but secretly i wanted to be

looking at posters of cher

and karen carpenter the southern town

teeny southern town i grew up in was a

wonderful place to grow up

but there was this unspoken expectation

for conformity when we reached

adolescence my friends would huddle and

talk about their latest crushes

and i would join in i

so wanted to be normal

even my younger siblings somehow got

this magic dust sprinkled on them

that missed me i played the game

really well i’ve got prom pictures from

three different years to prove it

with really good looking guys but it was

just that playing the game

i not only laughed at gay jokes i told

them

i preached against the sin of

homosexuality

and eventually i became so depressed i

was hospitalized for a year in my

mid-twenties

so eventually i made a choice not that

choice

i chose to be authentic i chose to be

real

i chose to be who i was born to be

joseph campbell wrote the privilege of a

lifetime

is being oneself and today

i stand before you as a proud

totally myself bag a beautifully

accepted gay human

now i’m going to ask you to do something

that i know is not easy

i mean i want to ask you to put aside

any of your beliefs

that you bring to the table just for a

few minutes

just for a few

in the words of henry david thoreau is

there any greater miracle

than the ability to see through one’s

eyes

for just an instant instant i would

imagine just mentioning the word gay has

already

caused some people to tune out and i

need for you to hear

that i get it but guys there’s too much

at stake

i just ask that you sit and listen to my

story and my journey

and what i’ve learned lesbian

gay bisexual transgender queer plus

individuals have existed throughout

history

in fact our own indigenous native

americans revered them

they held them in high esteem they

called them two spirit people

they went to them for wisdom the

androgynous the feminine men and the

masculine women

now i didn’t grow up in a culture like

that

i just felt so alone i know i couldn’t

have been the only one

but it sure felt that way well today i

teach high school

and this generation of young people

inspires me in a way no other

ever has and the reason i say that is

they have this ability to accept people

where they are

they take you and they accept it and i

see it most often play out

with gender and sexuality differences

they inspire me daily

but it doesn’t mean they have it easy in

fact according to the trevor project

suicide is the second leading cause of

death among all

teenagers today in the lgbtq plus

population

is four to six times higher four

to six times

i often hear adults say it’s just a

phase they’ll get over at this gay

lesbian stuff

maybe i mean i’ve never seen anyone my

age rock the goth look right

but my teenagers certainly do

then for some of us it’s not a phase but

guys so

what because if we accept our most

vulnerable teens

where they are as who they are today

they will remember that forever

and if we reject them for the very same

things

they will remember that forever too

i personally don’t think anyone is

expendable so is changing a pronoun or

two

worth saving a life you know what i

believe in

i believe in radical acceptance

the culture of my classroom is one of

that type of acceptance

that type of connection i often hear my

students say

everyone belongs here with no judgment a

group of my students

formed a gay sexuality alliance there’s

not much

quite as magical and affirming as seeing

a group of

40 to 50 teenagers in a room connecting

on a level

they never imagined possible

there’s a line in the cindy lauper song

that really speaks to me

besides the ones i just sang you missed

out on the best

part of me the part that made me

who i am today

i’m not asking you to change your values

i’m just asking you to make a choice

it all does boil down to choices and i’m

not again

referring to the choice to be by

whatever

here’s the choice i’d like for you to

think about

ask yourself these three questions do i

choose

kindness over intolerance

do i choose acceptance over judgment

do i choose validation

over rejection i vividly remember

those dark dark days when

the thought of living hidden was harder

for me

than the thought of dying

in the darkest night of my soul when i

had once again been hospitalized

because i was a threat to my own life

someone looked at me and said you

are perfectly lovable

the next day i told my therapist about

it

and she said well duh lisa

internally i felt the change of coming

i felt it change inside of me that

moment

and you know what there are a lot of

me’s out there

that need someone to listen to care and

to accept them

right where they are

on my watch no one will ever feel

the emptiness that comes from feeling as

if one’s own

true self has to be hidden or it’s

somehow just not good

enough what do you choose

i choose love with no strings attached