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