See this? This is an arm band. It's rainbow. It's meant to suggest that the wearer has gay pride - that they are gay or otherwise support gays. It's neat. There's not any secret code involved, nor is there some hidden naked picture of a dude or even two dudes goin' at it relentlessly.
It's an arm band with a rainbow. One would assume that a small expression of pride would be tolerable for people. One would think that maybe discussing sex acts in detail publicly might be frowned upon but a tiny little arm band would be a simple way of saying "Hi, gay guy here. I don't particularly care if you don't like it."
You don't know my parents very well, I'm afraid.
I keep rehashing this story over and over again, so here it is once more: When I was fifteen, I had surgery for scoliosis, which had started progressing rather rapidly. After numerous consultations with doctors and spine specialists I was bluntly told that the scoliosis was progressing so quickly that I would fall asleep one night and my organs would finally be crushed. I would suffocate and die in my sleep unless I had surgery.
I know what you're thinking. Dying in your sleep isn't that bad. But still, I had the surgery.
So this doctor person, this spine specialist, had been performing this specific surgery for over twenty years. Two decades. Lots of surgeries. He warned us that there is a three per cent chance I could get paralyzed. That's three out of one hundred surgeries which could result in paralysis. He'd done so many surgeries and had never paralyzed anyone, despite the scant possibility.
I now realize we should've perhaps chosen the other doctor. Oops.
So, shortly after I finally got home from the hospital after the paralysis and the rehab (not the drug kind, the 'now you have to learn how to do everything sitting down... wait, you didn't think you'd just get to leave did you?' kind) I wrote a letter to a friend mentioning that I like dudes and that I've been struggling with it my whole life because I grew up in a family of bigots, hearing fag this, queer that, all the time. How we should get lynched and die.
Word of advice: write letters when you can hand them directly to their intended reader. Some more advice: you may think it's clever hiding a letter in your pillow while you go to sleep but your parents are intuitive supergeniuses bent on destruction of your privacy.
So I got the whole thing, "How could you do this to God?"
To God. As if I just woke up one day and tried to come up with a way to piss off God and the only thing I could think of was being gay. Any other kid would go buy a Nine Inch Nails album but apparently not me! I would've rather been attracted to dudes. Just to anger God.
She said, and I quote, "I couldn't love you the same if you're gay."
Couldn't love me the same. I guess the concept of unconditional love isn't really true. She said I am not allowed to "be that way" in HER home. Not our home. Not our family's home. HER home.
Eventually, she started talking about sending me to a "conversion camp" or even a mental hospital. I thought, maybe she was just flipping out. I should give her some time and she'll be okay.
She would barely speak to me and neither would anyone else in my family for the most part. I'd just gone through the process of losing a bunch of friends because I got paralyzed and that's obviously a good reason for people to ditch you or something. I had no one and nothing. She took my music. She didn't allow me to write letters. School was ending for the year so that meant I'd stop getting the comfort of time away from home during the day, not that it was all that great, since I had no one and felt persecuted.
I had come out to a friend online about a year before this, but she lived in Illinois and I live in Alabama so it was much easier. I mainly told her because if she freaked on me I wouldn't have to see her every day. It turns out that was a very cynical way of looking at the situation and she's been amazing. She's my best friend. Actually we haven't met in person yet but we've been friends for over eleven years so it's kinda nice.
She was the only person I could even think about talking to about being gay and even then I had dial-up and an insane family who looked over my shoulder all the time. I once made a website for a band I like and I wrote the URL down. My stepdad found it and demanded I go over to the computer and type it in. He kept saying "I know what you're doing! This is porn!" He was serious. And no, it wasn't. Who the fuck writes down web addresses for porn and leaves them sitting in front of their parents' computers?
Eventually, I would come home from school and check the answering machine and there'd be messages from these camps and hospitals giving my mother information and asking for a call back. I freaked out more than I ever have before, then, slowly so as not to arouse suspicion, I told her it had been a phase and I was over it. She didn't believe me at first but eventually she said, "Well, that's good!" And we moved on.
I moved out when I was nineteen and when I was twenty I came out to my sister who was awesome about it. That was a monumental turning point for me. In high school I knew she'd be in ninth grade when I graduated so I didn't want to come out or be outed and then, if people flipped out, leave her to deal with the stigma of having that faggy older brother.
She basically told me I was a dumbass for doubting her support.
Eventually as I got more and more comfortable, and it took an extremely long time, I saw a rainbow arm band at the mall. So I bought it. Even then I was nervous about how my sister, who was with me, would react. I asked her if she knows what it means and she said yes. I asked if she cares if I wear it around her and she glared at me and said no.
So I did.
I wore it everywhere. Every time I went to bookstores or coffee shops or the movies. It was terrifying at first. Exciting and then liberating. I'm a very stereotypically masculine sort of guy so you wouldn't guess I'm gay without the arm band. Wearing it was a huge effort for me because it was so revealing and I'd been hurt so much by family and friends. I'd like to think, as cheesy as it sounds, it was brave of me.
I took it off every time I went to mom's house. I knew she'd freak out on me if she saw it and especially if my ten year old brother saw it. I chose to avoid the issue and wear it everywhere except at home. Even that was sort of dangerous for me because my mom knows everyone and I was certain to run into some gossipy person who'd tell her what I was doing IN PUBLIC where people COULD SEE!
Recently, the issue of the arm band came to a head with mom. We went to see Bob Dylan/Willie Nelson/John Mellencamp and I wore it. Mom flipped out at me. Then she flipped out at my sister and told everyone I wore a faggy arm band out with her. She asked why I'd ruin the concert by doing that, and more oddly, what was I trying to DO? Whose attention was I trying to GET? It's not like I was trying to pick up dates.
I'm finally proud of myself. I am happy with myself. I'm a good person, and as a fairly religious Catholic, I believe that God loves me and I believe that He is proud of me even though, like everyone, I sin. I almost actually LIKE myself. I'm almost there. Can't I have the chance to be proud? Don't I deserve it?
What makes me different from anyone else? I've been through a tough struggle and I've overcome a lot of odds. I've dealt with being suicidal, depressed, I've completely avoided sinking into a situation where I might end up with a drug or alcohol addiction. And throughout everything, I've managed to not be self-hating. I've managed not to hate other GLBT people. I am just like any other person, not great but not horrible. But I deserve to be proud. I deserve to like myself. We all do.