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divinedaqueen-blog · 8 years ago

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No Fems

I have never been afraid to express myself or own up to the things I believed in. I have been “out of the closet,” for almost 10 years now, and I have learned a lot in those 10 years. Growing up gay in the suburbs of LA where the demographic is not predominantly gay, was very limited and quite difficult. I was always the only gay kid at every school I went to. Well, there were others, but I was the only out gay guy at my school. I came out my eighth grade year to my entire school. I did it sporadically, but everyone basically caught on. People always asked over the years, of course. And even though it was totally obvious I was a flaming queen, I didn’t feel ready to say it myself. I wanted to be certain that I was gay.

So, I did all the experimenting and soul searching you can think of that any misguided gay adolescent would put themselves through to eventually say,

“AH HA!, I love penis...Well, men.”

When I knew for sure that women were never a possibility romantically for me, I was ready to own up to my sexuality. I came out to my closest friends and family first, whom were all supportive and welcomed me with open arms. I was one of the lucky ones, thank God. However, I was still a bit nervous for random classmates who asked me for years and me giving them denial in return, to finally admit to them that I love men and wished Zac Efron was waiting for me at home every day. Weirdly, once I came out, people stopped asking. People stopped bullying me. Yeah, I would hear the occasional gay slur being thrown in my direction, but nothing ever serious to prompt school administration. It was like reverse bullying, if that makes sense. The years before I came out, people always called me gay, fag, or questioned me non stop. But, now that I finally came out, and proud of it, people just left me alone, and honestly didn’t care. And that was TOTALLY fine with me. I preferred to be left alone.

Now, here we are 10 years later. I have grown up, and observed everything around me. I went through many epiphanies, men, heartbreaks, and proud moments to finally consider myself a veteran gay. A veteran gay is someone who has been out for more than 5 years and has seen enough to know enough. I have always had a huge amount of respect for the gay men from generations before me who have been out for decades and able to pull through the social bullying when being gay was an abomination and sometimes even illegal. Those are the real heroes in my eyes. They were able to make it through those hard times. And even though we have progressed a lot to this day, we still have so much work to do. There is still so much discrimination and prejudice against the LGBT community simply for being themselves. Which brings me to the reason of why I am sitting in my bed early in the morning writing this essay.

I have always been the more feminine type. I always favored things catered to women. I loved how women could be glamorous, and the endless amount of beauty products, fashion styles, and etc. they had to their disposal. So, I embraced my femininity, and never really cared for anything masculine. Of course, I loved masculine men, but not enough to make them feel superior. We as gay people come in a variety of styles. That is why the rainbow flag represents us so perfectly. We are a diverse community. We have something for everyone. But, the problem I have noticed now more than ever, is that if you are masculine, you are considered superior. If you don’t act the stereotype and prance around shouting Madonna lyrics, you are the ideal gay guy. But, why? Why should we erase, or completely disregard our feminine brothers? Why should we make them feel inferior? Why must we prove how masculine we are? Does it come from an underlying shame of coming to terms with the fact that we are gay? Must we prove how masculine we are in order to not let our sexuality define us?

I see this on an everyday basis. If you love anything stereotypically gay, you are considered less than. If you like to wear makeup, and don full drag, you are considered inferior. Sometimes, even, we are considered as a disgrace to the community. Why should we discriminate within a community that is fighting so hard to not be discriminated against? I couldn’t help but wonder, is our internal discrimination causing the external discrimination? I can’t tell you how many guys have turned me down just because of the fact I do Drag. They start off liking me, and we hit it off great, but as soon as they see that I am a Drag performer, they completely switch and back off. Why? It got to me so many times that I started to think what I was doing was wrong. But, then I realized, why should I feel bad for being myself just because someone else doesn’t like it? Wasn’t it the fem gays and the drag queens who started the gay right revolution? They were the ones who weren’t afraid to speak out and be themselves. They were our pioneers. Now, we are so lucky to be in a world that is more accepting, but our own community discriminates just because you act fem. It is so sad, and I wish that it weren’t the case. We should embrace all types of gay men, and realize that we are all in this together, and that no one is better than the other. We all love men, we all have the same attraction towards men, and we all are fighting for equality. But how can that work when we take 10 steps backwards and hurt our own?

Right now, it is June. It’s Pride Month. This is our month to celebrate how far we have come in our gay history, and celebrate the fact that we are able to be ourselves. I just wish it were 100% genuine. We need to be there for our gay brothers and sisters for whom they are. After all, that’s what our whole purpose of fighting for equality is, right? I want you to realize that the next time you judge and completely disregard someone just because they act fem, that they are in the same boat as you, and instead of disposing them, embrace them. We are all in this together, masc, fem, lesbian, bi, trans, etc. We are one community, and we are a community with one purpose: to show that love is LOVE.

Michael

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divinedaqueen-blog · 10 years ago

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