Today was our Day of Silence. Here was the note I gave to my teachers:
DAY OF SILENCE
Silent for Lawrence King
Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence (DOS), a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by anti-LGBT bullying, name-calling, and harrassment. This year's DOS is held in memory of Lawrence King, a 15-year-old student who was killed in school because of his sexual orientation and gender expression. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward building awareness and making a commitment to address these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today.
What are you going to do to end the Silence?
I walked through school today, keeping my mouth shut from the moment I woke to aproximately 4:30 in the afternoon, when my father called to say when he would be home. Many of my friends are gay/lesbian/bisexual, and I held my silence for them. My teachers respected my silence, asking only that I keep a pad of paper and pen around just in case of questions that need to be asked. I used my sketchbook to relay messages to others when it was needed.
I kept my silence for the ones I know, and the ones I don't.
A friend emailed this to me a few weeks ago, and I thought of sharing it:
I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian.
I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman.
I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights.
We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time.
I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me.
I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear.
We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men.
I was the boy who skipped gym class because he was afraid of what people would do to him.
I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me.
I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman.
I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman.
I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men.
I am the man who died when the paramedics stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual.
I am the boy who was forced to take his own life for coming out of the shadows.
I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didn't have to always deal with society hating me.
I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind.
I am the boy who gave up on his dreams because he's bisexual.
I am the boy who closed himself in because his dad took away his right to privacy.
I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love.
I am the boy who faked sick because I was scared to see what was written on my locker today.
I am the father who tried to kill his son because he was gay.
I am the boy who never knew what it was like to have his own life.
I am the boy who helped viciously attack his gay friend, because he didn't want his other friends to know that he had been seeing him.
I am the boy who's afraid to look another boy in the eyes, because of what he might think.
I am the boy who killed himself in the school bathroom because he lost all his friends.
I am the girl who became the school whore because I like girls too.
I am the girl who no one understands.
I am the boy who gave up on life because I never really knew what it was like to have one.
I am the boy who hid himself away, afraid of what others would do or say.
I am the boy who no one understands.
I am the girl whose father beat her half to death with a baseball bat because he wanted to “beat the gay out of me”
Homophobia pushed too far is discrimination.
~heart~
Okami
