The Land I Cannot Love

After going back to live with my parents were I grew up, I recently realized something that I did not like: inevitably, probably not in the too distant future, I will be forced to move away from here for good.

This scared me; the thought of packing up a U-haul with everything I own and going to live in a new place—although it sounds exciting—brought tears to my eyes. Tears not of joy, but of sadness. I, very much down to my deepest bone, want to love this place—to call it home. The problem is I cannot. Being gay is just too much of a burden.

The Narnia Inside My Closet: Part 2

< Part 1  |  Part 3 >

In my first post, I describe how I lived alone with my questions of my sexual orientation. I had no one to turn to, no one to trust in; I was alone. So I hid it away, pretending it was not there. And anytime anyone came close to figuring it out, I gave them excuses that led them in the other direction.

I hoped that when I got to college, I would know what to do; hoped that something would have changed. But when I finally got there it was not like anything had changed, and now I started to run out of excuses.

The Narnia Inside My Closet: Part 1

< Part 2  |  Part 3 >

When someone starts to openly tell other people that he or she is gay, it is typically said that they are “coming out of the closet”—or simply “coming out.” I have never liked this analogy. To me, it implies you were hiding something, as if you knew who you were all along.

But for me, it was not that simple. Telling other people I was gay was not a “coming out”; for me, it was a “coming-of-age.”

Historic Presidency Makes Step Forward

In case you have been living in a shell this past week, here’s what you missed: both President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden came out in the media this week in favor of same-sex marriage. This is historic as this is the first presidency in U.S. history to openly affirm LGBT individual’s rights to marry.

This comes as good news for LGBT rights advocates as the Obama administration has thus far had a bumpy roller coaster ride of a presidential term. 

They were able to pass the Matthew Shepard Act in 2010 finally recognizing violence against LGBT individuals as a hate crime. And they successfully repealed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ in 2010 allowing gays and lesbians to openly serve in the military. All of this was bolstered by marriage equality being legalized in Connecticut in 2008; Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire in 2009; Washington D.C. in 2010; and New York in 2011.