COLORS OF EQUALITY

Healing

2009-03-02T15:55:00.000-08:00

When you hurt
When you feel pain
When the tears keep spilling down your face
When you can not make rational decisions anymore

Then healing does not come easy

When you become silent
When you turn to music
When you stop eating normally
When you either sleep too much or too little

Then healing does not come easy

When the routine you had becomes dysfunctional
When the thoughts keep spinning
When being happy is a thought of the past
When failing things such as classes or friendship

Then healing does not come easy

When you continue to tear up inside
When you continue to think about the past with what ifs
When you cry every time you remember something fun that happened
When you can not find anyone to hold you while you are being torn apart

Then healing does not come easy

When you need to decide whether or not to stay friends
When you know that it will not be the same again
When you read books or watch movies and are remembered of them
When you hear others speak of them

Then healing does not come easy

But when you start talking and hanging out with friends
When you slowly return to a routine
When you start to do well in classes
When you know that everything of the past is over and today is a good day

Then healing starts doing its job.
~N.R.S.

Unwanted

2009-03-02T15:53:00.000-08:00

You become a no-one
You are no longer a some-one
People look at you
But in truth they just look right through you

No longer are you hugged
No longer are you liked
You are just a big blob
Taking up their space

They don’t talk to you
They don’t walk with you to get food
They just ignore you
You are nothing to them

It hurts
It is very painful
You feel shunned, unwanted
You feel disliked, and hated

You never felt a part of the group
You never felt connected
Even though you tried so hard
Who you are just never feels right

Even in a setting were you are an equal
You are not treated like one
No one ever looks in your direction and asks…
Do you want to join us?

Do you have to invite yourself?
Do you have to feel rude and unwelcomed?
Could someone give you a chance?
Or do you have to feel invisible all the time?
~N.R.S.

Submission 3.

2009-03-02T15:51:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, starting in grade school I felt like I didn’t belong amongst my classmates. It started with me being a religious Jew. I was different in many ways. Administrators, teachers and students did not understand why I ate different foods, missed days of school, could not do anything on Saturdays among other things. There was one day before winter break that my fourth grade teacher Ms. August asked the class to write letters to Santa Clause. I refused and so I was sent to the office for not listening/disobeying the teacher. That same day around lunch time, she called my parents and told them that I refuse to write a letter to Santa Claws. My mom was very proud of me, for standing up for who I am and what I believed in. Another issue that I faced in grade school was that many times after or even before I got onto the bus to go to school, I was beaten up by either my neighbors, their friends, or my classmates that were on the same bus as me. I came home and lied to my parents if they saw that I was bruised. I injured myself in gym, or I scratched myself on a rock on the playground.

It didn’t really matter what school I went to, because at each school that I did go, I was looked down upon one way or another. Like in middle school, I went to an all girls school. At that time I was exploring my sexuality like so many other teenagers, and I knew already but would not admit it till much latter that I was attracted to women. Those two years were torturous for me, for two reasons. One I was less religious than those girls, and two if I expressed in any way of liking someone male or female I got in trouble.

For high school it was right back to public school. I remember dreading the fact that I was to come back to a place where people hated me. A place people called me names, told me things I didn’t even know what they meant. They swore at me, frightened me, did so many things, and the school never did anything about it. One of the things that happened to me in ninth and tenth grade was that I walked home from school, and my neighbors and their friends were behind me. They screamed “Hey Jew, we have a gun and we know how to use it!” I told my parents this about a year or two later, I thought I could handle it on my own.

Thinking back on all this still hurts. I know its over and things change, but those are scars that heal over a very long period of time. This certainly helped me to become a bigger, better, stronger person, but the tears will continue to flow until I fully heal one day.

Staying Strong

2009-03-02T15:49:00.000-08:00

Every night I cry myself to sleep
Every night I ask myself why
Every night I hate myself more then the night before
Every night I tell myself how it is my entire fault
Every night I tear myself apart
Every night I literally drown in my own dreams
Every night I scream with hatred
Every night I want to die
Every night I go to sleep in pain
Every night I do not sleep well
Every night I pray for things to change
Every night I wish to stay upright
Every night I get lost in my thoughts
Every night I stumble over rocks, boulders and tree stumps
Every night I see my world as a disaster zone
Every night I wish for my life to end
Every night I ask for people to understand the decision
Every night I pray for forgiveness
Every night I hope for a better day to come
Every night I tell myself things will change
Every night I hold onto hope
Every day I change a life
Every day I help a person out
Every day I sing of hope and happiness
Every day I keep going
Every day I do the best I can
Every day I know it will get better some day
Every day I know it’s a new day.
~N.R.S.

Submission 2.

2009-03-01T11:38:00.000-08:00

Basically, I had feelings from an early age. I can’t tell you when, I don’t remember much from before I was twelve. I remember a girlfriend who was five, and the only reason I was attracted to her was because of her toys. She had a bicycle with a horse’s head on it, the saddle was very girly, and I was really attracted to that. I think that’s when it was.

I knew my father was very negative so I suppressed a lot of it and tried to live the way he wanted me to. I tried to live a whole life trying to please somebody you never manage to, no matter how much you give in.

When I was twelve, I started to actively cross-dress; first time I had the opportunity. But I did not acknowledge anyone that felt that. I thought I was the only one. In those days there was no information. I graduated high school in 1969 before Stonewall. The only information on Transexuality or Transgender would be pornography.

I lived in a small town. There was no way I would be able to get into a porn shop in my town without someone seeing me and telling my parents. That was completely out of range, the library had nothing on it. So, up until the day I discovered the Tiffany club when I was 43 years old I thought I was the only person like me. The only other examples I saw was jokes on television. Always something people laughed at, nothing I wanted any part of.

1994, I was on AOL, I found a chat room. Inside were a bunch of guys talking about their finery. I knew they were men because they each talked about their cross dressing. After about an hour I signed out and created “Joanie”. I started chatting on line and someone told me about the Tiffany Club, a social support group for cross-dressers right here in Boston. I went a few times, didn’t do too much because I was trying to work up the nerve. After a few weeks I left work early and stopped in at the cross-dressers boutique downstairs from the Tiffany Club. Some make-up, wigs, I had some clothes already that I had bought through catalogues; just a small stashes I had kept since I was 12. And I started dressing like a woman. Of course I was a mess at first, I didn’t have a clue about it; no one ever taught me how to dress like a girl. Within the week after that, I did some of the dressing at home, completed my make up at a rest area on the way to Boston.

It was just too much trouble after a while so I started dressing completely at home. And at that point I didn’t do a very good job at it, I got red-faced all the time, people were always pointing and laughing, it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I started developing a thick skin really quick; you either do that, or you go back into hiding. You can’t learn how to do it without exposing yourself the humiliation. That’s a drawback of cross dressing and being transgender, you don’t have that official puberty period to learn what you are doing. It was an adventure.

My full transition occurred in 1997. Transition is different for everybody, for me it was discovering the feeling I had which went further than cross-dressing.

(...to be continued)

Submission 1.

2009-03-01T11:37:00.000-08:00

I was never on my high school track team and I barely jogged at the gym. But that night I ran. I ran so far. I can’t tell you what was in front of me, just behind me.

My best friend T. and I just graduated from Georgia State University. We decided to go with a bunch of our friends to some bar on Lafayette Street in Atlanta. T. wasn’t really into the whole idea, he had never been a drinker and he had this constant fear of what could have happened to us in any parts of the city we didn’t know very well.

I met T. freshman year of college when we both were in Comparative Politics he was the quietest in the room, and when sophomore year rolled around we ended up rooming together with two other guys. That’s when T. really opened up. He told me he was raised southern Baptist, his father is a republican state delegate in northern Georgia, and his favorite dish was a hot milk cake with coconut frosting. T. always knew I was gay, and I knew he was gay. It was just unspoken really until Junior Year when we started going to Pride events and going on dates with other guys. He was really opening up.

Senior Year rolled around and I convinced him to come out to his parents. T. was so scared; he had to write a letter. For weeks there was no response, he tried calling but they never answered. Finally one day we were watching a news conference on our state assembly attempting to pass a constitutional ballot initiative against gay unions. There was his father, the republican state delegate standing with twenty or so other men voicing their support. T. just wasn’t himself. He was crying randomly, and he wasn’t very social. I think it was around February when he finally came out of it. That’s when we were drunk one night in our dorm and we ended up kissing. It was awkward at first but we kept kissing and kissing and kissing. I guess that made T. and I boyfriends by graduation.

T. landed a job with the Barack Obama campaign and I was set to teach math in a suburb of Dallas. That weekend was supposed to be our last chance to set free. After leaving the bar a few guys outside started yelling to us. They called us faggots, queers, perverts. I recognized a few of them; two of them went to the same church T. went to each Sunday. Before I knew it we were running, the four guys were chasing us. For a while T. and I were running together, but we thought we would split up on 62^nd Avenue to throw them off. I kept running. And running. Ten minutes or so passed and I was a few blocks up when I noticed no one was behind me anymore. I called the police and they were on their way to the bar. As I walked back I kept calling T.’s cell phone with no response. It just rang and went to voicemail. When I got to the split on 62^nd Avenue I heard his phone ringing. I ran as fast as I could in an attempt to find him, I kept calling his phone and yelling his name. And there he was in a dark alley directly next to the building where we split. He was face down in a pile of blood, a metal pipe laying near him. I screamed for help, but no one came. I just sat there and held his lifeless body, sobbing.

The police finally came, and then an ambulance, reporters and crowds. In the weeks after his death the media discovered who T.’s father was. I read somewhere that he resigned shortly after. They never caught our attackers, I knew who two of them were, but what does it matter. Justice will never be served not here. Not in Atlanta. T. is dead. My boyfriend is dead. My best friend is dead. He was right that night, his fears came true and I ignored them.

Somewhere down the line someone taught those guys that it was okay to kill, that it was wrong for someone to be something they are not. What is wrong with our society in the year 2008 now that we allow this to occur? Gay rights groups will add T. to their facts, their numbers. But I won’t see him as a statistic; I will see him as T., my college roommate and friend who lost his life to bigotry.

Colors at BSC

2009-03-01T11:32:00.000-08:00

Have you faced discrimination in your life? Want to share your story?

The GLBTA Pride Center & The Center for Multicultural Affairs is collecting stories from students about their experiences with discrimination of all type and expression of the lives of marginalized students of colors, those who are GLBTQ and their Allies.

You are welcome and encourage to send stories of what it’s like to be a sexual, gender identity/expression, racial or ethnic minority person as well as an Ally; coming out stories, ally stories of help and advocacy, stories of discrimination and stories about the triumph of the human spirit despite the reality of oppression.

Our goal is to publish your stories and share it with the BSC community as a whole.

All form of stories accepted: Stories – poetry- songs- interviews-- spoken word…

Please e-mail your stories to El Agossou, ambassador of the Price Center at eagossouague@bridgew.edu and you will see them posted within 24 hours.

All submissions will remain anonymous unless requested otherwise.