When I was a conservative, I cringed at being told that all white people were racist. I hated that rhetoric. It was incorrect and racist itself, I mentally argued. Counter-arguments flooded my brain, but I was never too vocal about my "not-racism."
My mind changed in a history class at my Christian college. The professor mentioned North/South divide in the Reconstruction era. He said that pro-union, abolitionist-minded Northerners thought they were better, less racist, than their backward Southern cousins. This conception collapsed, however, as freed slaves moved north. When Yankees got black neighbors, they realized they were just as racist as former slave owners, albeit perhaps in a different way.
In-defense-of-white-conservajargon was quickly dismissed: "Of course I'm a racist. All people are, and that's because the world is broken by sin."
That statement triggered a change in me. I slowed down. I quit thinking of reasons to defend status quo. I exhaled relief. I am a sinner because I live in a world cursed by sin. I am a racist, and that's okay. It is not my fault. What's up to me is how I interact with my racism - how I interact with diverse cultures and ethnicities. Everything learned can be unlearned.
I am working on tempering my racism. I am growing. I no longer have to cling to "all lives matter."
Just like I should name and own my racism, I should name and own my homophobia.
My homophobia.
I am homophobic. I am queer. In many ways, I hate myself. But my self-hatred is not my fault. I believe I will spend most of my life battling this inner hatred, but I will, I will, fight it.
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I'm not having a great day mentally. I've been wanting to write something like this for a while, so I figured now would be a decent therapeutic time to do so. Homophobia is learned. Hatred is learned. Realizing these facts sheds immense light on otherwise-repressed memories from my childhood. They bubble up more and more frequently as I actively work toward coming out. These memories are painful, but they are part of my story, and they should be named. So here we go, in no particular order,
reasons I hate myself:
My dad calling my gay friend in high school a slur, and sharing with me that it was okay that we were friends - he just wasn't sure if he should come in to the house.
13 year old me, greeting card shopping with my grandma. "I'd rather have buns of honey than buns of steel." - Ellen DeGeneres. "Isn't this funny?" "We shouldn't buy that. Isn't she a lesbian?"
5th grade. Nervous to tell my family that I have a (female) date to the 5th grade dance. I told my grandparents, "well I'm not gay!" (I used the word to mean "lame" or "stupid - no sexual meaning at all.) My grandparents replied loudly and laughed, "Well that's good!"
The one gay person connected to our family, my uncle's brother, being constantly belittled by my family. He's lazy. He's an alcoholic. "Don't buy that shirt. It looks like something Justin would wear."
Age 8. Al Gore was running for President. I scolded a friend on the school bus, "he shouldn't be President because he thinks gay people should be able to adopt children."
I tell my aunt a statistic I'd learned in college. "Independent Christian church leaders have the lowest salaries. A capella churches make the most. Disciples of Christ are in the middle." Response: "I'm surprised your school even counts the Disciples as a church. The one near me supports gay marriage."
My babysitter's husband, "I'm not sure I want my daughter going to pre-school with a student who has two moms."
My boss, "Can you believe they signed the legalization of gay marriage on Abraham Lincoln's desk? - something they never should've done in the first place."
My pastor, "I would eat with a gay couple, but I don't agree with their lifestyle. It's a sad lifestyle."
My friend, "I'm not sure that I would rent a house with him. I think he might be gay."
My conservative high school where homosexuality is grounds for expulsion, but the star basketball player got to return to school after he impregnated an upperclassmen. The mother was not allowed to return.
Glasses shopping. I try on blue plastic frames. "Don't those look a little sissy?"
I told my dad, "I think a lot of people are anti-gay for reasons other than religious reasons." "I know, right, isn't there just something disgusting about two men kissing each other."
A client, "In Memphis, we kill gay people."
"Maybe Rush Limbaugh isn't the best source for morality." "Right, I mean, didn't he have Elton John, the homosexual, sing at his birthday party? Didn't you tell me that."
12 year old me. Mowing my lawn. Mixing my love of Weird-Al-like parody songs with internalized homophobia. I think I wanted to record a parody album one day. I was mowing, in my head writing anti-gay lyrics to a popular song, singing them loudly above the noise of the engine. I still remember the words I wrote. I will not write them here.
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