An Affliction | Teen Ink

An Affliction

December 5, 2012
By Anonymous

What, exactly, is the freedom of expression? The freedom to be with who you wish to be with, surely? According to many, this is not the case. An affliction is described as something that causes mental or physical harm, and for those who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, and even for others who don’t, an affliction is exactly what their sexuality is.

Many of those who aren’t part of the LGBT community support them anyways. However, there are some who do not. These characters see homosexuality as something that causes harm, and therefore seek to end the expression of it out of fear that it will cause harm to others. As to some of those who are a part of the LGBT community, their sexuality is their affliction because it distinguishes them, making them subject to taunting. This causes harm to their minds, and in serious cases, harm to their bodies.

In this lengthy and not entirely fictional account, three person’s tales will be told. Each has their own tale, whether of violence, of fear, or of being deprived of a rightful union, but all have the same cause: the same affliction.
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I don’t want to get up when my alarm goes off. My muscles scream for lazy mercy as I do nevertheless. As I fight to rouse myself, I dress in the dark uniform of those who try to blend with the shadows: dark jeans and an unassuming hoodie. Of course, I’d prefer something less rugged and messy, but my body’s received enough abuse as it is. The dark clothes don’t cover cries of the pain that the bruises on my body emit.

After I eat and say goodbye to my mom, I walk to my place of instruction: school. My mind wanders as I walk, careful not to step on the cracks. That’s one thing—one habit—that’s stayed with me since I moved here, as not much else has. Here, I could use the boost of luck.

My private high school, the only school within thirty miles of our little corner North Carolina, have walls that hold a very colorful group of students. The concept of being seen with those that you want to be seen with rules our school. The unspoken royal decree says that one who is nice to the queens and kings of the social kingdom of the school earn themselves a much-coveted place in the nobility. Others, like Nathaniel, rather pretend that they’re the kings when nobody outside his group of acquaintances cares about his self-assumed social rank. Although, if it’s threatened, Nathaniel won’t hesitate to put his decent amount of muscular force to use.

I would be knowledgeable about this. I came to this school early into the year and managed to have one day as a regular new kid—generating respectable speculation, in which nobody’s really sure what group I fit in, but they’re curious enough to find out. The second day brought worse tidings. Someone, somehow, found out that the new kid was gay, and that changed everything. Granted, there was a moment spent in limbo where people weren’t sure how to act. But when Nathaniel publicly slammed my shoulder with an uttering of the word “Fag,” it set the record for everyone to follow. It’s now what defines my daily life.

I arrive before the others begin to. Just to be safe, and to avoid the main crowd that make up the stampede of rush hour. I go to homeroom and sit down to read as Ms. Abbot, the AP English teacher, grades papers—she’s used to this arrangement, and since all I ask is peace and quiet, and with her having a hint of Nathaniel’s reputation, she obliges.
As cliché as it seems, Romeo and Juliet is my choice of reading and of fascination. Although the plot is questionable, nothing is quite as resounding as the Capulets and Montagues. There’s also Mercutio, who never fails to amuse me. The story is classically gripping: love, forbidden by society—in their case, known as their families.
It’s surprising what doesn’t die with age.

In between classes, I see Jude walking through the halls. Jude is one of Nathan’s henchmen, and one high up on the henchmen hierarchy, but the strange thing about him is that he doesn’t belong there. Being invisible makes one observant, and I’ve discovered that Jude is a closeted genius. I assume that he chooses to play as a brainless bully to keep his image in school society, but he doesn’t belong, and it’s saddening.

Carrying a load of textbooks and other weighty things that we’re told are necessary for education, I see Jude and Ben raucously meet up, on the way to our next class, Gym. They see me coming, and Ben decides that it’s a good time to bump into me as I pass by. His large, football-trained shoulder slams into mine, agitating my already battered shoulder. Some of my papers float to the floor, but this isn’t this first time that this has happened and I manage to hold on to the rest of my things.

“Faggot,” I hear him snicker under his breath as an ignorant glint passes through his eye—and then he moves along. Some passing witnesses chortle while others just avert their eyes and walk quickly away. I see Roxanne, who’s a nice person, from what I learned on my first day, looking on with sympathy. Sadly, though, she can’t help but run with the—to put it lightly and in Shakespearian terms—wench crowd. Right then, her pack of horribly dressed cult-mates tell her to hurry up and she snaps back to her untrue self. I watch her walk away before kneeling down to pick up my strewn papers, and I see Mr. Stanwell, the Gym teacher, in the process of turning his head away and walking on with the crowd. I know that he saw, and I understand him not wanting to get involved—who would want to ruffle the feathers of the parents who pay for their kid to attend this school?

In Gym, it’s volleyball season. There’s a crowd composed of a fair mix of obnoxious guys and girls that dominate the courts when we play. It doesn’t matter if anyone besides them is any good, or even better—if they aren’t part of this insufferable crowd, they don’t get the ball anywhere near them. Talk about sportsmanship, right? Mr. Stanwell pretends that all is perfectly normal, of course.
Today, I’m on the team that will play against Ben and Nathaniel—I was lucky enough to have this class with both of them. But on my team was Aaron, a cute, blonde, baby-faced, sympathizer. This made things a little brighter.

In this school, it doesn’t matter how I have skill in volleyball—how my old school in Arizona just almost went to the state finals. Nobody would ever guess that the fairy can hit a ball. Back in Arizona, my volleyball team was well-known and well-feared. My area of expertise, in particular, was spiking.
But not here. Here, I’m the worthless homo. If “all-star group” believed that my hands dirtied the ball, and therefore did their best to not permit me access to it. And if they couldn’t? Why shatter their false reality? So I either never played, or never played above average; I had to confess that I miss the look of bitter disappointment on the opposing team’s faces.
Today, we’re beginning a tournament, which meant that the best would eventually face the best. The teams got in their positions and coach was checking us over us; I was front, right up against Nathaniel.
“Hey, fag, ready to lose what’s left of your pride?” he challenged. This makes me mad, and soon, I start seeing red.
“I wouldn’t be concerned with my pride, if it were me, personally,” I say with a heavily sarcastic, nonchalant shrug. It took him off guard at first, since it was my first time saying something that could resemble a forceful rebuff back to him, but he definitely got the message. His eyes set ablaze, and his countenance was coloring itself red. Wonderful.
“We’ll see, queer-do.” That small statement was saturated with venom and I now realize that I got myself into something. Oh, well. It’s about time to see if I can still spike.
Coach finally finished checking us, and we began the showdown. Marcie, one of the obnoxious groupies, served first. With a plunk, the ball flew, bouncing from team to team. Eventually, the ball came flying at my face. I knew nobody could get to me in time to steal my ball, and I happily seized the opportunity. I set it perfectly to another obnoxious groupie, but one I knew spiked like he was trying to pound the earth with his ball. And, with a bit of shock evident on his face, he spiked it right in front of Nathaniel, helping add insult to injury. The first point was ours, and my statement was made.
After Nathaniel finally registered what just happened, hot anger twisted his features into something spiteful.
“So that’s how you wanna play? Bring it, you little c—”
The coach’s whistle blew, signaling a foul in another game. On our court, it’s my teams’ serve again.
“One-zero!” And off it went, making a couple of volleys before the ball came towards me again—someone must have wanted to see if I just got lucky. I happily answered their unspoken question by bumping it into an undefended part of the other team’s court. Another point made, with Nathaniel looking more and more like a tomato. Then, our server screwed up and it was Nathaniel’s serve, right to my face again. I save it, though, passing it to Aaron. It’s our point again.
And so it went, on and on like this. The other team would catch up to us, and we would come back out on top. By the time we go back to the locker room, we had a lead of 4.
As I’m about to close my locker and rush to my next class, I hear heavy footsteps and labored breathing. I don’t think I need a second guess.
“You think you’re cool now, don’t you? Isn’t that what you’re thinking, faggot?” I turned to look at him—he once again was wearing the most dreadful expression, the one full of ignorant hate.
“Can I help you?” I ask politely.

“You. Freaking. Homo. You think you’re cool, don’t you? Here’s a newsflash: you’re a piece of trash that’ll rot in hell! You hear?”
Before I could respond, I felt his fist—it was honestly unexpected, because who would have thought that he would throw yet another hissy fit so soon? But nevertheless, it was his fist that slammed into my gut, knocking me back into the open locker, the shelf making my head snap forward.
I was disoriented—my mind couldn’t get things straight, couldn’t de-cloud, and I could hardly register the multiple kicks in my side and then, voices as Ben and Jude realized there was a punching bag party here. The cold metal hurt, as well as the frigid linoleum ground, and I tried to defend myself, but as soon as I got my feeble arms up to protect me, they would be knocked away.
I clung onto consciousness as the roaring of a great red sea overtook me.
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When I awake, I am confused. I see lights, lots of lights… but where are they from? I don’t remember…
As soon as my sleepy eyes open, focus, and swerve in search for clues, I see Roxanne, watching me intently from a chair.
She waves a little upon seeing the question in my face.
“Hi,” she says sadly. After taking a deep breath, she tries to give me an answer. “I saw the jerks leaving, laughing, and I knew that couldn’t be good, knowing what imbeciles they are to you, so I checked the boys’ locker room… you were a bloody mess.” She finished quietly.
“Hi, Elijah!” I hear whispered from the doorway—Aaron! “Look who’s finally up!” he says teasingly.
“Ugh… what… happened?”
They looked at each other, and slowly told me what I could not remember myself.
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As it turns out, Aaron and Roxy were friends, and also being aware of what Nathaniel was like to me, he came along. He is exactly my type of guy: artistic, yet athletic, friendly, but not too much so, and he even reads! And Roxanne , I learned, has the most spectacular eye for fashion, and she can discuss Broadway stars for hours and hours. With them staying at the hospital with me, we actually became fast friends, and later on, even an established trio.

Not even the school could keep what had happened under wraps, so my story eventually made it to the local news; I thought that was kind of ridiculous, considering how little people talk about the more unpleasant things that go on in school, but whatever works. Nathaniel got into juvie, though Ben and Jude were let off with community service. I doubt that they’ll be hanging around Nathaniel any longer.

Back at school, nobody really bothers Aaron, Roxanne, and me. Quite on the contrary of what was, the people are actually friendly now. In addition to that, and to my immense delight, after a number of months passed, Aaron came out as gay for the first time; we became each others’ firsts.

In the end, it all worked out for the best—a true fairy tale, in my opinion, and much better than any Romeo and Juliet.
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I look around, rotating, whirling, to find Max. The worn oak park bench at the intersection of the neighborhood where I usually find him sitting, waiting for me to come in the morning so we could walk to school together, is empty, his usual presence a gaping absence.

Where could he be? I can’t be late for school, and I can’t go without him. I look down his street, trying to see if maybe he was running late. Nothing except for a neighborhood dog out for its morning bathroom break. With my hair now in a mess, I look up ahead on the road to school, seeing if he went ahead, coming up with nothing again.
“Ugh!” I groan hopelessly. Why today, why? Should I go down and see if he’s okay? Or should I just walk to sch-

Then, that’s when I happened to look up in the direction of the hill that leads into the neighborhood park. I see him sitting on the older and colder stone bench, with his legs up and looking the opposite direction, over the hill, and to the direction of the sunrise. What the heck is he doing? We’re going to school, not thinking how pretty the view is! Instead of calling him down, I choose to sneak up on him—we’re already going to have to run to school, anyways. I sneak as quietly as I can, on my tip-toes… I keep my eyes on him—his glasses have turned dark with his transition lenses. When I finally reach him, though, I have to stop. I can see his face—it’s weirdly withdrawn, and he doesn’t have his usual mischievous smile. Something isn’t right.

“Max?” I ask tentatively. It’s not every day you don’t see him not bouncing off walls; this is really unusual.

His head whips around to me at the sound of his name. Seeing it was me, he relaxed. “Hi, Riley,” was all he says before looking down. “I guess I kind of should have been down at the bench… sorry.” I know he isn’t sorry, but he just doesn’t have the volition to say much else.

“What happened?”

He looks up at me. “Why does something have to happen for me to watch a sunrise?”

I give him a hard look –he knows better. He sighs deeply and finally just tells me.

“Mom found out,” he says, avoiding my eyes. “She accidentally read something when she was taking my phone away. She read when I was telling you exactly why I can’t tell Mom I’m bi.” I know what this means—when Max tried to bring it up with her before, she said that gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders have something a little wrong with their heads, that they’re attention-seekers, that they can’t control themselves, that they’re not really what they think they are. What she didn’t know was that Max—who is none of the horrible things that she said— is bisexual, sitting through and listening to her ranting.

But I have to try to remain positive—besides, what are friends for?

“And she said…”

“Nothing. She had nothing to say. She didn’t know what to say. I don’t know if there was anything she could say. She just sat down and looked at me. So I walked out. You know, to let her think,” he says the last bitterly—what he didn’t say that we both understood was, ‘to let her think… about if she hates her son or not.’

“Well, then, that’s that.” I try to keep things in order, to keep calm. Max’s mom will do anything ever for her son, but at the same time, she’s also pretty firm in her beliefs. I hope she’s thinking hard, because whatever she thinks up would end up affecting Max, my friend since we rode tricycles, big time. “She thinks, and we find out the verdict when we get home.”

“I so knew it,” he moans as he heaves himself to his feet. He really doesn’t think much of himself, so he thinks that if people knew, he would become hated by everyone, and rejected by his friends. Because of this, I know that he’s imagining the worst scenarios possible in his head. “But I guess that we should go, we do have to get to school. I’ll deal with this later.”

I totally forgot about school—now, I realize, we’ll be late even if we run. But what other choice do we have?

“Let’s go,” I sigh.

And run to school we do, sprinting through stop signs and red lights, and end up showing up at school only minutes after the bell rang, and since we weren’t troublemakers or anything, they let us off.

School is pretty much a lost cause—I can’t focus, and instead of lessons, I’m thinking about that would happen to Max if his mom decides to react this way or that. Then, lunch finally comes, a break from having to pretend that I’m paying any attention. At my lunch table, all the talk is about the dance of the season, and though I adore my friends, I couldn’t really care less about it. Though Max sometimes sits with us, he usually sits with his guy friends, and he isn’t at either place right now. Eating anything without making myself sick isn’t working, so I leave my friends early and decide to go read magazines in the library.

As soon as I walk in, I see Max, with a textbook and some other papers in front of him, but he didn’t seem to be paying attention to any of it. He’s turned away from me again, so he doesn’t see me. As I get closer, I see that he’s scribbling furiously on a piece of notebook paper.

“Hi,” I break him from his trance.

He stops, as if torn from a trance, and looks up at me. “Hi,” he responds quietly. Then, he takes a deep breath and slouches back in his chair. “I couldn’t finish the test in Biology, so she let me do it at lunch. And instead, I’ve being writing a monologue.” He confesses, and as soon as he does, his stomach growls.

“And did you eat anything?” I accuse.

“Nope,” he says sheepishly, “too busy ranting.”

I look at him and say, “Go and get something to eat. It’ll make you feel better.”

He hesitates. “But, the test…”

“Like you were going to do it anyway,” I snort.

He finally relents. I hug him and watch him leave. I can predict that his day was spent miserably thinking of the worst things that could happen… getting disowned, having to go see a therapist, and other scenes, all having to do with rejection.
Every time he hears a rude comment, he shrinks further back into his shell. And when he sees stories on the news of other kids, beaten for being gay, or those that have lost all hope and committed suicide, he just despairs. I know that he wants to be free, but to him, that’s only some far-away dream.

All of the people that are hateful to anyone LGBT take a toll on Max. When he was younger, before he discovered that he likes guys and girls, and that that’s called being bisexual, he was always, to quote our parents, “a bouncing ray of sunshine.” But when he discovered the number of people that think that he should “go die in a hole” for who he is… he was still his bouncy self, but all the shine was gone. His parents thought it was puberty making him such a withdrawn teenager, naturally. But I knew better, and when I asked why he didn’t play with me as much anymore, he told me, and all those years ago, I thought that was huge. I guess I kind of still do.

I sit down and look at his unfinished work, the monologue that he was scribbling(author's note: see primary source material at the end). It really was a monologue—it filled the page totally. Looking around to see that nobody’s looking, I decide to read it—how bad could it be?

As I read, I realize more and more how this is a struggle is for him. He mentions knowing one other bisexual girl, and I think of Amilee, the quiet bookworm that, like Max, is afraid to come out. They discovered each others’ bisexuality by chance and became friends. She let Max tell me because Max told her how I’ve been supporting him. Her parents know, too, and officially accept her, but Amilee says that they really don’t, not in the back of their minds. She told us one time that when gay marriage commercials come on, or if they heard anything about the subject, her dad would just give her a funny look and either change the channel or tune out of whatever or whoever they were listening to. I can only hope that Max’s parents react like that.
At the end of the page, it cuts off mid-sentence, which is where he was when I came up behind him.
This confession almost makes me cry. It’s a map that only shows how lost on it he is. I try my best to help him, but there’s only so much I can do. I hear the library door open, and I drop the paper. I look up to see him balancing his tray and coming through the door, and I go to help him.

“Do you want me to come over after school?” I ask as I take a salad bowl and a drink. He thinks about it.

“No, Mom would want to talk to me by myself. I’ll survive. Besi-”

He’s cut off by a couple of people coming in behind him that forgot to bring down their volume.

“…I mean, it’s not like she was a total freak, but… I don’t know. My mom won’t let us go to the wedding, she thinks that my Uncle James failed to raise her right, and that’s why she’s lez.”

“Would you go anyways?” another person inquired.

“Dunno. She was really nice when I knew her, even though she was always kinda weird. But Mom didn’t really let us go visit them that often after we found out…”

They finally quieted down and were out of earshot. “Wow,” I think sarcastically. “This couldn’t have been more perfect timing.” With a glance at Max, I saw his expression was closed off.

“Get your stuff and we’ll get out of here.”
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That night, Max e-mailed me the verdict. We were relieved; his mom and dad made it clear that they loved him, but they still think it’s just a phase. But most importantly, whether it is or not, and all prejudice put aside, they accept him to those points. I guess that’s the best we could have asked for. He won’t feel very welcome in home for a little bit, I’m sure, but that’ll pass with time. All there is to do now is just to live and take things as they come, day-by-day.
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One normal hot, lazy day in Florida, Marissa Gardner gets home after a long, difficult day at work; she’s a director of marketing at Disney, a job that puts a lot of weight on her shoulders. Her Subaru pulls up to the entrance of her gated community in Windvale, Florida, only a 15 minute drive from Tiger Woods’ house. After entering her neighborhood and driving past the Publix in her neighborhood, Melissa pulls in and parks in her driveway—the garage is occupied with two large, black, and somewhat roguish Harley-Davison bikes, and they aren’t her sons’, who are just 9 and 13. Melissa and her partner, Kim, are the owners of these motorcycles, which can only be described as hard-core.

The house is two-story, large, airy, with wooden floors and high ceilings on the main level and completed with a large, fully-featured kitchen. A homely rug was in the cozy living room with comfy leather couches. Everything is clean, organized, and dusted. From the sliding glass doors, a barbecue and lawn chairs are visible, and further off, in the back yard, a playground. Upstairs, the two boys, Nicholas and Peter, reside, a well-decorated beach and surf room for the elder, Alex, and a Spongebob theme for Peter. They share a large play room that includes a home theater and quite a collection of X-Box, PlayStation, and Wii games.

Marissa, a tall, short-haired brunette with healthy build walks into her house, strips off her high-heeled leather shoes, stows her work bag, hangs her silk-lined blazer, trudges through the large dining room, and walks into the living room, which is conjoined with the kitchen, and sighs. It’s good to be home for her. She lays her eyes on Lynn, averaged-height, fit yet somewhat chubby, blonde, spiky-haired woman of her forties, lounging in the reclining seat of the couch.

Lynn is an assistant producer for Disney—she helps make Disney productions, such as the Disney Channel Games of the summer of 2008. This means that she doesn’t have to work often, and when she does, she brings home a large payroll—a lot less stressful than Melissa’s demanding job. So therefore, she has more leeway with relaxing time.

“Hey,” she says with her always-somewhat-playful tone, “someone looks like a long day at work.”

Marissa sighs again. “How’d you know?” she asks sarcastically, though still in good humor. She walks over to the couch and lies down on, her feet resting, raised, on Lynn’s legs, and watches TV in a peaceful silence with her for a moment of unwinding.

“Oh, Lis, Maurie called; she, Steven, and the kids are coming over today—a little later this hour, actually,” Lynn says, “I started wondering about dinner, but then I thought that I’d leave it up to them,” she finishes with her good-natured tone.

Marissa heaves a sigh once again. “I guess it’s time they visited, it’s been a few weeks.”

Maurie Greenward is Marissa’s little sister, with eight years in between the two siblings. Maurie had married Steven at 22, and they’ve been married, and deeply in love, for 8 years, with three kids in between them: Emalie, seven, Ada, four and a half, and Jackson, just barely three. They are a Mormon family that goes to church every Sunday, and that had struggled through hard times before, emerged strong. Maurie teaches high school English (and is way, wickedly good at it, too—she is a master nitpicker, has an eye better than any hawk’s for any spelling or grammatical mistakes, incorrect sentence structure, or unclear idea conveying, and to top it all off, she’s infinitely supportive of the kids she has every year, no matter how Orange County, Florida life had treated them), while Steven, who is craftily sarcastic and excellent and improvisation, and, above all, funny, works in hospitality management at Disney (yet another Disney person in the family). The kids either have daycare, preschool, or grade school.

After lounging for about an hour, they hear the knock at the door, and that’s when things whirl into motion. Alex and Peter run down the stairs. Nicholas is a lanky, sporty, giant of a 13-year-old at almost six feet. His skin is Florida-tanned, his hair Florida-blonde, with blue eyes. Peter has almost all the same characteristics, except he wears them very differently—he was average height, with glasses and a shy smile. They were both, however, very bright, straight-A students.
Alex, naturally, beat Peter to the door, all the while shouting “Gotitgotitgotit!” in his cracking voice.

As soon as the door’s opened, the Greenwards are in, and the kids are making a disjointed chorus of noises and sounds to fill the house, and the sound of adults talking fills the air. Molly thought to stop and get Chick-Fil-A, a long-time favorite of the kids’.

“Hi, Mar,” Marissa greets her sister, hugging her. “Thanks for the dinner, Lynn and I got lazy,” she admitted.

Then, Lynn stepped in, hugging Maurie, and then Adam. “Well, more me, but we can say ‘Lynn and I’,” she mutters mischievously.

The night was spent just as any other night with family—they all eat, the kids play (argue a little) and Maurie, Steven, Marissa and Lynn have very heated debates and discussions. This night, Alex and Peter try to teach Emalie how to play Guitar Hero while Marie rants about how the state of Florida no longer makes spelling and grammar a Sunshine State Standard—English benchmarks for the schools of the state.

And as the night dies down, when the clock ticks close to ten, the younger kids, Ada and Jackson, were fast asleep on the rug in the living room, and Emalie was drifting off, too. Pirates of the Caribbean was playing quietly, which Alex and Parker were watching. The adults were still in their deep conversations, though now in more hushed tones.

With Maurie and Steven squeezing in the comfy loveseat and Marissa and Lynn on their couch, they appear exactly the same, couple-wise. They have both been married for a number of years, they both have kids, and they both are without a doubt in love.
They both wear rings on their fingers—but this is where they begin to differ. Maurie and Steven had a big, extravagant wedding ceremony, and they’re officially married, in every way possible.

Marissa and Lynn, however, even though they meet every possible qualification, legal or moral, to be a legitimate, married couple, it’s illegal for them to officially celebrate their union—it’s illegal for them to marry. Now, why, why, would anyone have any reason not to allow them to be together?

That’s right. They are both girls.
That one fact alone is all that disqualifies them from the right to marry.
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We are taught that love is free of all bounds—that love is possible even when the parents disapprove, even when it’s found in the most unlikely places, even in the most desperate circumstances—we are taught that despite all this, love can happen.

But what if the two in love are the same gender? That automatically excludes them from the rights that other couples in love have. People who are sentenced for crimes and are in prison can wed, but a rightful couple of the same gender cannot. And if this is fair? That’s currently being debated in more places than there are trees and paper to name.

Even worse than this is the taunting, hazing, and bullying that those that are open about who they are receive on a regular basis in some places. There is no logical reason for a human being to be treated so rudely for their own being and choices. How this is justified is a mystery.

To wrap up, although all of these stories are their own, whether by being prejudiced against via violence, fear, or dispossession of rights, they all revolve around the price that these people have to pay for being who they are.
To circle back to how this all started, they are afflicted.








Lightly Edited Primary Source Text Material (used with permission)

Why do I have to live like this? Bisexual. Some people think that it’s cool. Some think it’s gross. Well, I live in a town where if you were to come out, you would be taunted, bullied, and become an outcast. That’s why I stay closeted. It seems like the safest thing to do, I guess.
I don’t know why I’m writing this, especially when I’m supposed to be doing a school assignment. Maybe it’s because I’m going to throw it away then get back to work. If only I could just tell the world that I’m bisexual and I wouldn’t be treated any differently.
You know, I might have already come out to my school if I had any self confidence. I have zero self confidence. That’s why I’m scared. When I’m put down or in a bad place I cry. My wish is that I could just come out and everybody would accept me. How unrealistic is that?
It would be better with telling girls because I’ve told a few and they understand completely, but guys? A guy’s relationship is different, if they found out... it could ruin a lot of friendships. I just don’t know what to do. This is all so confusing to me. I’m still trying to figure this all out and it’s just really confusing to me.
I have a friend that’s bisexual, but she’s a girl. She understands, but it’s still way different. I need a bisexual friend that’s a guy! He would understand completely! Not even bisexual, a gay friend at least. It would help because what straight guy wants to discuss how hot a guy is? Seriously?
I’m scared, I’m alone, and I most of all, I need more people to know and have an understanding. If only I could share these thoughts with people. I would feel so much better. Just getting this all out right now helps.
If only I could just go to school and be, “Listen up everyone, I’m bisexual!” If people just understood how hard it is to be closeted. I want to come out! I think I’m go


The author's comments:
This is really a fictional. It's three mini-stories coming together to support the stance for LGBT rights and against LGBT prejudice.

I wrote it for school. We were assigned to write a paper on prejudice after watching Anne Frank, and I wanted to have more fun with it than concentration camps.

It transcended what was required and I liked that I actually wrote something that supports something relevant. If anything, I hope that people get a way of putting into words or a way to thinking about their own thoughts on the matter, whether they be positive or negative.

Enjoy!

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