thelesbianlifestyle.com

First, I’d like to preface this by saying that I am a sixteen year old Junior in high school, and I came out in early 2007. I was raised Southern Baptist, and one of my earliest memories of homophobia within my own family was when I was around the age of 7. I remember quite clearly sitting on my grandmother’s den floor watching 20/20 [what she considered to be "liberal media," poisoning my mind with new age ideas that were sure to be the downfall of Christian society]; the feature story was about Matthew Shepard and his murder.

Something about the story affected me so deeply…I had a physical reaction to that young man and how he must have felt. I was enveloped in his life and the way it all so tragically and disgustingly ended. As the program went to commercial shortly after sharing the news that he had died, I said almost to myself but out loud, “Gosh, could you imagine? Dying for something like that?”

My grandmother responded with words that shook me, words I never forgot: “Lauren, don’t feel bad for them. They aren’t like us.” Like hell he wasn’t! It was then that I first began to understand what was so different about me from the rest of my family. I prayed night after night that God would spare me, make me normal, change my heart. I cried and shook and felt such terror and shame for that piece of myself. I’ve learned through talking with friends, counselors and leaders in my GLBT community that these feelings plague so many young gay men and lesbians.

Young gays have often been forgotten, I’ve realized. Either that, or ignored. I don’t know if the rate of teen suicide is a fact that society would rather not accept, or rather not fix. But I can say from experience that the news that your old buddy from middle school, a boy you laughed with and learned with, has taken his own life because he’s being tortured at school for being gay takes the innocence right out of your childhood. And learning that another friend was hospitalized after trying to overdose on sleeping pills because her parents found out she was in a relationship with a girl shakes your world a bit. And it’s happening everywhere, to a lot of people.

I’m lucky that my path to coming out was better than my many friends’. I have a wonderful mother who has taught me that my humanity is my first and foremost identity, and that it is never compromised by hate or fear. I have a strong support system and difference does not phase me. But others that I know are not so lucky. Some of us have no choice but to live in homes where our parents put us through therapy that is known to have negative, self-loathing effects, or in schools where administrators have very clever ways of singling out gay teens who exhibit “gay behavior” by labeling wardrobe and speech as distractions to the learning environment.

Mainly, I’m writing these things because gay youth simply cannot be forgotten. We are such an invisible part of the gay community, and more than ever we need to see positive examples of people who are like us, who we can see ourselves in. Call it awareness, call it Public Service Announcement…I just want to speak for those of us who can’t speak. I hope that by reading this [very roughly written] blog, you remember what it was like to be young and new to the world, and remember what it felt like to come out to your family and friends. I hope that this might inspire some discussions on how we can make the world safer for gay youth…and it’s got to start first in schools. Homes cannot be changed, but the way school administrators handle the formation of Gay/Straight Alliances and the rules about hate-driven violence on school grounds can be addressed. It takes more than just a group of people to start changes like these, but it’s all sparked from a discussion. I hope some people here will step up, because someone’s got to start talking…and quick.

Thanks for reading my very heavy blog about very heavy topics. I write about a lot happier [more innapropriate] things on my personal blog, but this is a topic that I hold very close to my heart because of it’s gravity. I just want other people to recognize its importance.

~Lauren
Life As An Underage Lesbian