This is Just The Beginning

In the words of Eliel Cruz, “I didn’t want to exchange a white heteronormative world for a white homonormative one.”

I gotta be honest, it’s tiring as a queer bisexual girl to see the cis white gays waving their Pride flags and talking about just marriage equality, acting like this is the one and only fight of the LGBT community. They never once mention the issues that transgender people face, never once talk about bisexual erasure, and pretty much never discuss things beyond the “L” and “G” of LGBT. Not to mention the whole leaving out QPOC.

Again, not shitting on the victory that is marriage equality. But I’ve got a double whammy being a queer bisexual girl, and my identity is often erased in the LGBT community. My partner’s identity is even more erased. Our issues are rarely discussed. How often have you heard others in the "L" and "G" part of the community being super vocal about trans issues, like access to restrooms and proper medical care? I know, just because someone doesn’t speak up about something doesn’t mean they don’t care about it, per se. But when they act like the marriage equality movement is the main issue in the LGBT community, it ticks me off. Because people are dying, yet how often do you hear about trans suicide rates?  Where’s the outrage over this? Do they realize that there's no marriage to look forward to if most of us are dead?

Yes, I’m grumpy and cynical as hell. But I’m tired of this homonormative world that erases queer and trans people.

Jason Cantrell had a good point in this blog post: "The Supreme Court may have given everyone the right to marry, but there are still a lot of places where transgender individuals don’t have the right to use a public restroom. And there’s still a lot of people who have to hide who they are, for fear of being attacked by “good moral Christians” and “proud patriotic Americans” who see anything outside of their binary, heteronormative world as a threat to their lifestyles. And I don’t know what to do about that. And it scares me."

So, yes, marriage equality is great and I’m excited for it. But this is just the beginning. We have so much more to work on. I hope that we continue to make progress and keep working on the issues that affects those in the community who don’t fall under the “L” and “G” of LGBT.

No One Fucking Gets It (As Usual)

It's no secret I've suffered from depression for a long time. Paired with the ridiculous anxiety I have, it's not a pleasant combination.

I'm not comfortable explaining why I'm this way. I know what's wrong with me, I know damn well why I'm depressed and have wanted to kill myself in the past. But I can't talk about it publicly, at least not on blogs my mom knows that I write for and under my actual name. If certain people knew about the physical and emotional trauma I've been through, I don't know how they'd react. Especially when it comes to my mom. She's tried asking about it before, but I can't open up to her. Not yet. It's all still too...fresh. I have to deal with the pain every day and sometimes I feel like I'm going to explode. I look around me and wonder how no one can see that there's something wrong with me. Maybe my smile's too convincing.

Maybe it's because no one sees the days where I'm curled up in my room, shaking and trying not to cry. Trying not to cut. Trying not to give up. Because I still remember everything, or most of it. What's put together of my broken memories paints some scary shit.

I feel trapped. Because beyond anonymously writing for other blogs and frantically DMing certain friends only to quickly clear out the conversation in hopes my mom doesn't see it, I can't tell anyone else. It'd made everything fall apart. Things would get worse. I'm not sure if everyone would believe me, or believe just how badly I've been affected by what happened.

So I'm quiet, but it's killing me.