Day 13 – Your favorite LGBT role model/celebrity

I must have started this post 10 times over the past few days. So I'm looking at it from a new perspective tonight.

My LGBT role models change quite regularly, like most things with me! There are a few that have remained constant however. As a collective I have huge respect and admiration for BeLonG To Youth Services. Partly because of the high standards of youth work they maintain no matter what is thrown their way, partly because they have created such a strong name and image for themselves within the LGBT community. When I qualify (ie. when I grow up) I want to work with an organization like them.

On a broader scale I admire the It Gets Better Project founder Dan Savage and all the people who have contributed to the project. Such is my admiration and belief in the project I had this tattooed recently:

Day 12 – Your favorite LGBT movie (or one you’d like to see)

I have two and they were both shown to me on the same day! The first is Boy's Don't Cry.





It's the harrowing true story of Brandon Teena, a trans man in America in the late 80's and early 90's.


My second is RENT




I got so upset watching Boys Don't Cry (I was quite hysterical, it took a half hour to calm me down) that RENT was put on, to cheer me up. It definitely worked, and there were tears throughout, once you break the seal thats it! It is my most watched LGBT film.

Day 11 – Your favorite LGBT book (or one you’d like to read)

Without a shadow of a doubt this is the best LGBT book I have ever started and mean to finish.

Day 10 – What does marriage mean to you?

I'm in two minds about marriage, my romantic side and my practical side.

Practically marriage is about security. It's a step you take, when combining your life with somebody you love, to protect your assets should anything ever happen to the other person or to you. It's a step you take to protect the children you have together. It's a piece of paper that affords you some nice tax breaks and a good status in society. And as much as people say that these things don't matter it is only to a very few. The majority of people do think about these things and want them, secretly or not.

Romantically I think marriage is about promising another person that you're gonna try your damnedest to make your relationship work, in good times and bad times, because you love them. It's a commitment to the life you've both planned and created together.

No matter how marriage is defined or what it means to people I think it is completely ridiculous to claim that LGBT people fighting for the right to marry is destroying it's sanctity. If anything is destroying the sanctity of marriage it's divorce! I hope that someday I will have somebody that I want to marry, and when that time comes that I will have the right to marry her. I will continue to fight for my future happiness, and the security of my future family. I'm only human after all.

Day 9 – What do you think about LGBT Pride? Is it helpful or hurtful? Encouraged or unnecessary?

My views sway about Pride but not about the celebration itself, about the sheer amount of alcohol that the event seems to center around, or ends up centering around despite what the Pride committee do.

LGBT Pride is an important event, one that encourages the community to get out and celebrate being themselves. The day that LGBT people don't receive any form of harassment for their sexuality is the day that Pride will start to become unnecessary for me. But until that day I believe we should be out there, every summer, to keep showing the world who we are.

Day 8 – What do you think the closet or being closeted means to you?

clos·et
n.
1. A cabinet or enclosed recess for linens, household supplies, or clothing.
2. A small private chamber, as for study or prayer.
3. A water closet; a toilet.
4. A state of secrecy or cautious privacy: Two days before the election, the candidate suddenly came out of the closet and denounced the proposed law.

To enclose or shut up in a private room, as for discussion: closeted themselves with their attorneys.

adj.
1. Private; confidential: closet information.
2. Being so or engaging only in private; secret: a closet proponent of a tax increase; a closet alcoholic.
3. Based on theory and speculation rather than practice.

Thats the dictionary definition of the closet. For me, being in the closet is a lifetime thing. I'm always half in, half out, judging each situation, making sure that it is safe for me to come out and show all of me. Sexuality is a small part of who we are but also such a big part, and it will continue to be a big part for as long as LGBT people face prejudice for just being themselves.

Being closeted has a different meaning for me, it means being forced to stay in the closet, either from fear within yourself (but this fear has to come from somewhere external, we're not born afraid), or from an openly negative environment.

Day 7 – How your parents took it or how you think they might take it

I'm out two and a half years to my parents. It's been a long journey. When I first came out in July 2008 they had no idea what was coming. I sat them down during the break of Emmerdale and just told them outright. My Mum denies this now but her jaw hit the floor and she didn't speak for a good five minutes. Dad went into overdrive, asking me loads of questions, how long I'd know etc. It took them both a long time to even mention it to me again. I was on gay overdrive, so thrilled to be out of the closet and discovering my new community. I must have been tough to love with, especially as it was all so new to them. But gradually they came round to the idea. Mum first. I knew they were okay with it when they started joking, my Mum in particular asking if women were just as bad as men!

They've met a few of my partners over the past 30 months, liked and disliked, but treated them all with the same respect they treated any boy my sister or I ever brought home. They've stood up for me against ignorant family members and adore my girlfriend.

Day 6 – Did you face any problems regarding religion?

I was a very religious kid, went to church every Sunday, said my prayers, wanted to be a nun at one point. The major problem I faced regarding religion was the disappointment I felt. The current Pope has denounced homosexuality as a mortal sin, if I were to continue being a member of the Catholic Church I would have to at best hide my sexuality and at worst go for de-gaying. So I left the Church.

I'm still a spiritual person, I believe in different things, but I won't be getting over the dissapointment of being let down by the Church of my childhood anytime soon.

Day 5 – Thoughts regarding inner turmoil about your sexuality; Did you have any? Did it escalate to self-injury or suicidal thoughts?

Inner turmoil and I know each other very well. To say being gay terrified me is an understatement. I was a good Catholic girl, a quiet girl, I was going to grow up and marry a good man and make my parents and God happy. I also considered being a nun for a while.

I'm still not sure if my turmoil about my sexuality is what led me to become suicidal. It was a combination of a lot of things. I was also (and to an extent still am) an over-eater for the purpose of trying to comfort myself.

Day 4 – The first person you came out to and that story

As I said in Day 3 I tried to tell friends when I was 15. They were convinced I liked somebody in my class and were on at me to tell them who. So I told them I'd made a mistake, I wasn't gay.

The next time I ventured out of the closet I was more sure. I was 19, and it was during my 6 months of 'finding the problem' I'd taken after splitting up with my long term boyfriend. I don't remember the exact details, I was shit scared to actually say it. I was out on a drive round town with a friend and my little sister. I made some comment after we'd passed The George pub and my sister asked me outright if I was gay, to which I replied yes, I was. It felt like forever waiting for her response, but in fact it was merely a few seconds. Again, I don't remember her exact words but it was something along the lines of 'Cool.'.

It was around that time that I joined BeLonG To, the LGBT youth services in Dublin. Soon after I came out to my folks and slowly to everybody else in my life.

Day 3 – How old were you when you knew? What was that like for you?

I knew knew when I was 14. I'd been a sheltered child and I'd known I was different from about age 8 but it took me 6 years to realise what that difference was. It was hard at first, I felt alone and I didn't dare even let myself think about it in case somebody guessed. I put it to the back of my mind and continued trying to blend into the wall.

I tried to tell friends when I was 15 but they didn't understand so back into the closet I went. When I was 16 and doing my Transition Year one of the boys in our inter-school play had a crush on me. I was flattered, nobody had ever looked at me like that or wanted to hang out with me. So we dated but it never felt right. We broke up a few months later and he is still a good friend of mine. I was set up with another boy when I was in my final year of secondary school, a friend of a friends boyfriend. We dated for 18 months, my longest relationship to date. It was easy, we got on well and just plodded on. But I knew it wasn't what I wanted.

I finished secondary and went to university, a good deal away from home, but I was commuting. Away from the routine and regime of school I fell under very quickly and got very depressed. Once I'd been put on anti-depressants I began to realise that I was leading my then boyfriend along and I wasn't happy in our relationship. It killed me but I broke up with him. I spent the next 6 months figuring out what it was I wanted.

And the rest is for another blog.

Day 2 – Did you have any experiences as a child that might have foreshadowed your sexuality?

Apparently (as I have memory issues) when I was 5 I turned to my Mum and aunts and told them that when I grew up I would have loads of babies but I wasn't getting married. Mum says now she should have guessed back then.

To be honest, I led a very sheltered childhood. I always knew I was different but I didn't have the world knowledge to put words on how I felt.

Day 1 – Your sexual orientation or gender identity. Be creative in your definition.

This is something that is always changing for me and probably always will. My current definition of my sexual orientation is homo-flexible: I'm gay but shit happens. I've dated bio males, transguys, butch women, femme women, Americans, I've been around the block and then some. I sway towards pansexual:a person who participates in (or is open to) sexual activities of many kinds, but that doesn't sit right with who I am at the moment.

My gender identity is something I've been pondering for a few months, what it means to be a woman or a man, gender-queer, trans, or just in between. I am biologically a woman and many of my behaviours and tenancies follow that of what society has taught women to be. However as a gay woman I don't always agree with the 'sight quietly and look pretty' default that my gender has been assigned. So I'm a modern woman. A woman who isn't equal to males but wants to be treated with the same respect and given the same chances and opportunities a bio-male would get.

So this became a rant. In short I'm a kinda girly, outspoken, short hair, jeans loving gay woman, who's not afraid of the word dyke, dislikes the word lesbian and is pissed off at society's gender definitions.