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Hard times

Sometimes I just wish I could live my life without having to worry about stupid things that people shouldn’t even pay attention to. No suffering is more important than another, but being a black lesbian isn’t the easiest thing ever.

These are some hard times, lesbos.

I remember that one time in college. Have any of you ever been outed? Not such a good feeling. But the ‘funny’ thing in my case is that that person who ‘outed’ me didn’t even really realised it. I was hanging out with my friends and the friends of my friends and some acquaintances. We’re a pretty mixed group: Quebecois, one Irish girl, one Canadian from friendly Ontario, Haitians, francophones, gay guys, straight girls, a bisexual girl… And one of my new friends, who has boys on her mind 24/7 just kept talking to me about guys and I would be just like: “Oh”, “yeah”, “right”, “wow”, “huh-huh”, you know. And among the group it was pretty obvious that I have no interest in men but yet, I wasn’t out of the closet. And one day – one bad day – I just said to my girl friend that one random guy was good-looking just to shut her up, you know (yep: a really bad day I’m usually not like that).

Then, boom, it was all she needed. She was so happy I found that guy “attractive”, it made her day. Literaly. She said: “Finally!!! Dude, I thought you were lesbian!” (She calls everybody dude, she’s the cutest thing ever).

Everybody stops talking and looks at me for a sec. Cause, like I said, I’m not obvious as a lesbian (well, I don’t think I am but you never know) but since I’m hanging out with a bunch of gay guys and straigt girls, men are pretty much our no1 conversation, so it quickly became obvious that… you know, there was something up with me.

Now, why ain’t I out to my friends? …………..It’s truly complicated. But to be honest, I think they know. It’s kind of hard to hide it with friends. We just don’t talk about it. It’s complicated. I’ll probably post something about this.

Hard times, people. Hard times…

Mom, dad… I’m left-handed

Original text here.

Dear Mom, 

This letter will doubtless find you in a good mood, at least I hope for it. It is a painful secret which I carried for years. I was not able, so far, to share it. And to say it face-to-face is for me too difficult. That is why this small letter will bring you the truth, my truth, the truth about me.

Here is: I am left-handed. I know that it is not easy to admit, but it is so. You are not responsible for that. It is the way it is. You certainly noticed that I often spoke about left-handed persons. Of course, I laughed at them, showing you how much I was proud to be right-handed. I event voted for somebody who defended the right-handed people against the left-handed persons in the society, somebody who opposed to the union of two left-handed persons; however, this person was not a right-extremist. It took me a long time to accept myself as left-handed, although I was that way since I was young. I had to bury it in me, to hide it to myself and to others. I built a fortress around me, so that the others would think I am a good right-hander. But I liked my left-hand better and could go anything about it.

I was right-handed with the right-handers, continuing to laugh at left-handed persons… We often saw our left-handed neighbour receiving other left-handed persons. One day, you said that you preferred that to a drunkard. Feel reassured, I am not a drunkard. Just a left-handed person. It took me time before I talk to you about it because being right-handed is considered as the standard in our society. Nevertheless, how would it without left-handed persons? Léonard de Vinci was left-handed, and nevertheless, his hand did not prevent him from being a genius. I see you asking you ” but why is my son left-handed? “.

It’s not your fault. Since I know how to use my hands, I feel more comfortable with my left hand. My right hand”s purpose is only to make me look a certain way. My left hand’s purpose is to unable me to be myself. I decided to apply Rochefoucauld’s quote: ” we would more win to be allowed to see ourselves such as we are, rather than to try to look what we are not “. (You see, the left-handed persons are cultivated all the same).

If you still have questions on “this”, I could answer you, or you can talk to associations that help left-handed persons’ families to accept the left-hander as he is.

Kisses,

 Mattew

Lesbian Couple give birth to quadruplets separately

Karen Wesolowski and Martha Padgett spent three years and £35,000 undergoing IVF treatment, but could not believe it when they heard four heartbeats at a check-up. Astonishingly each of the women gave birth to twins on the same day – but the four children born are actually quadruplets, created from Martha’s eggs and donor sperm. Miss Wesolowski, who has been with her… (read more)

Karen, 42, and Martha, 38, tried 5 times to get pregnant (at 15,000$ per try, a three years process that exhausted them) before they finally decided that they should both have eggs implanted. They took medication to make sure they were on the same cycle. Even though they knew that 2 embryos had been implanted, they didn’t believe that they would end up with 4 babies. And, happy end, they gave birth on the same date, only 22 hours apart at different hospitals. Now the pair, of Riverside, California, are happily cradling twins – one boy and one girl each – who are all quadruplet brothers and sisters. That is a real love story, eh ? And Martha, who have a 3-years-old daugther named Julia from a previous marriage, says she dated a couple of other men and never expected to fall in love with another women, until she met Karen. Couple of years later: lots of babies.

Gay high school and marginalised minorities

A newly expanded gay-themed high school began the school year Monday with about 100 students attending classes, about 200 supporters rallying outside and a small band of protesters demonstrating against it. Since 1985, Harvey Milk High School has served students who are gay or believed to be gay, but its recent… (read more)

In Toronto they have one, too. As well as a school for Black students. Here in Montreal, we have a school for Italian Kids and for Jewish kids. I’m not sure this is such a good idea, though. I understand that the point of schools like those is to create an environment safe for its student (in the case of homosexuality), or to create a sense of belonging and pride, or to prevent student to drop out of school, or to preserve a cultural heritage that tends to get lost in the larger Canadian society. But could you imagine if everyone starts to go to schools like this? There would be not unity, no understanding of the “others”. Quebeckers have experienced a lot situations like this I guess I could say. Not going into the details, but to be a minority in your own country contributed to the climate of “Us” and “Them”. At a large scale level, it is exactly why I am against the separation of Quebec. I think it is ridiculous. Why not focusing on zero tolerance for discrimination, fighting ignorance, and promoting curiosity of different cultures instead ?

In the last few years, a new program was installed in Quebec (at least in the French system, I’m not sure about the english system) called “Éthique et Culture Religieuse” which means Ethics and religious culture. It’s basically a program that focuses on discovering and learning more about different religions. In high school, a little bit of philosophy is added to it. I took this course for the two last years of high school and I absolutely liked it. Partly because of the teachers, they were so funny and so good. Anyway, my point is : this should be the solution. To stop sticking to the traditional way of education, you know ? Add new things as society evolves, courses about cultural diversity, for example.

In the past, people fought so that Blacks and Whites could go to school together. Why separating them again ? To me, it is the same thing as saying “Oh, well, on second thought, that was a bad idea. Let’s segregate again.” It’s a shame.

So far, I’ve always went to private schools. My parents wanted the best for me so I went in one of the best high school in Montreal. It’s just now that I’m in CEGEP that I stopped wearing a uniform to go to school (can you believe this ? 11 years of light-colored shirts and dark skirts!). I decided to go in the public system for college. I had enough of snobish rich people and I am happier now, I think. What I like the most about public schools is the diversity. There is always something happening, so much different clubs (Black Unions, Muslim Associations, Gay-Straight alliances and so on)… This is how school should be. In my snob, rich, perfectionist high school, most people were white, nothing happened, everybody was dressed the same way to create this illusion of equality. It was just boring.  

I don’t think I would enjoy going in a gay high school. I like diversity too much. We should celebrate this diversity instead of marginalising it. Don’t you think ?

Gay scientists Isolate the Christian gene

DNA research is fascinating, I think. At least when it deals with proving that we all come from a same source (to prove this is also needed in our society. I wish it was not so). But now that it has been proved, gosh, them scientists do some unnecessary research. A example ? To try to find a gay gene, of course. Talk about wasted research money. So, hum, when will they be able to tell if I put a red bra today ? I can’t wait. -_-’

Isn’t trying to find a cause to homosexuality assuming that homosexuality has to be explained because it is not right ? I don’t know. I guess we could say so. Here’s a funny video I found surfing on the internet. Gay scientists isolate the Christian gene. Hilarious.

Once upon a time in the Tyra Banks show…

I have to admit: I enjoy watching the Tyra Show. Yay.   10 in the morning, eating breakfast… It starts the day well, doesn’t it ? Tyra has a nice personnality, she sweet and all. This is her image, right ? Oprah cares about people; Tyra loves everybody.

Anyway, I was watching today’s show called “Trust your Dating instincts”, it was a social experiment about women who aways date the wrong men. So there was speed dating session and the women had to choose their guy. The first group of girls found out that they were attracted by a gay man. And everything just went with the flow, it was like: “I like tall guys better.” “Oh, really ? Too bad. Your are sweet, though.” He’s gay, no big deal. Tyra let a man from the audience express himself about this, they talked for seconds only but Tyra asked: “And you are  gay or straight ?” he answered he was gay and once again, no big deal.

If life was like the Tyra Show, black, white, gay, straight… no difference. Everyone would love each other. Wouldn’t that be cool ? And plus: everybody looks perfect, have noticed it ? Even in the audience. Nice hair, nice teeth, nice skin, flawlessness at its best. In Canada, it’s not quite the same, even though we tend to copy american shows a lot lol. Just take Steven and Chris Show. They both look perfect, but in the audience, it’s just normal people. It’s good to know, though, that I’m not the only normal girl out there.

Am I out of the closet ?

Of course not. I mean… are you serious ?! There is no escape for me, unfortunately. My family is pretty homophobic, especially my father. Gosh, sometimes he says things that are just so awful…  I consider myself quite young (maybe too young) to break my family apart. They don’t want this, neither do I. I know someday it will happen. Just not now. Let’s just say I’m not ready to come out of the closet just now. It is so easy to say: just do it, this is who you are. Of course, I wish to everyone to be out of the closet and be accepted. It’s just not that simple. Not only would my sexual orientation break my family apart, to be totally honest, I am scared like hell of my father. There are so much things that happened in his life and in my life and in our life as a family and knowing that his daughter is lesbian would just be too much, I guess. I am just afraid of what he would do like I’m sleeping, if you know what I mean… Seriously, it’s not even funny. At time, he just so violent. But anyway. My father is pretty much the main reason why I keep a low profile about this. Better off this way.

There is nothing else much to say about this. Except that for the moment, my only alternative to this unfortunate situation is to move out in Ontario (probably Ottawa or Toronto) after my CEGEP studies. In other words: Cut any type of relationship with my family. They won’t know anything about who I would be living with nor how my life is like. I would just be gone.

Well… Nobody knows what the future holds.

Sexuality, identity and God

 So, this picture right here is an Italian pro-homosexuality campaign that promote the idea that homosexuality is genetic. The poster caption says “Sexual orientation is not a choice”. I think it is a little bit over the top. Some people try so hard to make homosexuality overly accepted that to them, pretty much everything is good to support their cause. Even if it is not true. If it fits with there thesis, that’s ok. I’m not saying that it is false that homosexuality is genetic. But this theory has never been proved. Same thing with the brain activity and size of gays and lesbians. If you want to support a cause, just do it right. This add doesn’t upset me, it just makes me feel disappointed and a little sad. After, if ever someone finds a good and reliable proof that homosexuality is not genetic, then homophobic people are going to use that against us. Of course. It just makes the whole situation more complicated.

 Since society assumes that everyone is straight from birth unless told otherwise, it is a real struggle to define yourself as gay or lesbian. It is a process that straight people know nothing about, since they never have to make that journey. But I wonder if being born gay or not really changes something. You’re gay, you’re gay. That’s it. It’s like: who cares if you were born with blue eyes ? Now your eyes are brown and they are pretty much going to stay that color so why bother about the blue eyes ? You know ?

I mean, do we really chooseto be shy or out-going ? Do we chose to love chocolate and not vegetables ? Have we decided to be touched and affected by discrimination and not by political issues ? I think love is pretty irrational. We don’t know why we love our lover. We just love herhim. We might say: ‘Oh, she’s cute, she’s funny, she cares about me’. But there is more than one lover who is like this, isn’t it ? And we don’t necessarily fall in love with everyone who falls into that description. We don’t know either why we are afraid of spiders or heights or water. We just are. Isn’t the same thing with homophobia ? So far, I met many homophobic people and none of them manage to clearly say why they hated homosexuals.

Aren’t we, as a society, trying to rational the irrational ? I mean: love. Yes, being gay or lesbian or bisexual is about love, I believe. Certainly not about hate, for sure. Some Christians that refuse to see themselves as gay argue that it is not about being homosexual, it is about being a Christian. They say they smoother their sexual orientation and choose to live as a Christian with these attractions which they don’t act upon. They say it is a distinction that more gays and lesbians should see. Okay. Not so bad. The problem is: Are they really going to live all their life with those attractions at the back of their head, not going to satisfy them at all ? If you are happy with the heterosexual live, good for you. But you might want to ask yourself if your are doing that for you or for someone else ? Usual answer: ‘This is what God wants for me’. Or something of that effect. Doesn’t God want you to love yourself the way you are ? …  No ? Yes ? -_-’

I don’t want to start the religion/homosexuality talk. But man, some times I just wish everything was just nice and easy.

Keith Olbermann talks about prop 8 in California

I know this is old news. But I just heard about it. I’ll do this real short because I suppose that you all heard about it many times. When it comes to gay rights and trying to convince people to just leave us alone (minimally) and trying to make them understand that it is ok to be homosexual or asexual or transexual or transgender, it’s always a little difficult, you know. There is no chemistry, and both parties are absolutely sure that they are right. I’m a bad speaker and a bad debater because it is tough for me to clearly express myself. At times it is very frustrating because it’s not because I have a hard time verbally defending my values that I don’t have any (some people think that, isn’t it silly ?) But anyway. I think that Keith Olbermann really managed to say almost everything I wish I could have said to people when it comes to homosexuality. He’s very clear, he’s thoughful, he’s convincing, he has charisma, he’s got it all. Of course. I mean, the guy reads the news, of course he can do and has all that. But I mean, if you didn’t watch that short video about him talking about prop 8 in California about same-sex marriage, you should sit back and watch. That man has some really strong powers, lol.

One thing that I still can’t understand, though, is why do people care about homosexuality ? Why do homophobic people think that only one portion of the population can love, be loved, and be happy? I just don’t get it. Why do people waste so much time with hatred ? Ah… -_-’