I’d like to talk to you about something that not a lot of people seem to want to talk about these days. Perhaps this topic is too touchy for many people, or maybe most people are so ashamed of opening up that they choose not to say anything. Maybe they’re too scared of rocking the boat and hurting someone’s feelings. It’s a tale as old as time and I’d like to bring awareness to it.
First off a little bit about me. I’ve got a mental illness, aka mental disability, aka an invisible disability. I also have a vision impairment which is a physical disability. My mental illness or mental disability stems from abuse I’ve suffered as a child and into most of my youth, and it has traumatised me greatly to the point where I’ve felt like a lot of times I just wanted to end it all. Some of my trauma comes from the gay community and judgement towards me. It even got worse to the point where I was raped by a man. When I try to tell others about it, I’m told to just shut up and get over it because society tells a man we’re not supposed to show emotions or feelings, we’re not supposed to cry because that makes us sissies and wimps. I’ve been told by several gay men that I need to get over myself because if I don’t, nobody will ever love me. I’ve also been told that my refusing to put out makes me unworthy and undesirable. It’s honestly really quite sad that the gay community likes to use this mantra of promoting anti-bullying and anti-judgement and they whine and cry about how everyone bullied them for being gay and life is so hard because you’re gay. What people don’t seem to realise is that behind all of that are a community full of massive hypocrites, a community of people who preach against bullying under the guise of a rainbow coloured flag, but then do something completely different.
It’s really sad how a group of people can publically detest bullying and homophobia, but when nobody’s around they do the very thing they publically rally against. They bully and judge and make fun of and belittle and demean their own. That’s called internalised abuse. The sad thing is that anyone can put on a facade of being sweet and innocent. Politicians do it, celebrities do it, and high profile members of the gay community are certainly no exception to the rule. It’s all part of one huge scheme to put on the biggest and best most elaborate Broadway performance the world has ever seen. It’s all so amazing when you’re onstage and you portray to the audience exactly what you want them to see, but I’m here to tell you it’s all an act so nobody can see what goes on behind closed doors. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure the gay community have some genuine and kindhearted people, but that’s not the case for the majority of this community, I’m sorry to say.
I’d like to stress that for those of us in the gay community that have been truly bullied and felt judged or alone or criticised, I get it. I really, really do get it. I understand it more than you might think I do. I don’t just have homosexuality going against me. I have a physical disability as well as mental ones so that’s a tripple wammy… three characteristics that intersect with one another. However, we need to stop fooling ourselves. We need to wake up and face the truth. The gay community is filled with imperfect people and we need to stop portraying ourselves as perfect little innocent angels, because while we may have been wronged many times throughout history by those outside of the gay or LGBT+ community, the infuriating truth of the matter is that we’re worse to each other. We judge one another, we bully one another, we make fun of one another and so on and so forth. Why am I saying all of this? Because I have first-hand experience of being judged by my own community. You know, the one that always loves to preach love and tolerance over hate, but then turns around and makes fun of my weight, or makes fun of the fact I’ve a mental disability and even makes fun of the fact I’ve a physical impairment–being my lack of vision. Or the fact that my own community deems me as being unworthy of love and unattractive simply because there are certain things I don’t like to do sexually not only because of the fact I was raped, but because I honestly don’t like those certain things, as well as the fact that I have high morals and I’m not just going to put out because you want me to. If we want real change to happen, the biggest thing we can do to make it happen is start from within and then move outwards.