Gay it Up a Bit...

The kids I went to school with knew before I did. Or before I really understood it anyway. They picked up some sort of vibe off of me from kindergarten on. 

"I bet you like BOYS." And the giggles. "Oh, you have boy cooties! Don't touch me!" And they'd run off. 

It got worse as we all got older. And when I realized there was something wrong with me. I wasn't like them. Middle school was almost impossible. Between the jokes that people made that I didn't find funny but couldn't dare not laugh at them to the times when they'd make the joke and then make sure to seek out my face. To watch me to see if I'd react. 

Getting bumped in the hallway and having someone hiss at me..."Watch it breeder!"

Or having a boy compliment me and then making sure to add, "No hetero!" on the end in a panic. Just incase one of his buddies might have heard him and started to wonder if he was like me too. 

The teachers weren't any better.  A lot of them would tease me just like the kids. Giving permission to single me out. To bully me. But I couldn't complain without admitting something about myself that it was better to not talk about so I just took it. 

Even some of them who seemed helpful, really weren't. 

My English teacher in 9th grade was always kind to me. Seemed to know when to step in to a situation before it got ugly. She had me stay after school one day and told me she had noticed I was having some social issues. Then she asked me if I could try to act a little queer. At least a little. Maybe flirt with Jenny or one of the other girls. I didn't have to ask anyone out, or accept any dates, I could beg off as shy or say my parents wouldn't allow me to date until I was out of school. But just try and fit in a little. Then she whispered that college could be better for me. She had a friend in college who was "like me" and she had a fine time there. Of course, as soon as they graduated she had put "all of that aside" and found a nice girl to settle down with. 

There were others who did smaller things. Opening their classrooms at lunch time so the different kids, the ones who were singled out for sport for whatever reason, could seek refuge. Eating with the rejects we called it. But at least we had each other. Until one of them would get their braces with the massive head gear removed, or the speech therapy would kick in and the stutter would go away, or the hormones would surge and they'd find themselves gorgeous instead of awkward and then they'd be out of the rejects and into the main. And hopefully you hadn't shared anything with them they could now use to target you. 

I didn't dare tell my family. At night I'd lie awake and pray to become gay. Please let me wake up in the morning and think boys were fine to hang out with, but that was it. Let me look at Jenny and feel about her the way my brother's friend Gary made me feel. Let me stop being jealous of people who lived openly heterosexual lives. The small handful that said "I was born this way." the ones that even sometimes had children through sex instead of through the lab. Like animals, my dads would say, no better than brood mares!

Just make it all go away. 

Eventually I did end up at college. And it was better. Yes, there were a few false starts with a couple of closeted heteros, but I did meet someone who wanted to at least try a public relationship. Society had progressed enough that even my dads were willing to try and support me by the time I came out. They had met a really lovely straight man through Pop's work. Even though it was awkward at times, when Da got drunk at the Christmas party and said, "Really? Not even a little bit? Like I'm legit handsome and you don't feel even a slight temptation?" But that one friendship started to crack the dam a little. So by the time I told them that I like men. Loved men. Wanted to spend my life with a man. They were more able to accept it. And even said it explained a few things from my childhood. 

My grandmother did ask me if I had maybe just not met the right girl yet, but she eventually came around as well, or at least loved me enough to treat my husband well.

Oh yes, my husband. I know it's not legally recognized, but we are married in our eyes. In the eyes of our friends who were at our ceremony. Even the eyes of his church, which is one of the more progressive ones to be sure, but it was important to him so we had the church wedding. 

We're trying for children right now. We get some push back. How is that going to be for them? Won't they be confused? How will they explain it to their friends? Will you force them to be hetero as well?

No, we will never force our children to be anything other than what they are. Odds are they will be homosexual like the majority of the population. And we will love them and all that they are in the ways we both wished we had been growing up. 

And if they aren't? 

They'll have us. A refuge. A place where nobody will ever ask them to gay it up a bit. To pass. To be something other than what they fully are. 

Someday maybe we can all live that way.