https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTRHfdAEB/
What a nice man.
I just can never understand how some ppl still see us (the LGBTQIA+ community) as something abhorrent. I just don’t understand 🤔 my dad and my brother are hardcore Christian and they constantly tell me how they will “pray for me”. I heard so many fathers say they would shoot their son if they found out they were gay… my mom says to me all the time “I didn’t raise you this way…”
It’s so sad knowing that homophobic people choose how society sees them over supporting their child and their happiness. I just don’t get it… this isn’t something that physically hurts anyone. But their homophobia hurts me. It hurts. A lot…
"Don't mistake my Kindness for Weakness" Awesome! 👍
Jeez, @pmvines, make me cry why don't you! (Thanks so much for sharing that.)
@Sheena123: I can understand how they see us that way, unfortunately. It comes of having a fixed idea of what people are and should be.
As a random, nonspecific example, imagine you think a human being—any human being—can only ever be either male or else female. When you see an intersex person, then, that's obviously a mistake! Something has gone wrong. So you'll cut bits off their body or sew bits up even without asking them, because you "know" that that's what's best for them.
You're fixing a problem. You're making them healthier, better, more correct, the way they should be. You're helping.
My parents have a fixed idea of what I am and should be—so fixed, in fact, that for years they didn't know I existed at all. They looked at me and saw an imaginary kid, a fantasy child. A kid without autism. A kid with a gender they'd picked, with a sexual orientation they expected, with clothing tastes they'd designed. A complete creation of imagination... which they thought (and still think) is reality.
You take that fixed idea of what a person is and should be, and what happens when the real person breaks out of it? You'll do anything to put them back in. Anything. Because that's wrong, they're wrong, something's gone wrong.
You want to fix the problem. To make them healthier, better, the way they should be.
You want to help.
And you'll mutilate them to do it.
@DaringSprinter It speaks a lot to how I feel about my son and his journey. We haven't always gotten along and sometimes haven't even liked each other , but I'll defend him to the death and will always be his strongest ally. I never thought I could kill until he came along. Then I thought, yeah , I'd murder the world to keep him safe
@pmvines, I can't even begin to put together the words that would accurately express how grateful I am that people like you exist, how envious of and simultaneously happy for your son I am, and how strongly I feel the same way about every person I care for who doesn't fit inside the restrictive ideas so many people have of what they "should" be.
Thank you for making this thread.
@Sheena123 My mother is a Christian and so is my brother and his wife , who are both elders in their church. However they are also pretty progressive. My mom has Matthew and his trans partner over all the time and it's never weird , and my brother is a literature professor and writer, who has friends and colleagues in the LGBTQ community
@pmvines aww that makes me happy 😊 I’m glad that there isn’t any judgement. All open arms and love 💗 I may not have children, but I truly cannot understand how people under faith would rather ostracize their child. Even those that aren’t correlated with any faith, they just plain Jane find anyone in my community weird and unacceptable. I just cannot put myself in their shoes.
As @DaringSprinter was saying, these ppl have this fixed idea of what humans should be and that just doesn’t sit well with me. Ppl out there loving who they want to love (that are of age and consent of course!) and looking the way they want to look, makes me happy. Even the person that transitioned themselves into a lizard. If that makes them happy, who am I to trample all over that?!
Some things I, myself am trying to still learn about. Like the difference being gender fluid and gender questioning and gender non conforming. But it’s never something I would look at and roll my eyes about! It’s something I would want to expand my knowledge on to respect those that are figuring out what makes them feel the most comfortable in their bodies and who they are as a person (or lizard 😉).
To immediately jump to : “you as a woman like other women?! Disgusting. How wrong!”…. Parents threatening to kill their child because of that? It’s not ok! 100% If you think you want to harm your child, abandon them or even kill them because they don’t fit the “proper standards you want”, don’t have kids. Period.
It just makes me so mad, so upset and I know there are so many others that had it a million times worse than me. It puts me in a shameful place knowing there are still humans out there thinking their child is an abomination. I’m so upset right now. I’m sorry 😣
Great video. I stand up for human rights too. Everyone has a right to live and to live unbothered.
@Sheena123 I can’t comprehend it. I’m so afraid of that happening to me that I’d rather just stuff it all deep down and hope I die before it all comes exploding out.
@Charlie_Bear and that’s absolutely heartbreaking!!! It shouldn’t be that way! We should be able to live however we see fit. As long as you aren’t hurting anyone, why does it matter who ppl love? Why? I couldn’t imagine being someone that has to police who someone else loves.
@Sheena123 yeah , I'm not religious at all but I do recognize that one can be both a person with faith in their god or gods, and also be accepting and loving of all creatures . It doesnt have to be either /or . And you don't even have to agree with something , but that doesn't mean you have to hate what you dont agree with. As a social worker I have come to rely on certain religious institutions for their community resources, and a lot of the people who are in the churches are rather amazing people who are over flowing with tolerance and love, even if their ancient scriptures might seem contradictory at times.
@Sheena123: My parents believe that I am literally a demon—an evil spirit that has taken over the child they believe they have.
They've always thought that. Whenever I, the real person, showed through the fantasy in a way they couldn't ignore....
Their abuse comes from a place of love; love for a lie. They love their child—not me. The child they created in their own minds. The person they believe their god gave them. A fiction. An illusion. A lie. They don't know it's a lie.
They believe they love their real child, and hate the demon who took the person they loved away.
They would do anything to destroy me—to drive out the demon—and turn me into the perfect God-given child they believe they had 33 years ago. To make me what they believe I am.
It's love.
They are disgusted by who and what I am because they don't believe that's what I am—they believe that's what the evil spirit is. It's sin, pure and simple, and they hate it because they love me (what they believe is me) and want me to be good, moral, spiritually healthy... the illusion. They want me to be the illusion.
When a parent threatens to kill their child for being gay, that is an expression of love. Tough love. True kindness (they think).
You see, no one is really gay (they believe). It's a satanic trick, a liberal trap, a lie that will ruin their child's life, maybe even destroy their soul! They'd threaten anything if they thought it might keep their kid safe. They'd even kill the one if they think it might save the others.
My parents never loved me.
But they think they do.
This is what their love looks like. They mean to be kind.
I agree: it hurts.
@pmvines oh definitely! I remember my family and I went to Methodist church. I’ve gone here since I was born. I love the pastor. He’s so loving. And I loved his wife as well. They had two children. A boy and a girl. The son married a woman from the church but they divorced and he came out as gay. The pastor and his wife were shocked. But the pastor, the father, he immediately accepted him, he left the Methodist church because there was so much judgement and hatred. His wife divorced him because she couldn’t feel as accepting about her son being gay. Which absolutely wrecked me because this woman was always so filled with love. She taught me piano, we sang together and had such an amazing connection. But this shattered my perception of her. She cut all communication with her son after the divorce.
The son ended up becoming a bishop for a United church, married a man that he fell in love with, and they also had a surrogate mother to bear their child and that mother lives with them. It’s such a beautiful and loving household! And the father, the pastor, he visits him all the time, goes to all the pride parades and just accepted and supported him through all the hatred. That meant a lot to me!
@DaringSprinter that’s just sickening 😩 if I have to hear my dad tell me one more time that he’s praying for me or that he hopes I’ll be “saved”, I will vomit all over him. Trust….
@Sheena123: That's wonderful! That story makes me so happy. Thank you for sharing it!
Edit: I understand that feeling entirely.
We have a church that my aunt belonged to since the days of desegregation that is known as the gay church lol. There is another one where the MCAC has functions, which stands for magic city acceptance center . One of the pastors at a hospice company I worked for was heavily involved in LGBTQ causes. Alabama is pretty bible thumping.but it's good to see that not everyone is a zealot
@pmvines: I admit I'm suspicious even of the nicer-seeming Christians—I've met too many who turned out to hate me just as much as the abusive ones, but thought the best way to twist me into what they believed I should be was acting nice and accepting.
That's always a knife in the back, realizing the folks who seemed so friendly were actually trying to change who and what I am the whole time; hoping I'd stop being me if they were just sweet enough.
I like the sound of those churches, though. I hope they're truly accepting, and that any church that exists in the future will be like them!
@DaringSprinter I agree , but when I see members of the congregation, choir, and attendees representing the LGBTQ community , I feel it is legit . And I dont like any religion, being a non Christian sect doesnt get you a pass in my book. But there are true allies out there . In fact when I was married to my second wife , it was by a gay woman pastor who primarily did civil union ceremonies (gay marriage wasn't as much of a thing back then, so it was referred to as civil union which provided essential legal rights but didnt recognize it as a marriage)
@pmvines: That's encouraging. Thank you.
@DaringSprinter 🥺 That hurts to read. I’m sorry you have to go through that.
Thank you, @Charlie_Bear. 🫂
Unfortunately it's not just me; they've got nine other kids, and not all of them fit the mold, either. I'm not allowed to talk to the younger ones.
And they're far from the only family like that. I grew up surrounded by these people.
At least I got out.
@pmvines 💜💜💜
Are you sure? You ever hear anyone say “We’ve got a runner!” within earshot?
@FunCartel: Nope, just the "we're praying for you, oh child of God, and weep for the pain and fear we know you're currently experiencing as the devil controls your body (and we despise you, you evil spirit)" emails every once in a while.
...I'm not exaggerating, unfortunately. The last one was on my birthday.
@DaringSprinter Maybe tell them the devil is better company.
@FunCartel: Oh, he is. But that's just what they'd expect an evil spirit to say, and they've made it clear they won't give up on their kid no matter what the demon says!
Appropriate for the season, though.
There's a reason I moved across the country and into a building with security cameras. There comes a point where believing things without scientific evidence makes a person dangerous to be around—and my parents reached that point decades ago. So did the rest of their congregation, and their friends in other congregations, and so on... but fortunately those people are less obsessed with me. It would be funny if it weren't, well, my life.
Religious hate crimes are a real thing and no one should be made to feel bad about who they are. I would hate to think we were created by a creator who created some humans in a way wanting other people to not like or think that they are evil. That sounds like a cruel God to me.
Clumsily phrased, but good-hearted. Thank you for being you, @pty1999!
Yes, society would probably be much happier if no one were made to feel bad about things they can't change that don't harm anyone. If only everyone understood that things like homosexuality aren't harmful, society might be there already.
@DaringSprinter I had to giggle to myself after rereading it because it definitely was clumsily phrased. I'm glad you understood what my heart was saying. 💖