Thomas

McKenzie Thomas
Jennifer Rodrick
English 115
17 October 2016
Project Space Rough Draft
The LGBT community has become a main focus in America and various other parts of
the world recently. After decades of fighting for their rights, gay people finally won the right to
marry in all states in the United States on June 26, 2015. Other countries such as France and
Ireland have legalized it as well. LGBT people have also been represented in the media in the
past decade more than ever before in shows such as How to Get Away with Murder, Sense 8,
Modern Family, Orange is the New Black, The Real ONeils, and many more. In addition to
television characters, numerous actors themselves have come out as well. On social media sites,
such as Instagram, Facebook, and Tumblr, many users have started accounts to promote the
awareness and the equal treatment of the LGBT community. Although our society has clearly
evolved into a far more accepting one, there are still parts of it that have serious work to do in
order to further the rights of this community. The fact that people still have to come out and
tell everyone who they prefer to be with in a relationship or how they feel they need to portray
themselves in terms of their gender identity is proof in itself that people still see being LGBT as
not normal. I believe that the space and people surrounding individuals has a more profoundly
negative effect on people who identify as LGBT because as supportive as some people may be,
the damaging effects that unaccepting churches, schools, and families can have on a person often
outweigh the positives.

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LGBT people are greatly affected by the communities that surround them. Churches are
some of the places that can have an extremely strong influence on the lives of these particular
people. For example, the Mormon church is one of the worst offenders. In the article Behind the
Mormon Churchs Ironic Defense of Discrimination, C. Brian Smith describes how the new
LDS handbook bars children of same-sex couples from joining the church or being blessed or
baptized until and unless they turn 18, move out of their parents home, and disavow all samesex relationships (Smith, Behind the Mormon Churchs Ironic Defense of Discrimination). By
doing this, the church is sending a message of hate to LBGT people. The fact that even their kids
are punished is a way to make them feel ashamed about who they are, and to make them feel like
they are hurting their childrens lives as well.

Many churches advertise that everyone is welcome to their services. However, what they mean
by this is that everyone is welcome to come, but it does not mean they will be accepted as they
are. My fathers church was one that liked to advertise their accepting nature. However, when I
was 11 years old, I was able to get a taste of my churchs true colors. Proposition 8, the one that
would decide if same-sex marriage would continue to be illegal in the state of California, was the

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topic of this particular Sunday prayer. The pastor began by speaking about the tragedy that is
marriage equality, and directed us to form small prayer circles. Apparently LGBT people are an
especially hot topic, as we had never formed prayer circles, let alone get out of our seats. As I
walked with my stepmom to our circle, I asked why are gay people bad? She replied that being
gay is a sin, and left it at that. When we had huddled into our groups, Pastor Steve began his
prayer: homosexuality is a sin, this is not Gods plan, society is straying from the Lord every day.
When I realized that I was gay a year later, I though back on that day at church. Even though I
was not ashamed of who I was, I knew that my identity would be shaped based upon what others
believed. It was not up to me to be myself, but instead it was up to others the way in which I
would portray myself. I hid who I am for many years because I did not want to deal with the
repercussions of the church members discovering the real me. These were people who adored
me, and it hurt badly knowing that they would drop me because of the way I was born. Because
of the church space that surrounded me and the people within it, I did not represent myself in a
genuine light.
Another space that can have a dehumanizing effect on the LGBT community is school.
Schools are filled with kids from many backgrounds and many races and many cultures.
However, there seems to be another aspect of diversity that many kids find weird, silly, and
shameful: belonging to the LGBT acronym. When I was in junior high and high school, thats
gay was by far the most popular way of expressing ones feelings towards something they
believed to be incredibly stupid. We are running the mile today, the PE teacher would tell us.
Thats gay, the kids would mutter. Your essays are due are Monday at the beginning of the
period, the English teacher would remind us. Gay, whined the students. I felt awful every
single time I heard this. It felt as if all of the kids using this phrase were personally calling me

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the equivalent of stupid, not worth their time. One time at lunch, one of my friends said that if
she ever had a gay son, she would disown him at 18. This comment hurt me more than I even
thought possible. I desperately asked another friend if she, too, was enraged by this comment.
She replied I guess, and walked away. Things for me got better after high school, I came out to
my friends after knowing most of them for five to ten years already, and they completely
accepted me, even becoming more accepting over the past year. The girl who made the hurtful
comment is now someone I can fully rely on to support me. I may have changed some peoples
minds about LGBT people, but the harsh school environment does not go as easy on some kids
as it did on me. For example, NoBullying.com reports that one study revealed that 82 per cent
of LGBT youth had problems during the previous year with bullying about sexual orientation
(LGBT Bullying Statistics). It also recounts the story of a transgender girl who, after enduring
two years of bullying at school, tells the principal about her problem and receives no assistance.
When a fight breaks out between her and a couple other students, she, the victim, is the only one
to be charged with assault (LGBT Bullying Statistics). Unlike me, some students come out of
the closet while still in school, or are presumed to be LGBT. In this case, the same website
reveals that LGBT students constantly received bigoted verbal abuse such as name-calling like
homo, fag or sissy more than two dozen times per day (LGBT Bullying Statistics). Like many
others, I constantly lived in fear of being discovered at school, for fear that I, too, would
become one of the above statistics. When LGBT kids are continuously terrorized for simply
being who they are, there is a serious toll taken on the lives of these students. The identities of
these kids are warped by the false perceptions and cruel name-calling that takes place at school.
Instead of embracing who they are, LGBT kids will learn the rituals of deceit, impersonation,
and appearance (Sullivan, ? [ask which page this is]). By impersonating, kids are being the

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exact opposite of who they are. They are acting like someone else, and this completely
invalidates their own identity.
Lastly, families of LGBT people can often be the worst offenders. Parents, grandparents,
aunts, uncles, siblings, etc. always have certain expectations of their relatives, along with holding
their own beliefs and morals as well. Many gay, bisexual, or transgender individuals have to hide
their true identities for years and years before, if ever, revealing their genuine selves to their
families. Once these people finally build up the courage to come out to their families, they are
many times rejected by their own kin. Because of this, LGBTQ youth represent as much as 40
percent of the

homeless youth

population.

Of those 40 percent,

studies

indicate that as

many as 60

percent are likely to

attempt

suicide (Family

Acceptance

and
Homelessness).

This is an

astounding number

of children.

Most kids never

have to worry

about being thrown

out of the

house or

reprimanded

by their own parents

just for being themselves. This occurrence is very common in religious families. For example, I
grew up for part of the time with my dad. He and my stepmother are both very devout Christians.
A few years ago on Christmas Day, I was riding in the backseat of my fathers car on the way to

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dinner with my grandpa. I noticed that the car in front of us had a NOH8 sticker on the back. I
sat there repeating over and over in my head please dont say anything. Just when I thought I
did not have to hear something cruel come out of my dads mouth, he opened it right up and told
my stepmom about a video he saw with a man who had a H8Gay sticker on his car. My dad
did one of his this is really hilarious laughs, and my stepmom joined in. It is the comments like
these ones that really cut deep for LGBT family members. Even worse than the comments my
dad would make is the fact that he treated the word gay like a bad word. When someone else
would say that word, his smile would fade quickly, his face would turn red with anger, and he
would fall silent. Another time, he told me how he found the thought of gay people to be
repulsive. Therefore, I was not surprised that he abandoned me when I told him about myself.
All of the rude things he said over the years caused me to never, and I mean never, feel relaxed
around him. I involuntarily used a gentler voice, filtered my words and my actions, and wore a
certain type of clothing around him. I was not myself when I was there, and it caused me to be
shy and to have low self-confidence for much of my life. Again, all of this was due to the fact
that my dad and stepmom were extremely unaccepting of LGBT people. My identity was not
really my own, and I am still trying to recover from the feelings my father caused me to have
about who I am.
In conclusion, it will take many, many years to weed out the anti-LGBT sentiment in the
space around us. However, because of the severely damaging effects of churches, schools, and
families on LGBT people, change is not optional. Awareness and personal stories must be
brought to the attention of the public so that people may see how their actions may be hurting
people beyond what they could even imagine. Individuality is supposedly valued in the space
that surrounds most of us, and this needs to be reinforced so that people, no matter who they are,

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can shape an identity that actually reflects who they really are. No one will reach their full
potential if they are pretending to be someone else in fear of rejection and persecution by the
ones they love the most.

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Work Cited
"Family Acceptance and Homelessness." The Trevor Project. The Trevor Project, n.d. Web. 17
Oct. 2016.
LGBT Bullying Statistics infographic. Digital image. No Bullying.com. No Bullying. Web. 17
Oct. 2016.
"LGBT Bullying Statistics." NoBullying.com. No Bullying, 12 Sept. 2016. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
Protest of the Mormon Church. Digital image. Advocate. Advocate. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
Smith, C. Brian. "Behind the Mormon Church's Ironic Defense of Discrimination." Gay News,
LGBT Rights, Politics, Entertainment. Advocate, 06 Jan. 2016. Web. 17 Oct. 2016.
Sullivan, Andrew. What Is a Homosexual? The Norton reader: an anthology of nonfiction. Ed.
Linda Peterson, John Brereton, Joseph Bizup, Anne Fernald, Melissa Goldthwaite. 13th
ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. [insert page number].

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