It's the Heart's Call
As 2017 takes on, we have seen more people become comfortable and promote LGBTQ rights. Yet today, in the United States, it may be possible that laws that protect this community may start to disappear, such as the protection for transgender students to use the bathroom of their denomination. But what is it actually like to have a different sexual orientation or gender identity? What do people think of the LGBTQ community?
*The photos included are not photos showing the people mentioned.
BLAINE AERIN CROWE
Short hair reddish hair, an eyebrow piercing, and a boyfriend cut shirt. I approach Blaine, a sophomore at Poudre High School and one of the leaders of the LGBTQ safe school community club called ‘Spectrum’. Blaine know a lot about sexuality, not just because they are part of Spectrum, but because Blaine is one of the students in our high school that identifies as gender-neutral, and admits it has had a great impact on their life. “I personally identify as ‘queer’ which is an overarching statement label that means anything that’s not straight, basically. And for me sexuality isn’t something that I like to label as specifically as other people do, so I choose the very broad label of ‘them’, I think it’s what works for every person”, Blaine tells me. According to Sam Killermann, ‘queer’ is defined as “a term used as an umbrella term to describe individuals who don’t identify as straight. Also used to describe people who have a non-normative gender identity.” According to a 2013 Gallup survey, only 3.8 percent of Americans fall under the LGBTQ spectrum, but today, four years later, that number may be way higher.
But what is sexuality? For the longest time, nobody has really known how to define it. In the dictionary, it’s defined as “the quality or state of being sexual”, but that doesn’t explain anything! Psychology professors like Michael Bailey say that “sexual orientation is something people are born with.” But Blaine says that sexuality is “up for the interpretation of every individual. It’s something that is very deeply personal, and there’s so many different kinds [of sexuality] out there- it’s an incredibly large spectrum.”
Sexuality has become something easier to express and feel comfortable with, and, as Ron Dicker from the Huffington Post wrote in an article, “according to findings by social researchers at NORC at the University of Chicago and the LGBT think-thank Williams Institute at UCLA, acceptance rose an average of .9 percent annually by nation.” That means that all around the globe, people are becoming more accepting and appreciating LGBTQ presence in the community, but discrimination is still present towards them, and hopefully, it will gradually change. “I think sexuality is something really important to be accepted and it shouldn’t be something where people have to come out and announce themselves, it should just be something like ‘oh cool, you’re dating a male, female, neither’, and that’s just something that’s commonly accepted and recognized, and it isn’t something that’s made a big deal out of”, Blaine tells me. Blaine understands how hard it is to come out as someone of a different sexual and gender identity, as they tells me that in 8th grade they finally took the decision to ‘come out’. “It was one of the biggest things I’ve ever done, and now it’s just very casual, like ‘hey, I’m queer’, and I think that that has been an amazing deal for me. I think that my gender non-binder is something I’m still growing with and becoming comfortable in, and it’s been a struggle, because I think sexuality is much more identified, recognized, and people are willing to be open to different sexualities, but gender is still deeply ingrained- it’s such a hot topic, and so I think that gender is something that I’m still fighting to be recognized, and is a big fight for other people, too.” Because it’s difficult to understand how to come out or understand the way someone's sexuality works, Blaine, along with at least five other people, leads the school club ‘Spectrum’, and they explains it as “a place where you can go and be safe, have a safe space to talk about sexuality, gender, explore your pronouns, use whatever name or gender you are recognizing yourself as, or for the first time [you are discovering your identity] and need help with it to eventually allow you to explore that with you family, and friends, and things like that. It’s a group that allows for that ‘middle ground’ a safe space for them to feel comfortable with their identities and then move that out into the rest of the world.”
Gender and sexual orientations that differ from what people tend to assume is ‘traditional’ can cause stereotypes, like thinking that a homosexual male will probably have a high pitched voice and wear really fitted pants, or have dyed hair. Blaine tells me, “stereotypes can be very harmful and it’s important to recognize stereotypes are never going to end, and it’s important to recognize people are going to fit into the stereotypes, and that some people aren’t, and that’s okay, as long as we recognize that stereotypes do not define a person. So some gay men may be more feminine, some gay men may be more masculine, but that doesn’t define that entire group, or them, or make them any less- and it’s totally okay to follow stereotypes, and it’s totally okay to break them.”
So should there be no genders nor forms of sexual identification, to avoid having difficulties ‘coming out’, and stop discrimination? Blaine says that “gender is really important for some people, and it helps them define who they are as a person, so I think that in that sense gender is really important. But the whole ‘gendering’ and ideas behind ‘this thing is this gender’ and ‘this thing is that gender’ can be really confining as well, so I think it should be something that’s a lot more free and less constrictive than it is now, but I think that gender still has a place in our society and it’s important for certain people.”
“With sex (in the sense of identity), the way someone is biologically born as defines only how they look, and gender is something that’s personal, and it’s a complex construct. The way gender is going to look is going to be different for every culture, and there are going to be cultures where they have more than two genders. It’s very flexible and about how you view yourself in your culture and how your culture views you. Even biological sex is not as defined as we make it seem, like with the whole intersex population, and sexuality is not defined by your gender either, it’s much more ingrained in genetics, and it’s also a lot more about external attraction, whereas gender is very neutral”, Blaine comments. “I think that really, human experience is about flexibility and changing and adapting, so I don’t see how that’s not true about sexuality as well, I think that no one is really truly straight and nobody is really truly attracted to just one feeling. There’s always going to be exceptions and it’s really all about adapting and changing, living life and not confining yourself to one thing.”
Even with this rapid-growing point of view that Blaine shares, there are still people who believe that homosexuality is a sin (in religious terms), and it’s not something normal for human nature. I asked Blaine what they would tell somebody with those ideals, and they answered simply, “I don’t know if I can change a way a person thinks, and I’m not going to try to. The best thing I can do is educate as many people as I can and hope that they may be willing to listen to my point of view and I’m willing to listen to theirs. Live life the way you want to, and don’t be confined to anybody’s ideals.”
ANONYMOUS'S PERSPECTIVE
*names were changed to protect the person's identity
Two men, both Christian, both anonymous. One of them is 31 years old, a father of three children, and the other is a 16 year old junior in a Fort Collins high school. Their points of view are very much different from Blaine’s- they think homosexuality is a sin…even though the junior is attracted to men.
The sixteen year old, whom we shall name Todd*, and Will*, as we shall name the adult, shared with me their point of view of the growing LGBTQ community. Todd tells me he is “a Christian, and [he] relates in a lot of ways with sexuality, but [doesn’t] usually identify with any other sexual orientation.” “I totally don’t hate or am against anything, because I believe in love”, he adds quickly. Todd is one of the 52 percent of religious people that are gay, something rather uncommon.
The other guy with him, Will, says he’s also Christian, and that “the way I just kind of see it is to hate the sin and not the sinner. I will love anyone regardless of how they are, so I think that’s how my perspective is- so if you have someone that steals or kills, I’ll still love them regardless of what they do, but I’ll still hate what they do.”
Both of them were pretty vague with their answers, so I decided to ask if they believed that homosexuality was a trend, and Todd answered, “I think it’s both, I have a lot of friends that say [they’re gay] to fit it because it’s, like, seen as cool, but I also think it’s something people are being more comfortable about. My friends think it’s cool because teenagers want to be different in a lot of ways, so if a lot of people identify with that, they want to fit in, which I don’t agree with, but everyone’s different. Everyone wants to identify with something, whether it’s religion or something else.” Will answered that he was a kid once, and “I definitely identified with the fact that everyone tries to find their own rhythm instead of falling into a norm, so that’s why I think that it’s great that we’ve cultivated a culture where it’s more acceptable [to have LGBTQ citizens], but I also do believe that sometimes it’s not true [it’s not becoming popular]- that someone who struggles with high levels of insecurity and not being loved find someway to differentiate themselves, even though that’s not what they really feel or it’s not what they’re indoctrinated with.”
Will continued by telling me what he thinks of the existence of multiple genders, sexual orientations and identities, saying, “I am a Christian guy and I believe that we are created in the image of God, and I believe that homosexuality is a sin, and just like I think lying and cussing, drinking with bad intent is a sin as well. any of those things are sinful, but that doesn’t mean I’ll love any of those people less, because I am a sinner as well, and I need people to love me as well. I’m totally fine that our culture is more accepting to it, because our culture is very accepting to promoting women sexually- extremely so, and that’s been happening for forty years, so this is just a different kind of promotion.”
Todd’s view on sexuality was a little bit different, as he confessed that “my views aren’t very appreciated, and I do experience struggles because I am 100 percent attracted to guys, but in my Christian faith I don’t identify as gay, I guess, because I don’t believe in that.” For Todd, it’s hard because like many other Christian boys, he isn’t accepted in his religious community. “I don’t accept myself, and when other people don’t believe in you then it encourages you to accept yourself even less”, he tells me. “It’s hard because I think everyone wants to identify with someone and be someone, so I just don’t know where that stands, and just me, personally, I just want to identify with something else that’s deeper, and that’s Jesus.” However hard it may be for Todd, he still believes homosexuality is a sin and does not wish to be identified with the LGBTQ community. But why? What difference does it make if you say you are homosexual to saying that you are attracted to men but believe that’s a sin? Todd says that being a homosexual is “an identity, and I don’t identify with that. I think that the LGBT culture is not just about who you like, it’s also related to how you act and what you wear, and it’s very tied into everything you do, and I try not to let that change me, I guess. There’s a lot of stereotypes around that sort of thing- so I try to follow the Bible. I don’t want people to look at me and think ‘he’s gay’, just because of my clothes or the way I talk. I am always telling people about it, because people always assume that I’m gay because I don’t play sports, or because of the way I talk, or that sort of stupid things, or that I hang out with girls more than guys, and it affects my life, even though I try to let it not do that. It affects me because it’s very popular, so when I’m not into something that everybody else is saying to choose, everybody around me is telling me something different than what I want to follow.”
Will piped in that labels aren’t required, they don’t need to be recognized as lesbian, gay, transgender or queer. Will says, “I think that the people that are labelling themselves struggle with that; there’s a lot of people that are surely proud to be gay and lesbian, and they’re the ones that are wanting to label themselves. So I wouldn’t say it is as much as the opposing force wanting to label them, because people that are in the LGBT community want to identify with that, they want that label, they sometimes want the attention.”
Sexuality becomes a part of your life in many different ways. For Blaine, it has become something rewarding and part of their personality and daily life, and they hope that the United States will keep progressing with LGBTQ community rights. On the other hand, there are people like Todd, who due to his traditions, keeps his attraction to men a silent burden, and people like Will who believe that homosexuality and being different than God’s ‘image of man’ is a sin. It doesn’t mean that any of them are bad and inherently evil, it just means that they have grown up differently and follow different lives. “being attracted to men is probably .1 percent of me, but it does affect the whole of the core”, says Todd.
What do you think? Do you support the LGBTQ community? Have you ever doubted of your sexuality? Sometimes we don’t know, and perhaps we never will. As Blaine said, it’s all about change and flexibility. You never know when you might wake up one day and discover that you like boys instead of girls, or girls instead of boys.