"Why do queer people even need a whole month?"
I am in elementary school. I have discovered something in myself that is different from my peers. I have no words to express this feeling, so I instead live in discomfort for years and years and believe it to be normal.
I am in seventh grade. I have lost my entire friend group because a rumor was spread that because I am queer, I must be a creep. My last sleepover with those friends was spent sitting in the same room as them while they texted each other talking shit about me.
I am in seventh grade. I have endured homophobic bullying from snarky comments to food being thrown at me in the cafeteria, and today finally swing back. I get one of the bullies on the floor and the teacher breaks us up. I get in trouble for fighting while she continues to bully me. Nothing is done about the bullying when I speak up about it.
I am in seventh grade. I am being outed to my entire classroom by the people I share a table with. They are walking to every single desk and telling each classmate I am queer. I watch as every head turns to look at me in disgust. I am completely alienated from that class and spend my days working alone.
I am fourteen or fifteen. The discomfort I have lived with my entire life finally has a name: dysphoria. I have come out to my family as trans. I am in my room alone on my birthday, crying because every card has "girl" on it.
I am fourteen or fifteen. I get a tone with a family member because I am tired of her excuses for continuously misgendering me. Her husband corners me outside and threatens to hit me if I ever talk back to her again, and tells me my identity is made up. My family sides with him.
I am fifteen and sixteen. I wish I could die instead of living in stagnancy.
I am seventeen. My country is passing law after law to restrict my community. Trans people are going missing and being murdered, and their lights are snuffed without so much as a whimper. I am disgusted and afraid and grieving alongside my trans brothers, sisters, and siblings.
I am twenty. I do not speak to much of my family anymore, my mother has only ever called me my birth name, and I have lost every single friend I ever had except one, and had to rebuild myself and my circle from the ground up. Family holidays are hollow. I have self harm scars permanently etched on my skin, purple half-moons under my eyes that are like stains at this point, and I will never forget how I have been treated and what I have endured. My heart breaks knowing millions out there experience the same things and worse.
I am twenty. I am crying in my boyfriend's arms about not feeling like a real man. I am hearing him reassure me that he sees me for me and he loves me as the man I am. My small friend group strictly calls me by my chosen name and pronouns. I am in love, I have more support than ever, and for once, I'm starting to feel glad I'm alive, glad that I held on. For once, I have hope.
I am twenty. It is pride month and I am hearing the same complaints over and over again. And I am not apologizing for existing a little more brightly this month. We have all fucking earned it.
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