The Re-Education of Their America

I vividly remember the first time someone found out I wasn’t straight.

Some LBGTQ people choose to have coming out parties, celebrating their strength among close friends. Others make announcements, either in person or on social media. Still yet others only tell individual people in the dark of night for fear of retribution from their family, city, country. I did none of those. My banishment from the proverbial closet was forceful, yet accidental.

And yet, during that night three years ago, only one-third of me came out.

There are three parts of my identity, three pieces of the puzzle that fit together yet remain individual. Gender, sexuality, and romantic identity are commonly correlated, but they are not synonyms. For those that do not understand the separation of the three, I forward The Genderbread Person and a highly recommended article about the difference between sexual and romantic attraction.

I am agender, meaning I do not feel to be either male or female. I am neutral, neither. I am asexual, meaning I have no internal drive to have sex. I am not actively against it – I feel the same way about sex as I do about tables. I am biromantic, meaning I am romantically attracted to both men and women. When I was 22, I first discovered the term “asexuality” after a therapist suggested I research it. I had known since I was 16 that I was attracted to men and sometimes women, and for an equal amount of time I dismissed my gender identity due to growing up a tomboy.

During my accidental coming-out at 23, a small group of friends and I were watching TV when we decided to watch Netflix instead. My computer was the only one that was able to be connected to the monitor, so we pulled out the cords, opened up a window, and hooked up my laptop. Prominently displayed on the TV were then my most frequently visited pages: Facebook, my university’s homepage, Google, Twitter, Netflix, and AVEN. AVEN, with its emboldened purple, grey, black, and white triangle and large lettering proclaiming it to be the Asexuality Visibility and Education Network, instantly and accidentally kicked 1/3 of me out of the closet. My friends were curious at first, but on the whole I was roundly supported. After years of hiding my identity, one part was no longer a secret.

I do not have good reason for hiding the other two. Despite their many flaws, my family is largely supportive of all LBGTQ people and even offered to support me financially when I went to Toronto for a Pride conference. My friends are lovely, many of them flying the rainbow flag themselves. I proudly live in a city that is one of the world’s safest places for LBGTQ people. Jews are well known for welcoming minorities as are Vincentian Catholics. Other than my own mild fear of rejection and much larger apathy, there is little reason to hide.

But now, maybe there is.

As the world learned Wednesday morning, Donald Trump is the president-elect of the US. Gov. Mike Pence, his pick for Vice President, has roundly championed a list of anti-LBGT laws during his terms as both Representative and Governor of Indiana. Notable ones include his support of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, belief that being gay is a choice and indicates the societal collapse of marriage, support for religious discrimination in the workplace, and measures to severely reduce funding to organizations that assist LBGTQ people, like homeless shelters and mental health funding. Most importantly, he believes that conversion therapy is a legitimate and effective treatment for being gay.

While I now live in a state that has banned conversion therapy, at one point I lived in both Texas and Idaho, states that have no such protections. Minors can, and are, exposed to forcible starvation, physical restraints, and electroshock therapy at the discretion of their parents for not being straight. And at what cost? Those who go through the process are six times more likely to have major depression, three times more likely to use drugs, and eight times more likely to attempt suicide or succeed.

Mike Pence has made his record on LBGT rights clear. So let me do the same.

Though not under the guise of converting my sexual identity, I have been forcibly starved, physically restrained, and denied medical service in the name of “therapy”. Over a period of six weeks, I lost 40 lbs., got an infection in my arm, and began hallucinating. Although my addiction to pills did not truly bloom until nearly a year later, I began trying to manipulate the psychiatrist into giving me more prescriptions with the hopes that I could either blur my time awake or simply sleep the day away. My already present depression skyrocketed to a point where I tried to end my life by eating copious amounts of toothpaste, the most lethal substance to which I was allowed constant access in a heavily-restricted location. One of the other patients in the facility molested and sexually harassed every single female-bodied person present. Unfortunately, we were some level of bisexual or biromantic and so staff all turned a blind eye.

What I went through was torture.

I will not permit anyone else to experience the same.

To me, Vice President-elect Mike Pence is more than a champion of anti-LBGT policy. He is a decimation to the community in which I call home, a force of utter destruction to the people I call my friends. He routinely advocates the torture of youth for being precisely who they are, and expects me, as an educator, to allow him to do so.

I will not let him use my classroom to amplify his voice.

So Mike Pence, I would like to let you know that I will not shy away from complete and total LBGT inclusion. I will promote textbooks and stories that honor the struggle my brothers and sisters have gone through at the hands of others like you. I will make sure all my students understand that under no circumstance will I tolerate any exclusion of LBGT students, no matter how mild. No matter what policies you throw in my way, my classroom and I will always remain a safe haven.

I will not be silenced to continue the mis-education of your America.