Though the civil union bill has been passed, there are still many issues with having ‘same-sex couples’ roaming about in America. It isn’t to say that all people are prone to behave with outstanding repugnance, but a larger majority is.

Most of the time I avoid using ‘I’ or ‘me’ in my writing due to the fact that I would rather it remain anonymous and simply be something to inform the common reader, but I’ve found that if I get more (cough, cough) intimately attached to the reader that it might actually help more and many others. Being a Junior in high school doesn’t leave much leeway or really any freedom, with strict parenting and apprehensive teachers it really is just a long trip of angst and suffering- though every teenager believes that right? The issues and struggles that I happen to face on a day to day basis happen to be more for the adult world rather than our fragile little child world. It seems that more than simply parents hold beliefs on what you as a child should be doing with your life. I identify proudly as bisexual, I feel there is little representation and many disbeliefs of it actually existing. People believe that the inability to choose a ‘sex’ is really just ignorance and confusion, which is not always the case. I would date either or, but more primarily if I were to be labeled then I’d be a strong ‘gay’. I’ve dated one girl for three years back in middle school but despite that I was still heavily closeted and called my experimenting ‘playful game’. In high school I dated one boy- aside from the one everyone is aware of who had agreed to take me to a splendid movie. So I’ve dated either and enjoyed it as immensely as it is possible in my mind.

It seemed that I was fine with this, I didn’t mind not having firm stability in one area because I was flexible between both, and it made me feel much more comfortable in my own body, but that isn’t to say that I made the people around me comfortable. It wasn’t until a few jocks overheard my open discussion about sexuality with a confused friend. She asked me things that were common: ‘how do you know you aren’t just confused?’, ‘How did your family take this information?’, ‘Do you feel any regret for ‘coming out’?’. I was accustomed to that, what I hadn’t realized was that not everyone would be open to being educated. It quickly escalated from unpleasant names like ‘dyke’ being thrown around to soon all out wars. Shortly after I had graduated from middle school I had sworn to never throw another punch or initiate any battles, my enjoyment in violence was unnecessary and much too looked forward to, and in order to establish a healthy living style I had to learn to peacefully resolve my conflicts.

It started out before I had transferred from my previous high school, and it would get as bad as actually getting physical. There were many times that I was slammed into lockers or shoved down the bottom few steps, and I couldn’t exactly go to my parents for it. How weak would it look that their daughter was being bullied viciously at school? Luckily when we transferred I held the belief that I would finally be free to accept my sexuality and be open about my choices. Oh how I was wrong. The new school I transferred to seemed more likely to try and abolish the 'gay cancer' than my previous school. The only difference was the fact that everyone in the new school feared me in a sense. I'm the type of girl to brave the halls with unmaskable badassery, the type of person who stands strong and throws glares towards anyone who dare sneer. People heard of my violent past and decided against trying to do anything against me, but then word spread about how 'non-violent' I had turned, and then it seemed that everything had crashed down. Again such offensive names were thrown my way, insulting and degrading and heavily burdening. I would come home angry past the point of speaking, furious beyond recognition, it was an impossibility that I learned to overcome through music. Now of course despite my actions and my refusal to violence it still heavily dampened and impacted my behavior at home. I would lose technological privileges and soon be forced to suffer through actually hearing what they say about me instead of drowning myself in music. I suffered most indefinitely when I started allowing their venomous words to really get to me.

It was in my final quarter of school that really it got worse, I guess the students realized that they would soon run out of time to pester me as well as the news of my moving away (always moving, never staying put) caught in the wind. It wasn’t unbearable by any means, simply insufferable. They began to bash everything about me, and I’d hate when my friends weren’t there to defend me or simply distract me. I began turning anywhere I could, asking other known homosexual students if they faced this treatment as well. I found quickly that really- due to a surplus of proud lesbians around the campus- that really the students only bullied the female gay students. I figured it was because men weren’t prone to come out as gay more often. Quickly I realized the fact that the men in this school didn’t want to have to deal with gay women. There was something like an inferiority to women being gay rather than men, and it wasn’t only the guys at school that brought this complex to life. The guys would ask me out as dares and jokes then mock me for not being entertained by their body parts and all that, I would be humiliated over the fact that I had a preference to not date those who make it their daily goal to put me through the ‘straight process’. It really was utterly humiliating, but it wasn’t just the guys unfortunately. I would be forced to run errands to see the coach at times, and she resided in the locker room. I was unfortunate to actually have to pass through the locker room to get to her office. Which inevitably meant that girls would sneer at me. They would always accuse me of openly ‘gawking’ as if my sexuality made me a predator in any sense. It was baffling as well as infuriating, the conundrum struck me as even more curious when I would be befriended by pretty (straight) girls who would blast around the school my attempts to ‘win them over’ and how ‘I am so madly and irreversibly in love with them’. It was irreparable damage that was done, I was constantly left feeling filthy and like perhaps maybe I did show interest in too many girls (despite me only much recently falling for the fourth girl. As previously mentioned I dated one in middle school, took out one in high school and fawned over the other two from afar) and maybe I really was scaring them to think that I would hurt them or something drastic. But that only lasted on the days that I felt especially bad. It was becoming exhausting, my day to day was as tiring as the day was long, and I would refuse to do much after that fact.

My grades slipped further and further as the days progressed, and I even began hiding away from some classes for fear of bullying. It had become impossible, and still I refused to go to anyone for any assistance, parental interference would only make things worse and make it look like I couldn’t stand my ground- and really with the plethora of issues surfacing in my family the last thing they would care about is a few mean students at school. The only ones to physically put their hands on me was one guy and many females. I endured a lot, and still do endure, but never once did I break my oath of non-violence. It wasn’t only school that had become a struggle, outside of school in public was just as bad. There were times I would leave with my family to stores and malls and even extravagant places like the county fair- and I would be approached by people or they would give me glares. I resorted to hiding away indoors with the refusal of spending anytime with my actual companions. It was only after I were grounded for what felt like my billionth time at home that I decided if I allowed the bullying to keep ruining my days then that would reflect on my home life and inevitably, the bullies would succeed at their mission to ruin my life. With no escape at home, and school not being a refuge anymore from home, I decided on making school a safe haven again.

Of course that resolve crumbled when I got new glasses. I as myself absolutely adored them, thick black rimmed and chosen from the man’s aisle, I was in heaven- and I chose to sport them around like I owned the earth. Unfortunately that was a sensitive point still due to the fact that I wasn’t accustomed to wearing glasses outside of home. The students savagely tore into me to the point of actual tears, it was the first time in a while something like that happened. They had put stuff in my hair, called me all sorts of crude names, and laughed when I found my resolve in non-violence. It was the absolute worst day of my life.

It’s not to say that this story only ends tragically, I wrote this with the intention of connecting with other high school students suffering the same impossible treatment. I’m not a sad person naturally, I’m one of the liveliest people that could be met. I don’t find an issue that I wouldn’t mind holding a girl as my own as well as sometimes being held as someone else’s own. That isn’t to say that I didn’t go through drastic hatred for myself and my ‘disgusting’ sexuality for a little bit, it’s only to say that I learned to overcome that. I might not smile the most, but I know that blame falls to myself. I refused to go get help then blamed everyone around me for not noticing, which really it’s easy to miss. Not to say the people around me were oblivious. When a bruise would sprout on my body- arms, face, chest, and back- I would cover it quickly with more clothes and my hair and make-up. Nothing was out of the ordinary except my behavior. That was something that only people who really knew me could notice. My parents didn’t know me, and to this day don’t know me as much as they say they do. I grew for a portion of my life with my grandmother, and due to that she’s learned just about every little bit of me, even when I try and hide my discomforts she seems to automatically know. She would call me out on my sadness, and I would talk to her about some of the problems- but never the bullying, and really I’m certain she just already knows what it is that’s upset me. It’s weird in a way, very much so, being known by someone was always foreign to me. I preferred the whole; ‘they don’t care and neither do I’ outlook on life, but it was unhealthy. It's gotten better to a certain extent, my proof is that I was able to even write it down for anyone to read. I've always been the type of person to take on anything by myself with no-one there to catch me when I fell, but you get a lot of (metaphorical) cuts and bruises that way. You learn to pick yourself up faster but you're also more bitter towards a helping hand, meaning dealing with it alone can dampen your personality a lot.

What I’m trying to say is that just because I went through this turmoil with the refusal to seek out help, that doesn’t mean that the entirety of the gay community has to. I should have realized that maybe by talking to someone it could ameliorate the situation slightly if not entirely. To this day I cannot enter the school without expecting to be mocked in some crude way, but I can find a way to cope through it. By talking to friends, and if you’ve got trusted family then that too. I can easily find solace through writing and music, the major items of happiness in my life. But that doesn’t mean that it entirely wipes out the pain, only the comfort of another being can do that. Through solitude you will only find what you already have, be it buried deep inside of you or simply there, the only way to ascertain new knowledge is to put yourself out there. There are probably other kids at your school going through the same controversy, talking to them could help before it spirals out of control. I’ve been one of the people who has experienced truly as bad as it can get, and I could only write what I felt comfortable with. It isn’t a weakness to go through this, it’s a strength. I really hope that one day maybe someone reading this realizes that it’s okay to go and seek help, and really if I can do it then anybody can. I never want to seem weak either, but you have to realize that it isn’t bad to want to be concerned over or cared about, and if you refuse to find assistance somewhere then you can’t really blame anyone else but your stubborn self. There are groups out there, and places you can call, all you gotta do is take the step out and actually want the help. Like I said, I hope in a way hearing this could help someone else so they don’t suffer through their teenage years and instead liberate themselves.