Coming Out

" If God had wanted me otherwise, He would have created me otherwise. "~ Johann von Goethe

I am such a passionate person, a person who cares so much for others. Yet, I am constantly colliding into a wall. The wall society created, a wall meant to entrap individuals like myself, from being themselves, from being open and feeling safe.

So many once believed that African-Americans were not equal, or entitled to all of the same rights and protections offered by the U.S Constitution. Now in 2011, many Gay Americans are still struggling for equality, for protection.

It frustrates me that I am made a target, a target for people to attack, belittle or make a mockery of. For some people, it's no big deal, just words, there's no basis for it. Yet, so many young people have killed themselves because of bullying done through the internet, or in person.

So many people justify their bigotry by hiding behind religion. Just like they use to use biblical references to explain why slavery wasn't a crime against humanity.

"Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood."--Coretta Scott King

I think back at the time, the day I decided I would tell others, and then my mother. I think back and say to myself, "Mark, you were so naive", because I was unaware of the dangers that came with being open about who you are. I've never regretted my decision to come out, and I never will. However, the times when I would be standing at the bus stop, waiting for it to arrive, and people would drive by shouting "Fag" and other degrading terms, made me think about how my life would have been had I stayed in the closet.

In 2010, so many young gay men took their lives for various reasons and the truth is, so many other young teens are out there- straight and gay struggling because our society has FORGOTTEN the horrors that comes when one enters middle school and high school.

My favorite author wrote this in a novel called "The Pact", "Adults, light-years away from this, rolled their eyes and smirked and said, "this too shall pass" - as if adolescence was a disease like chicken pox, something everyone recalled as a mild nuisance, completely forgetting how painful it had been at the time."- Jodi Picoult.

So parents, love ones, and teachers are missing the signs, seeing the look of pain across young adults as typical but nothing about our society and this generation is "typical".

People are really struggling, and they want to come out, but they are scarred of the consequences that shouldn't even exist.

Coming out was hard, and it's hard being a Gay Latino, but what would have been harder for me, was pretending to look at girls, answering the common question asked by relatives, "Mark, so where's your girlfriend?", and living a double life. I understand that silence is safer for some, but I encourage people to come out and come clean, at least come clean to yourself, if you can't come clean to others.