When we are Silent

I have been overwhelmed by the support my last blog post received (https://saysomethingquiet.blogspot.com/2019/04/what-its-like-to-be-gay-in-alberta.html?m=1). I have heard messages of support from people I never expected to hear from. I have had several people's words make me feel more loved and supported than I even knew cared. I am so very grateful.

Those words, likes, shares and the general goodwill really give me hope and faith that whatever the majority's political stripe, they are moderate in social beliefs and don't reflect the bigoted garbage that came out this election. Those words have helped fan a fire in me to be louder, stronger and more active in my community and my province.

What I also heard, though, were the silences. In life, I have worked very hard to surround myself with those who bring out my best self, those who reciprocate love, support, empathy, and the energy I put into them. When I go through hard times, I don't always reach out. Those closest to me usually see what's  happening as it does, but I don't always reach out. A few weeks ago, I reached out in the most public way available to me. I opened my heart to the page, and showed just a glimpse of the pain I was feeling because of harmful and hurtful ideas being so accepted and supported. Please believe me when I say that was just a taste of it. I was surprised, encouraged and entirely heartened by the words and well wishes I received. I felt more love after I posted the blog than I did before it was published.  Now, I can also hear the gaping silences from some who I thought were in my corner.

When we sit by and let things happen without standing up, we are doing the same as if we are supporting the cause. When people I haven't spoken to in a decade piped in and said, hey, I support you and I support LGBTQ+ people in the province, those people, that day, were not silent bystanders. Really, that's all it takes sometimes. When you use your voice to show a person that you support them, that has ripple effects. You have no idea how far those words go. When we stay silent, when we don't say a word, when we sit back and say my silence has no effect, we show that we do not care enough to stand up. A society that does not care enough to stand up is one that becomes overtaken. It is one that sits back and becomes suppressed, beholden to the powers that be, and essentially gives permission to those in power to abuse them.

I have been abused, and I will never give permission to another living soul to do that to me again. I do not give permission to a government to quash my rights as a woman or as LGBTQ+.  I will not go gentle into that good night. I will not suffer in silence when a group of powerful bigots smile their charming smiles and convince the masses that they don't have dark motives. I will not.

But silence gives them permission. Silence is laying down in submission. Silence is an action, though it seems like it is nothing. Lack of action speaks loudly. Silence gives them permission.

I used to call myself a pacifist. I am assuredly not. I see a world that is swinging right into disaster. I see a country, a nation, a people divided. I see sinister motives and disgusting corruption put forth as cool heads and clever minds. I will not sit back and be quiet about it.

I don't ask anyone to take up a standard and march to some apocalyptic battle. I don't ask capitalists to swing left and sympathize with my bleeding socialist heart. I don't ask people to betray their own beliefs. I believe in freedom above all.

I do ask that you don't sit back and watch as people's dangerous rhetoric wages war on constitutional rights. I do ask that you don't sit back and listen to that same rhetoric which spreads hate and bigotry. I do ask, that if you love me, you support me back, when I feel the need to reach out.

I don't reach out when I am hurting very often. I am strong and powerful and I can shoulder just about anything. So, when I do reach out, you should know, you must know, I need actual, tangible help and support. I don't need you to hang a damn rainbow flag above your doorway, but what I do need is for my supporters to stand the fuck up and stop looking the other way when I, or others like me, ask for help. You don't have to repost my blogs, comment on my social media, or even text me to show your support. You don't have to do a thing, but you can. You can do so much by not being a bystander. Don't think I'm angry if you didn't reach out. I'm certainly not. But maybe I will reach out to those who spoke up, who piped up, who showed me they support me when I needed it.

If we all speak up, our message is amplified. I don't care if we disagree on a great many things, if you support true freedom and equal rights, we can stand unified in that.

I won't sit down today. I don't feel safe, and I won't sit and allow others to also feel unsafe. Silence will not be heard from me. Not today. Certainly not tomorrow. Silence will not be my legacy.

What it's Like to be Gay in Alberta

"You don't have to watch any TV for any length of time today where you don't see on the TV programs, them trying to tell you that homosexuality and homosexual love is good love.  Heck, there are people out there, I could take you, I could take you to places on the website I'm sure where you could find out that there's, where pedophilia is love." Mark Smith, UCP Education Critic, Candidate for Drayton Valley, Alberta.

Do you ever have moments that cut right to the heart?  This was a moment for me.  I am gay.  I am Albertan.  I am also the victim of abuse perpetrated by a pedophile who saw my 10 year old body as something to be desired.  To put these two things, the love I have for and receive from my fiance, and the perverted sexual gratification my abuser relished in when I was a child, in the same disparaging sentence, is, to say the least, hurtful.

No, hurtful is not the word I am looking for.  Devastating.  No, not strong enough yet.  Mind-blowing. No, that's not harsh enough.

Truth is, there isn't a word for how this feels.  It is more akin to the sound you make when you're sucker punched in the gut.  That's what those comments feel like.

I respect personal freedoms and the fundamental beliefs behind democracy, like free speech. I respect freedom of religion.  Heck, I devoutly followed a religion for the first 25 years of my life.  I saw the good that came along with that.  I also, unfortunately, saw the closed-mindedness too.  I followed the church without being discerning enough to understand the real impact these kinds of beliefs had on others.  And then, I woke up and saw the world around me.  I saw people, and then, I saw myself.

Let me tell you what it's like to be gay in Alberta.

This is what it's like.  I turn on the radio and hear an MLA, and elected member of public office, say that I am a perversion.  I hear the words coming out of his actual mouth.

This is what it's like to be gay in Alberta.  I am afraid when I have to come out to people, day after day, in my regular life.  Simple, unassuming questions like, "What does your husband do?" or "Oh your partner works at --, that's so cool.  What's his job?"  Do you know that that feels like?  Do you know how it cuts, little by little?  It's like little, stinging papercuts, and when you have too many, they're the only thing you can think about.

This is what it's like to be gay in Alberta.  My future wife and I feel uncomfortable holding hands in public for fear of the reaction we will receive.  Our paper cuts hurt enough, so we don't want the sucker punches that will follow.  When I drive around my neighbourhood and see signs on lawns that support the people who hate me, I feel like I don't belong in my own home.  I feel afraid of my neighbours.  I feel afraid of my own community.  It hurts my heart that my children will grow up with children whose parents think I am no different than a pedophile.  How do I protect my children from this kind of thinking?

This is what it's like to be gay in Alberta.  I am never quite sure if people accept me or if they condemn me, but I read forced smiles more closely, and I am forced to have discretion in who I tell or don't tell that I am marrying a woman.  I get that butterfly, sick to my stomach feeling any time I am faced with the situation where I have to decide to speak about my partner using the correct female pronoun, or to use something more gender neutral in the spirit of self-preservation.

At this moment in time, I feel as though my human rights are in question.  Not only are the rights of LGBTQ+ going to be called into question, but my rights as a woman to choose what happens to my own body come up as well.  Maybe people will say it would never happen.  Maybe people don't believe that my hard earned rights could be repealed.  Whether they can be or not, people who think I shouldn't be allowed to have complete and total rights over my own body, will be emboldened and speak their beliefs loudly.  Those are much more than papercuts.

World events right now are proving that a leader who leans toward racist, sexist and homophobic views enable the others who share those sympathies to be louder, angrier, and eventually, more powerful.

This is what it's like to be gay in Alberta.