It Gets Better (28 page)

I'm absolutely heartbroken by all the amazing people we've lost. But I want you to know that you are not alone. Each person who has contributed to this project loves you, respects you, and can't wait for you to join us out in the world of acceptance that we found and continue to create every day.

Please don't give up. We really are out here.

PHILADELPHIA, PA

 

 

 

 

M
y little brother came home one day when I was in high school and told my dad that he had heard a rumor that I was gay. Then my sister called to tell me that my father said that if I was a faggot then, when I turned eighteen, my ass was getting kicked out of the house. She said she didn't care if I was or wasn't. It was nice that she was there for me but I lived with the fear of getting kicked out, wondering where I would go, what would I do, for a long time. So I denied who I was, even to my father. Then, one day when I was eighteen, we had a fight about something financial and when the fight was over, he said he loved me. I told him that he didn't. Otherwise he wouldn't have said that to my sister. He asked me if I was gay and I told him that I wasn't. I denied who I was time and time again.

When I was in college, someone outed me to my father during my sophomore year, but we never talked about it. I finally told him the truth my senior year. He said it wasn't what he would have wanted for me, but that he wasn't going to kick me out of his life.

There was never true acceptance on his part; but for twelve years, there was tolerance. And then recently, he posted one of those cut-and-paste “Will you stand up with me against gay teen suicides?” pledges, listing the names of several young people who committed suicide, on his Facebook page. I thought that was a pretty big step for him, but then I read the comment he posted underneath it. “I am so glad that my son was strong enough to withstand the bullying and my ignorance as he was growing up. I am so proud of him and his accomplishments in life, and I love him for all that he is. Being gay is not one of his shortcomings.”

It took many years, but I think my father realized that if all these kids were committing suicide, he could have lost his son, too. It's sad that it took so many young people dying for him to realize that he could have been that parent, but he did. I'm very thankful that he's finally come around after all these years and now we're renewing our relationship as father and son.

This past year I was asked by the founder of the Greater Philadelphia Flag Football League (GPFFL) to step in as commissioner when he relocated for a new job. I've been very active in the gay community and gay sports leagues in New York and Philadelphia and welcomed the opportunity to take the GPFFL to the next level.

If you had told me when I was in high school that one day I'd be the commissioner of a gay sports league, I wouldn't have believed you. I wouldn't have believed that such a thing even existed. I would have told you that you're crazy. When you grow up in a rural area not knowing any other gay people, or even that being gay is an option, the idea of meeting another gay person—let alone a whole football team of amazing gay guys and gals—is quite foreign.

So if you're that kid—maybe a nose tackle or the defensive end for your high school or college football team—living in fear, who doesn't think he can have the life he wants and doesn't even realize that something like this might be out there for him one day, I want you to know you can and there is. This is what it's all about. The gay community, the friendships, and the relationships we have built. I know it may not seem like it now, but it really does get better. I hope to see you on the football field with us one day!

BALTIMORE, MD

 

 

 

 

I
grew up in a small town in northern New Jersey about twenty-five miles outside New York City. I'm also Jewish, not just culturally so, but I actually care about being Jewish and have a firm belief in G-d. I've also always been, as my late grandfather used to say about me as a toddler, “an arch individualist.” I cut my own bangs when I was three. I asked for an Atari for my birthday when everyone else was getting Nintendo. I wrote elementary school fan letters (in cursive pencil) to Jon Bon Jovi beginning with “Dear Mr. Jovi.” I've always done my own thing, and, luckily, was always encouraged to do so by my parents.

“Different” was always okay. But by the time middle school hit, I'd say seventh grade, something started creeping up my spine and settled uncomfortably in my brain. It made me feel different in a new, uneasy way. It was a question without an answer, something so foreign to me as a twelve-year-old in 1990 that I couldn't even think about it.

Am I gay?
a voice whispered quietly. I didn't even truly know what “gay” was. There was no
Will & Grace
. There was no out-and-proud Ellen. There was no Adam Lambert. There was nothing, really. But I knew my feelings, I knew who I had crushes on, and I knew it wasn't “normal.”

I kept my feelings to myself because they felt wrong. After all, I had crushes on boys. I loved the New Kids on the Block the same way all the other girls did. But things were off.

I pushed my feelings way, way down. Packed them down so deep they turned into concrete in my stomach—and my heart. They plagued me day and night.
What you're feeling isn't normal
, they whispered.
You're not normal. You're weird. You're a freak. You're different. You're wrong
. And the very worst one:
You're a bad person
.

Here's the catch: No one else was bullying me. I was bullying myself.

Year after year the feelings were there, as was the voice in my head. The self-bullying continued. The feelings got stronger. The voice got louder. The bullying got worse. I was my own worst enemy. I didn't know it at the time, but I was destroying myself. By the time I reached tenth and eleventh grade,
You're a bad person
morphed into
You're a bad person and a bad Jew
.

One by one, my dreams started crumbling. Marriage. Children. A happy life.
I might be alone forever
, I told myself. I couldn't see my way out. I felt doomed.

A loop of self-made insults and self-loathing swirled in my head day and night. I joked around in high school, did well in classes, and had plenty of friends, but I felt crushed and breathless all the time. Instead of hanging out with my friends, I cried alone in my room, scared to death of my feelings. Scared to death I'd be shunned by my family, shunned by my friends, shunned not only by an entire religious community but also by G-d. Looking back at it from the safe distance of a happy, open adulthood, I don't know where all the self-loathing came from. After all, no one in my family ever said anything bad about gay people. No one, absolutely no one, told me that if I was gay, or had an attraction to anyone of the same sex, I would be anything less than a good Jew. But you see, all of those feelings—those feelings of being wrong, being a freak, being a bad person—are indoctrinated in us as we grow. I'm a perfect example of that. I've always been a free thinker. I grew up in the New York metro area. My parents are open-minded. But I got the message from society at large: Gay is different. Different is bad. Gay is bad.

And so I stayed quiet. I stayed quiet until I came out to my high school best friend in a fit of tears and shivers in the middle of the night just a few days before our senior year started. I came out to her because I literally was making myself sick. I had prepped myself for our friendship ending once she heard my secret.

Instead she wrapped her arms around me and told me it was okay.

“Really?” I said through my tears. “You still like me? You still want to be friends?”

“Of course I want to be friends!” she said, smiling. “I don't feel any differently about you. You're still Jessica. You're still my best friend.”

A huge weight was temporarily lifted off my shoulders. I had told someone and she didn't care. She loved me unconditionally. But I was sixteen. And even though I wasn't completely sure about my sexuality, I knew, deep inside, that I would have a long way to go because I didn't love myself.

I'd like to say that I replaced fear and shame with pride and happiness, and came out to everyone that was important to me, but that couldn't be further from the truth. I didn't feel any better about myself. And I would continue carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders, and continue bullying myself until I literally made myself sick—sicker this time—finally coming out to my parents when I was eighteen and in college.

And you know what? When I told my parents, they didn't care either.

No one, not one person
, who I've come out to in all the years since—and I'm thirty-two now—
has ever cared
. They don't see me as “gay.” They see me as Jessica.

If you're struggling with this right now, I want you to go to the mirror, look at yourself and say “I'm (your name).” If the words “gay” or “bi” or “trans” or “queer” are on your lips, replace it with your name. Because that's who you are. That's the core of you. I hope you can understand that. It's something I didn't understand for far too long.

I wasted years—years!—feeling bad about myself when I didn't need to. It's hard enough when you're a teenager. You don't want to be seen as different. Maybe “different” in the sense of you're a cool dresser or exceptionally creative or something like that. For me, being gay was the last straw. I already felt like I didn't fit in. It pushed me over the edge. But it didn't need to.

I felt so alone, so completely alone, when I was closeted in high school. But let me tell you something: When I got to college everything changed. Everything! I started meeting like-minded people. I started meeting people of every sexual orientation and background. My world opened up. Like a screen door in a windstorm—BAM! And suddenly I wasn't alone anymore. I started becoming the Jessica I once was as a kid, before worries about my sexuality came along in middle school and high school. I started coming into my own. And I started to realize, hey, I am normal. I am totally and completely 100 percent normal.

And you don't need to go to college for that to happen. Once you expand your world—meet new people, go new places, graduate from high school—things will start changing. Because if you're living somewhere now where people don't accept you, or are bullying you, there are so many places where things will be different. You just need to hold on. Even if your family doesn't wind up accepting you, families don't always have to be blood relatives. We can make our own families. And if you haven't come out to your friends or family yet for fear of being rejected, give them a chance. They just might surprise you.

I was lucky enough to never have experienced bullying by other people. But I think what I experienced was just as bad. I bullied myself.

If you're bullying yourself, please stop. I promise you things will get better. Go easy on yourself. You are a good person. And you will find your way.

If you're religious, please know that G-d loves you no matter what. Do you hear me? Gay, straight, or anything in between, no matter what. If anyone tells you anything different, ignore them. Shut them out. Because it's untrue. Do you know how many LGBT-friendly houses of worship there are? Tons! And you'll find yours one day, I promise.

Life as an LGBT person can be happy, extremely, gloriously happy. And normal. When I was twenty-two—just six years after I came out to my best friend in high school—I met holly, who would become my partner of now almost ten years. She is the love of my life! We have so much fun together. I feel like the luckiest person in the world. We got married not just once, but twice. And you know what? We are ridiculously normal. As in: We fall asleep on the couch together and watch movies and go grocery shopping and do laundry and go to Starbucks and make meat loaf. We have a home and it's filled with love. And you'll have that one day, too. You really will. I promise. You just need to have faith. And give yourself time. And talk to someone you can trust if you feel so hopeless that you're considering taking your own life.

Because you need to be here.

You hear me?

You need to be here. You deserve to be here. I want you to be here. Holly and I want you to be here. We all want you to be here. You might not know us but we're out here. And the people closest to you—that you might not think care—they care more than you know. You need to stick around so you can meet all the awesome, fun, impossibly sexy people that are going to help make your life not just bearable but totally and completely awesome.

Don't bully yourself the way I did. Don't worry about things that are going to work out just fine. I bet you're not all that much different than me. And I've managed to figure it out. And you will, too.