Bans & Pride

A newsletter on identity and belonging. Do bans keep people from finding their true identity?

Well, obviously not. We all know that. Or at least those of us who care to pay attention. And for 46 years I wasn’t really paying attention. I didn’t know I needed to. It literally never occurred to me that I could be gay. Looking back there were so many signs, they almost hit me in the face they were so obvious, but because being gay was not on my radar in any way whatsoever, I never realized it. Bi-curious is about as far as my mind ever wandered.

I have no way of knowing if reading books with gay protagonists or talking about sexual orientation in sex ed would have made any difference. Nor does it really matter. All of that was not available to me in the conservative village I grew up in. What I can say though is that NOT having access to all this information didn’t make me any less gay. Just took me longer to figure it out. That’s it.

It doesn’t take much to understand that bans on books, words, concepts, science-based teaching won’t change a person’s sexual orientation, their gender identity or their curiosity, what it will do is make people feel isolated, misunderstood, confused and alone. That’s all those bans achieve - if “achieve” is even the correct word here. Let me rephrase that to: that’s only part of the damage those bans cause.

Yes, I used my niece’s scratch pad - it’s nice and colorful

Now that I’ve started paying attention I realize how much of my surroundings (oh, and I’m totally including myself in this) still have a very confined heteronormative view of the world. That is starting to bug me, and I think that that’s a good thing for me personally. And possibly also the reason I’m writing this.

Also, it’s Pride month. Never having had to fight for my rights or having faced discrimination, I’m not feeling any prouder this month than any other month. I just want to be me. And just like anywhere, some people have louder personalities than others, but isn’t that the beauty of life and of humankind? That we are all different. How boring would the world be if we were all the same. There is so much strength in diversity. Let’s take advantage of that!

Can we just accept people for who they are and not try to change them? Can we just realize that this also means that we ourselves can lead the lives we want to?