Essay: The Worst Day Ever

NewsBites — By Anna Gibson on October 15, 2009 at 6:00 pm

I am remembering the first day I came out to my classroom. My nerves were a jittery bundle, jumping about in my stomach. I was planning on doing this today but now I’m frozen, the teacher is saying something in his funny, monotone voice, and I realize the magnitude of what I’m about to do. Behind me some girls are sitting, looking at me, and giggling like their in on some joke that I’m not. I want to leave now, and as I’m about to I hear this…

“Anna, are you gay?”

The room is silent, the pause is pregnant…

“Ummm yeah”

The classroom erupts … I’m trying to remember basic humanity, however its beginning to become increasingly hard over the cat-calls and derogatory questions.

Flash-forward 2 years later:

I’m tired. So, finally I ask one of my former-bullies, why? Why should I be put down and scorned? Why don’t you seem to understand how I feel?

His response?

“Well I’ve never been around a lesbian before, so I guess I don’t know how to act.”

I suppose communication between various orientations is a good thing … by the way, the guy that bullied me … I saw him at pride with his boyfriend a few months ago…

Go figure.

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  • Melissa

    Okay, this may not be my WORST day ever, but its what I can come up with for right now.

    Yesterday, I was at a meeting, surrounded by fifty year old conservative men. And one of the men said “I am surprised the world didn’t come to an end yesterday” When asked why he replied “because the newlywed show is allowing same sex couples.” For a moment I just sat there, not wanting to be the odd one out. Had he said nothing more I probably would have left it alone. I did have a good friend in the room, but he also is more conservative. He turned to look at me like “please don’t say anything.” And I probably wouldn’t have until the next words out of Rob’s mouth were “Isn’t that sick” I know I was about ten shades of red, and furious.
    I blurted out, “I KNOW I am probably the ONLY person in this room who doesn’t agree with you, but I don’t. So we need to drop this subject right now.”
    My friend said “This issue needs to be an agree to disagree issue” and I agreed, and we let it drop. I just couldn’t sit by and listen to gay bashing and hatred being spread. I had to put a stop to it. But it was very scary for me too. This was a business meeting, and for me to put my opinion out there, I wasn’t sure what it would mean for me. But I did it. AND no one said a word about it later. So it definitely could have been much worse.

  • http://speakequal.com Brooke Murphy

    OMG! WOW! People’s audacity NEVER ceases to amaze me! You know he only said something like that because he thought he could get away with it …

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