LGBTQIA is a mouthful. It takes a while to say it. It’s a commitment to go all the way through it in a conversation
And when I do (which is always), I’m not doing it to be righteous or to prove my wokeness. I’m not doing it to push my agenda or be seen as a certain kind of person.
Rather, I do it because people I love are part of that community.
My daughter’s bestie is Trans (and so damn cool!). She got her surgery and has never been happier. She makes it worth it for me to stumble through the letters.
A friend of mine is nonbinary and such a good person, committed to a life of selflessness and altruism, so I continue to work at saying “them.” I’m not good at it; I keep failing. I don’t like to fail, I don’t like to not be good at something, but I keep working at it, because if that’s all I gotta do to create a space for my friend, then I’ll do it.
Some of my best and oldest friends are Gay and Lesbian. (I’m pretty sure we can all say this now; thankfully, the L and the G are mostly accepted these days, or at least acknowledged).
But I’m always learning and changing…
A loved one came out as asexual and taught me a whole new way of being and loving. And I’ll be damned if I leave that A off of LGBTQIA ever again. How could anyone expect me to leave it out? To leave them out?! Ever.
All it takes is one person close to you to share their true self, and you will immediately be confronted with a painful challenge: do I change the way I speak and think, or do I cut out a piece of my heart?
It is painful to be willed out of existence. We are hurting the ones we love.
Let’s be better.
Why wait until someone you love draws up the courage to show you their heart and ask you to say the letters? Isn’t it enough to imagine someone you love needing to do that? Or maybe you can just know that someone you love (me!) loves someone who is part of the community?
Isn’t that enough?
Stepping into the light of the LGBTQIA community is among the bravest things in the world, like walking into a ring of people with swords drawn. It is scary. It is dangerous. But it is necessary, because walking in the other direction leads to a steep drop-off into a dark, silent place.
Dropping into darkness isn’t an option. It is a death.
An involuntary decaying of the heart, not chosen, but forced. And in this banishment, we lose voices and thoughts and love, we lose new love we don’t yet understand, which is so important, because when we seek to understand, we grow. And our hearts become stronger and more capable.
But for some reason, we push all of this away.
We choose not to celebrate. We willfully and quietly cut out a piece of our hearts.
Instead of changing our minds.