International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia
I happen not to talk much about my personal life. But since today is the day of equality and fight against denial of various sexualities and self-determinations, I would like to talk about what homophobia and transphobia mean to me.
I won’t explain in detail how I became what I am now. In fact, I'm not very different to other people. I'm just a human, and that's enough for me to have my rights and don’t prove myself, ask for permission and opportunity to be me.
I don’t break the laws and rules of conduct in society, I don’t interfere with anybody's life and do no harm to anyone’s health, I respond to requests for help. In general, I am a conscious citizen who cares about what is happening around. I don’t mind if my appearance attracts other people, makes them wonder, hold their gaze. Interest, desire for knowledge, new information - it’s normal, it’s the natural behavior of an adequate member of society.
But when me or other people who are different from the majority are forced to protect themselves from physical attacks or moral pressure, to seek excuses to just remain themselves and be able to express themselves, I’m eager to publicly speak of my rights and fight for them. Who gives us these labels and considers it normal to humiliate a person for their self-determination? Hostages of binary society and obsolete, cruel, narrow framework of behavior in accordance with tradition, artificially accepted norms and concepts.
I don’t believe I have to fight for the right to be myself. In the modern world, where we have already forgotten about survival and struggle for a place to live, where technology and medicine are rapidly developing, it’s just absurd to focus attention on each individual’s natural features - sexual preferences, choice of life goals, thoughts on marriage, a will not to have children.
Why should I prove to someone that I have the right to speak about myself in any of the grammatical genders, to be called as I feel comfortable or according to my self-attitude? Why should I assert my right to look the way I want, and not to please the views of a particular individual, if it does not violate the rules of conduct in a public place, the law of a secular state? People, do you seriously still consider it normal to point out the color or shape of any part of person’s body, style of clothing, choice of a partner, choice of a life goal?
Instead, let the person develop and benefit others, and do the same. Is this not a priority for modern society? Instead of studying, applying themselves in various spheres of art and science, people who could be successful and happy have to dig into themselves and look for nonexistent shortcomings, constantly struggle with depression, fears caused by censure, criticism and other attacks of society, prove to others that they have the right to do things on a par with the more accommodating representatives of the system. After all, how do these people in fact differ from the rest? Only by their courage to admit to their own desires that don’t contradict the nature of an alive and social being, the courage to allow oneself a choice and be happy with it.
