The Dyke word

My great blogging friend Anne has a post about how she keeps hearing kids calling each other "fags." She speculated about how some of those boys will grow up and learn that they are gay and that this early experience will assure a least some amount of shame.

This called to mind an experiece I had in Middle school. I played basketball on the girls team. Suzie and I were the best players on the team. The boys basketball coach asked both of us the join the boys team saying we would be receiving better training and a higher level of play. I was pretty excited to be asked but was deathly afraid of what people would think of me if I did it. I knew I would be teased. I declined the offer.

Suzie, though, accepted. She was having a blast but I heard so many people calling her a dyke and other harsh things. At the time I thought I had done the right thing. I didn't have to put up with all that humiliation!

We ended up playing Varsity girls basketball together. She was on the starting team, I was on the second string. That experience on the boys team did her a lot of good. It makes me spitting nails angry now that I wasn't stong enough to go ahead and follow my heart. It's also so sad that those kids felt justified in making those terrible comments.

Self esteem doesn't run high with this age group or many others for that matter. Lashing out at others expense seems to be a way to feel good about ourselves and that's so fucked up. I want the world to change and become more accepting of the differences between us. That goes for every one - The short, tall, dark, light, gay, straight, heavy, thin, jock, geek, poor, rich, old, young, etc,etc, etc.

And guess what? I'm gay! At 46 years old I can finally say it. Hiding during Jr. high didn't keep me from being who I am. It just made me scared to admit for a long, long time.