What Black History Month Means to Me

I make black history every day of my life, why would I let society give me a month only to celebrate myself. My opinion on Black History month is that most people will not understand unless they trade places with us. Racism is very real, so one cannot fully understand this if they have not lived through it; one of those things that must be experienced to have complete respect for.

- Anonymous

RE: Self Love Week

If I were to tell you…you would not be inclined to believe me…Never-the-less, Gentlemen, that is how it is.” So said Socrates, trying to explain at his trial that he could not change who he was, even if it meant his life. And that is all of us.

We have come a long way and should be thankful, that is my message.

Today’s gender acceptance was in its infancy when I went to Trent, but we were the same, inside, then as now. Imagine the consternation when I, trying to understand myself, and looking for help, for community, walked into the Gay and Lesbian Collective office, looking the polar opposite of who I was inside. Hostility thicker than blood. Who was this attractive-but-masculine, athletic skirt-chasing male, reeking of patriarchy and gender privilege, invading their sanctuary? What did I want, a pamphlet I could take and later laugh at with my hockey playing, beer swilling homophobe friends?

Immediate rejection from lesbians and strange attractions from gays, for me that was the norm (to use the gender terms of the times).

But ever have that moment when you meet someone and the pheromones just sizzle? That’s how you know. There are some girls who just make me wild inside, and they are gay. But my body is male. Oops. Thanks for that.

The penny dropped when I dated an experienced bi girl. She said, “You’re like my lesbian lovers except with a penis.” Ah!

I’m bi, inside. But I don’t fall in love with the same sex, because I’m not male inside, I’m female. But I’m not “straight” female inside, which means I don’t fall in love with men or women in the right way, which is really confusing for dominantly hetero women and ultimately disappointing (so too for some gay men), because inside I’m a woman who falls in love with women.

My dilemma. Like a hetero male, I can fall for gorgeous women who are straight, but the attraction is not quite right for them, because who falls in love is a bi lesbian, so it all ends poorly. I don’t play the dominant masculine part very well or for very long. And out and out gay women just can’t get over my ‘maleness’, even when we have great sex (it’s happened…). I ruin their identity paradigms.

I’m something else, and it’s complicated. I have an attraction to penetration, like virtually all lesbians, which gay men pick up on, but of course I don’t have a vagina, so what I do have has to suffice. But I’m not a gay man. It is bi lesbian women who I find the most exciting people I’ve ever met, and when we find each other, the attraction is often mutual. Luckily for me, I was able to work through the isolation, the rejection, and the confusion and find people I can be myself with.

And you can too, because, Everyone, that is how it is.

- Anonymous