It Gets Better

Now Playing: Embers by Owl City (it gets better, just don't let the fire die)

So...I know you're supposed to do a video for It Gets Better, but I'm a blogger. And I don't understand technology.

So here goes. My non-video blog.

Just like I've been a feminist since before I even knew what 'feminism' was, I've been a gay rights activist before I could even wrap my head around the concept of homosexuality. It just didn't make any sense how something as inoffensive and beautiful as human sexuality in all its weird and wonderful ways could incite such hate and violence. So I took the It Gets Better pledge. Everyone deserves to be respected for who they are. I pledge to spread this message to my friends, family and neighbours. I'll speak up against hate and intolerance whenever I see it, at school and at work. I'll provide hope for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other bullied teens by letting them know that it gets better.

I know that I am a cisgender heterosexual female and you probably think that I don't understand gay hate. Maybe I don't fully, but I do, some. I have been bullied about my sexuality before - not in my sexual orientation, but in how I choose to express myself as a sexual being. I have been called a slut, a whore, a man stealer, a tease, just for being who I am. I have been made to feel ashamed of my sexuality and how I feel about other people. I have been made to feel like there's something wrong with being me, with having hormones and nerve endings and normal, natural, human desires. I cannot even have a male best friend without people jumping to conclusions and harassing us mercilessly. I failed to conform to the hypocritical and suffocating standards of a sex negative society and I was punished for it. In that, I think, I can relate.

I have been bullied my whole life, for a variety of things. For being smart, for being fat, for being ugly, for being loud and bold, for being Asian, for not 'acting Asian', for wanting what people thought I didn't deserve, for not being what they thought I should be. Not a day goes by without a sexist remark or a racist taunt. When I was little the other kids at school would hold me down and stick pins in my arms - triggering my severe needle phobia - because they thought it was funny. When I was eleven the whole grade thought it was hilarious to tell everyone that I had lost my virginity to a tampon. I still cry about it sometimes, all the bullying. I have been put down by boys I liked and abused by people I thought were my friends.

I have tried to take my own life before because of it. I just wanted it all to end, I just wanted people to stop taking so much delight out of my misery, I just wanted people to understand me, to accept who I am and to give me the respect I deserve. I might not be gay, but I know what it's like to be pushed to the edge, to be made to feel so terrible and ashamed that you just wanted to do the world a favour by not wasting space. I didn't know that things would get better - I wish someone had told me. But every time, just before it was too late, I remember the beautiful things in life, the times when I'm not hurt or humiliated. I realized that it gets better, but only if I'm here to see it.

I guess I got a tiny, tiny taste of the extreme bullying that LGBT youth go through when I posted on my Facebook wall a few months ago something disparaging about the Australian Parliament's rejection of a bill of marriage equality. I go to an academically elite school that I thought to be relatively progressive and supportive of gay rights, but apparently I was wrong. The amount of abuse that simple comment sparked was bewildering. I was called all sorts of things, demonized for being a feminist, and constantly accused of being gay. I put up a fight, but I felt like shit. It felt like three hundred against one, and it's hard to feel like you're on the right side of the debate when you're losing so spectacularly. The amount of abuse I got because I was suspected of being gay, and because I had openly admitted to supporting gay rights, was staggering. And it didn't reaffirm my beliefs, at all. I just wanted to give up. I didn't realize what a monster I had unleashed. I thought things were relatively okay now, I thought people were less intolerant and more forgiving. I was wrong.

But there is a silver lining to every cloud. A day or so after that awful debate - which, if you're my Facebook friend, is still on my wall - a classmate sent me a private message thanking me for standing up for gay marriage and saying that it was inspirational that there were people like me who were brave enough to take a stand against bullying. And then an alumni of the school also sent me a heartwarming message. Their messages were balm on fresh wounds. They gave me strength, and faith that I was doing something right, that I was standing up for something good.

A few days after that, they came out on Facebook, announcing that they'd been in a gay relationship for months. It was beautiful.

This year I have battled to be fearless, and if you are a bullied teen - regardless of your sexual orientation - I urge you to do the same. It's scary. People will tear you down and try to hurt you. But there's nothing like being yourself. No matter what society or the law says, everyone has the right to be themselves, and live the dream, people. Be yourself, and be proud of who you are - as Katy Perry said 'you don't have to feel like a waste of space, you're original, cannot be replaced'. Don't become a carbon copy of every loser out there - celebrate what makes you different, what makes you special, what makes you, you. Humanity is beautiful, and sexuality is breathtaking. Don't let anyone else define you or pull you down. Because even when everyone seems out to get you and the world seems against you, even when it feels like it's easier just to end it all, it gets better. The bullying will stop, and hate will give in to reason. It might not be tomorrow, or next week, or this decade, or even in our lifetimes, but it will happen, it is inevitable, it gets better. You will find people who love you for who you are and you'll learn to drown out the haters and you'll find the strength to fight back against the abuse. It might not get better overnight, but I promise you, life is beautiful and you should be here, living it. Being afraid of the dark is nothing to be ashamed of, but never lose sight of the light at the end of the tunnel. It's always there, you just have to look close enough.

I've found - from being an atheist, an Asian, a feminist, a woman, a gay rights activist (basically the antithesis to the white heterosexual chauvinistic Christian male ideal) - that the scariest critics are those who dare to use religion as justification for hate and intolerance. As Lady Gaga said, 'I'm beautiful in my way, because God makes no mistakes' - Christians who hate on LGBT are mocking their God, because tearing down God's creations is tearing down God himself. Christianity has been interpreted to become such a sex negative religion that you can basically discount anything sex-related in the Bible, but even if you don't, nowhere in the Bible does it say 'God hates fags' or that LGBT people are exempt from God's commandments to 'love thy neighbour'. Don't take my word for it, that is exactly what one of my Christian, pro marriage equality friends has said to me. The Bible doesn't say that marriage is between 'a man and a woman' - what it does say is that marriage can be between a man and multiple women, a man, a wife and a concubine, and a rapist and his victim. You simply can't go around Bible bashing anymore, especially if you're not even citing the book correctly. People try and say that the mere existence of - perfectly normal, natural - people of alternate sexual orientations is a violation of religious freedom, but let me tell you this: their hate and intolerance is infringing on your religious freedom to not give a damn, and on your human right to live without fear of suppression. There is no religion that explicitly condemns consensual homosexual behaviour, and there is no religious person that has the right to use religion against you. Because these people aren't religious, and they aren't esteeming their God - they're being assholes, who use religion to cover up their fear and intolerance and unjustifiable hate. These people are hating on innocents and pushing them over the edge and don't even have the guts to think of a logical argument to back them up. You don't have to let them get you down. I don't. There are people out there that are better than these jerks. It's not that you're not worthy of them, they're not worthy of you. People get better than this. It gets better.   

Not fitting in to stereotypes and being stigmatized for it has taught me that everything exists on a spectrum and we should love everyone for finding their own place on the millions of continuums of the human experience. I have never seen sexuality as something that should be judged or demonized or used against people to discriminate and humiliate them. Love...love is difficult to describe. It's beautiful and dangerous and irrational and treacherous but it has absolutely nothing to do with genitals matching up like some bizarre jigsaw puzzle. Having a dick is not a prerequisite for loving women. I'd be a hypocrite if I discriminated against people who love men, because I love men too, and that has nothing to do with what my body looks like. Body parts don't make love valid or invalid, moral or immoral, good or bad - body parts don't make you any more or less of a person, or any more or less deserving of respect. You have the right to chase your dreams and chase the person of your dreams just like the rest of us. I have nothing but the highest respect for humanity in all its different shades of beautiful. And that means you, too. I love you to the moon and back, and hundreds of other people do, too. You are lovely and worthy of love, no matter what anyone tries to tell you.

It's a tough world out there. Everyone has something 'wrong' with them, something that has to be 'fixed' - or, at least, fixated upon to cause pain and suffering and humiliation. But it gets better. If you ever feel alone, or like you've had enough, know that there are people like me out there who are willing to - and have - put up with a lot of crap to stand up for you, because you are worthy of our love and we love you. If you ever feel like you need someone to talk to who doesn't want to lynch you or tell you you're a freak, talk to me. My heart is open to you. Contact me whenever you want, tell me whatever you want, and I will be there for you. I wish someone had said that to me, when I was down in the dumps, so I'm saying it to you now. I and thousands of others are here for you and you are not alone. We love and accept you for who you are and you don't have to change a thing. I just want to say that it gets better, and you've got to believe that. Anyone who's ever been knocked down, shoved around, pushed to the edge...it gets better. Please trust me on this.

I love you to the moon and back, whoever you are, whoever you love. Stay beautiful.