National Coming Out Day

Yesterday was National Coming Out Day and after reading so many other stories I feel compelled to share my own. The first time someone called me a faggot I was 6 years old. I didn’t understand what it meant at the time, but I felt the ridicule and rejection all too clearly. At 11 years old I crossed over from Cub Scouts to the Boy Scouts. It didn’t take long before I became the target of disparaging remarks about my perceived lack of masculinity from fellow scouts and even some adult leaders. In short order I learned knot tying and self-hatred. During my teens my social life was built on three things: Other homeschoolers, my church youth group, and Scouting. None of which carry a very good track record when it comes to LGBT+ people. Around…

On National Coming Out Day the rainbow center held an event for students to listen to poetry and other students’ personal experiences with coming out. Walking in I was a little nervous and was not sure what to expect. No one in my family or my close friends have ever dealt with coming out, so this was new to me. Although I was not very knowledgeable about what it is like to come out, I was still interested in learning about what other people have gone through. As I walked in my eyes went first…

Evolution of Problem These days’ teens are coming out as LGBT in their early teens, as early as thirteen years of age. 1.6 million youth are homeless each year with 40% of them identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. These numbers are disproportionally high because 7% of the youth population in the United States is LGBT (“True Colors,” 2016). Each year $4.2 billion is spent on homeless assistance programs with less than 5% of this funding, $195 million, allocated for homeless…

you has brown eyes. You might feel different, not understood, or even alone at some points. If you would feel that way, then how do you think children born into the LGBT community feel after realizing their sexuality is a unique one? As parents, first time or not, you all need to grasp the painstaking reality of who your child is interested in. Parents should accept their children no matter what their sexual orientation because this problem could cause permanent "damages", child abandonment and…

couples, and interracial couples. This video really touched me and made me tear up. Even though I believe in social and political justice, I knew that there was so many out there who did not. It upsets me to know that so many are uneducated and scared to accept people just because of who they love. Equality is such a touchy subject and when most avoid the conversation, OU confronted it head on. Within OU there are numerous groups and clubs that emphasize on equality. All of the smaller…

As we finally got out of school, I met up with Jack and got on the bus. As we sat down in our regular seat, I asked Jack what the new Halo was like. “Well,” he said, ”It’s really awesome! The graphics are in 4k! They look so good! And, The story so far (I haven’t played much, so that we both don’t know what's going to happen) is amazing! It’s been thought out very well.” As Jack said all this, it only made my anticipation of the game grow. I could hardly wait! Well, Jack told me more of what…

became clear that the concept of “coming of age” does not really have anything to do with age. For me, coming of age is about you believing that you have reached a certain level of maturity. Everyone’s perception of coming of age is unique to them, so coming of age can be different for different people. Overall, coming of age is about being able to believe that you deserve respect from yourself and others by reaching a certain level of maturity. A person’s ideal for coming of age will differ…

Droṇa asked his wife to dissolve some rice flour in water and give it to him as he was asking for milk. That was white like milk; so the child drank that. He went and told the other boys that he drank milk. After five or six days, everyone else was talking about how sweet the milk was etc; he felt that his milk was not sweet and it had no taste it was like cġnaik kizhangu [elephant foot yam]; it does not have any special taste. He came and told his father that others were talking about sweet…

things like discrimination, being looked down at, seen as worthless, or looked at as either teen moms or gangsters by society. All these barriers that Latinos have to deal with prevents them from coming out as an LGBTQ+ member because Latinos fear that they wont be accepted by their family due to culture. Coming out of the closet and being latino is really crucial because Latinos are not always accepted within their cultural grounds. Latino family 's tend to feel strongly about tradition,…

“My Diary: Documented. Done.” By L. Canale describes the journey of a girl whose father finds out that she is gay. Coming out is not something that you have to do once and its over; you have to come out to different people all the time. Canale’s coming out doesn’t go as planned. Her father finds out before she can tell him and he begins rejecting her right away. Not everyone’s coming out story is the same, and people in different aspects of someone’s life can take it differently. In Canale’s…