As a child, I only knew that men were to be with women. I never saw two men together or two women together, it wasn't even an idea. I always had hopes of being with a guy and my two cousins had hopes of being with a girl. Everyone had their designated cousins in mind and no one knew of the words "gay" or "lesbian".
As I entered my teenage years, gay rights became known to everyone. It was a social phenomena, that women could be together and men could be together. I remember asking my family, "What do you think about gay marriage being legalized?" It just became a huge ordeal for many. I would go to school and see girls holding hands and guys dressing more feminine. Guys were never allowed to portray who they loved because it was wrong. I never had a problem seeing people with who they loved, it wasn't my place to tell them that they were wrong. Happiness is happiness with anyone and everyone you love, gender shouldn't matter.
When I went to my aunt's house, I would sit and talk with my oldest cousin. At the time, she was a he, and it wasn't until this year that I think everyone is more used to my cousin being a girl. She hasn't had the full transformation, no one is ready for that yet, but she wears makeup, likes boys, and lives the life as a female. We would sit in her room and talk about how she didn't feel right in her body, how she wanted to be like the girls on a popular, sort of old, television show, Charmed. It was a strange conversation for me though and I wasn't allowed to talk about it with family. It was just wasn't right but now it's okay.
As a kid, I wasn't allowed to play with my cousin's Hot Wheels toys or wear their sneakers or my hats backwards. I used to run around with the neighborhood boys and go full out in a game of backyard baseball. I would wear overalls and play in the mud or run around barefoot. I wore the clothes of a girl but I liked acting like a part of the guys. My mom just couldn't grasp that I just wanted to fit in, I didn't actually wanted to be one. Now, I actively buy guys clothes and wear them, it's not because I want to be something else, I love being me. It's because I wish to wear clothes that don't show off all of my "lady goods", it's for practicality, for warmth, and because it's a family member's clothes. I like to keep them close with me in any way possible.
That was all back then, now things are changing. The words "gay" and "lesbian" are becoming more mainstream. A lot of the television shows now a days are portraying gay parents or bi-racial parents. We all introduce ourselves as straight, homosexual, or bisexual. Not only that, but we're coming up with new identities for ourselves.
The only problem with all of this is that it's still not a social norm because we still get offended over miss identification. We are faced with the older generations who are upset over the changing world. We have transgender people and people who like the same sex, it was unheard of back then and even farther back it was punishable by death.
I have hopes for these parts of our lives though, the older generations will accept us all, no matter our clothes or gender. We'll always have some people from all over that dislike the new age, but if they don't decide to go with the flow then they will drown. On a recent Facebook post I said, "The weak will crumble under the strong, but when the weak stand together, the strong will crumble."
