With almost everybody around the country and the world for that matter, it's become apparent that many of us have different beliefs. All of which we're entitled to. Although there isn't anything wrong with that, the push and pull of beliefs in this country has left the middle ground to be a slippery slope. A very large middle-ground problem that we face in today's society is our stance on supporting the LGBTQ+ community.
One topic that weighs heavily on my heart is that of LGBTQ+ portrayals in the media for our younger generations. The reason why it remains such a heavy weight on my mind is that I was one of the children affected by this.
Let me explain.
Growing up, like any kid really, I loved to watch TV. I would come home from school every day and go to my great grandma's house and watch TV for a couple of hours. The most fun part about it was decided whether or not to watch Nickelodeon or Disney. Except, there was something always missing.
One day, while watching the TV, my great grandmother mentioned when I had turned on the Ellen show that she didn't like Ellen because she was gay. At this point, I'm a 6- or 7-year-old whose first thought isn't to hate Ellen, but to absolutely terrified that if I were to turn out to be gay someday, my great grandmother wouldn't love me anymore. That's a really heavy weight to put on a kid. I remember how I suddenly felt nauseous and sat in silence for the rest of that afternoon. You see, my grandma meant everything to me, and now I had this terrible fear that she wouldn't love me someday.
I remember the exact sentence I told myself, and this is why it's a problem. I said to myself, "If I turn out to like girls as Ellen does, I won't tell anyone until... she's gone."
And believe me when I say I hated myself for having to think that.
I carried that weight for a very long time.
Now mind you, I would have nightmares at the thought of losing her, so these thoughts made me feel like a terrible person. I let them sit in the back of my mind, grow in the bottom of my heart, and eat away at my soul. Seven years old and all I could do was pray that I wouldn't turn out to be someone who my grandma hates. Obviously, this wouldn't have affected me as much if I knew I was straight.
News flash: I'm not and I wasn't and I think, deep down, I knew that I was bisexual.
Except, the real problem started when I realized there weren't many people like me, or at least I didn't think there was. My perception of myself became so warped because on TV, there was nobody like me. Nobody to relate to, nobody to identify with, and nobody to teach me what I needed to know about myself.
I felt so alone.
Over time, I started to internalize these feelings. Especially around puberty, I thought maybe if I could be a bit of a homophobe, then I wouldn't actually be bisexual anymore.
Fun fact: it didn't work.
Instead, it was just me beating myself up so badly because I had no clue how to handle it. Which is why it is infuriating when people say that portraying any sort of LGBTQ+ culture in today's younger generation media is going to confuse kids. Trust me, I was more confused without it.
If there had been a character on TV, a superhero or a regular teenager who wasn't presumed straight, maybe I wouldn't have grown up hating myself.
I wouldn't have internalized who I am so strongly that to this day, 11 years later, I still can barely choke out the words "I'm bi." Feeling so ostracized in my childhood for being who I am has left a scar that still remains today. I still struggle with even just thinking about who I am.
Without LGBTQ+ culture in the media when I was growing up, it made me feel so beyond outcasted and different. Not seeing a single character like me made me feel more confused. Which is ironic because that's everybody's argument when they say LGBTQ+ shouldn't be in younger audience's media in fear that it will "confuse" them, or "make them gay."
So, now that people my age are old enough to articulate what effect the media had on them growing up, we now know that maybe kids these days need these LGBTQ+ characters as a way to cope. I can't even begin to explain how much better about myself I would've felt if there had been just a single one of those characters.
I wouldn't have had to grow up shaming myself and hating myself.
Even more so, some people don't understand the repercussions that come from hiding the LGBTQ+ from the younger audience's media. The habits you learn about repressing yourself in childhood follow you to adulthood. Every single day is a battle of still trying to convince myself that I'm not a monster because having nothing relatable to grow up with, it made me feel like a monster.
Imagine if the tables were turned.
You're a straight kid in a gay world and society doesn't think you should know what 'straight' even means because you might become corrupted from it. It might persuade you. Can you imagine how lonely that feels? To see every single person as someone you can't relate to? That follows us for life. There are still people who I haven't come out to yet. It's still hard to say the words out loud and own them. More than anything, it's still incredibly difficult for me to embrace who I am.
I was 19 when Disney created their first canonically LGBTQ+ character and to be honest? I cried. I sobbed like a baby because I knew every child out there who would someday struggle with their identity would feel a tiny bit less alone. They won't have to have an uphill battle of seeing themselves as so much more different than how the world sees itself.
Presuming heterosexuality is damaging to the youth who aren't heterosexual. It makes us feel like we aren't even human. We could see a character on TV or in a movie who is our exact match, personality, appearance, and attitude, but it will always feel like something is missing because we're meant to assume they're straight when we aren't.
Maybe it's time to drop the whole act of 'LGBTQ+ media for our kids will confuse them' because I speak from experience when I say that it isn't true. I was a hell of a lot more confused without it.
That is why we need more LGBTQ+ characters in the younger audience's media.
If you have a straight person and a gay person on your television, you're gonna relate to the one who deeply resonates with you in your heart. Would you be confused if a gay character was on your screen? Is one gay character going to make you question everything you've ever known about yourself? Probably not, right? But without any characters or representation at all, you absolutely would question everything about yourself.
A kid is going to grow up to be whoever it is they're meant to be, even if you try to prevent them from knowing the entire truth that could actually make them feel more complete.
It's time to let our next generation live a life that doesn't come from feeling outcasted or ostracized. Who knows, you might just be saving their life in the long run.