Geminize Wrote:Sylph, you're right. The US is a big country, so people here do have more options IF they have the means to move. We also enjoy more legal protection than most of the world, but that doesn't always help.
Americans gays can also be beaten to near death and hung on a fence on a lonely stretch of highway. Some areas here are generally progressive and accepting, others are extremely conservative and homophobic.
Johnny, I suggest you just be yourself and feel out the vibe in the college town where you're moving. You can probably find some info online info before you get there.
Yes, you make valid points, however, it just seems to me personally, looking at ya'lls forms of discrimination and homophobia looks like childs play. Not to say it's easy, but compared to here and even worse off places, it's simple.
If I can accept myself here, there is no problem.
And the point I wanted to make is that you have the option to even have an IF, where as I don't. Sure I can leave my home, but my leaving my island doesn't equate to leaving a town or county or whatever you guys have, because I literally have to leave my whole culture ans life behind.
You'll still be in your America. You'll have your rights and your Culture and everything, my everything would have to be left on my island. And where ever I go, I won't have rights like I do here (outside of LGBT rights...), so I'd be a modern Pilgrim, not even in England would I be granted complete rights, as we are a BOT, but not actually British...
So yes, IF one had the ability to move, then great, but the fact that you have the choice and the choice to do so freely with the ability to have a social security number, your American rights and so on, is something we do not have here...
And gays here, however rare recently, have been stabbed, beaten, sodomized, set ablaze(in the days before I was born) and continual humiliation put on them, simply because they are "Batty Bwoys", a term borrowed from the Jamaicans, of whom's influence is quite strong here, as they've been here for the past 200odd years. So as you can imagine their culture and ways have seeped into ours and while more open then they are, it's still no easy feat to walk to your own fucking house everyday afraid the men on the cornah are gonna jump you or whatever...
I'm not saying American Homophobic attacks and what not are less severe than ours, but to me, that looks more like freedom than oppression...
I can't go nowhere without having to check to be sure I'm not followed anywhere and I always change up my routine, just incase.
I doubt I'd be hurt, as a lot of us are related, but sometimes it doesn't matter. One guy nearly killed his own Brother for coming out to him...
And the worst part is, our lack of protection at all, makes these "accidents" or "violent acts" less than what they should be.
I couldn't take anyone to court on the grounds of Discrimination of Sexual Orientation if a guy decides to Gay Bash me, no such thing legally exists here...
Even the Police, most of whom are not even Bermudian for reasons of Bias, do not always try to help....i personally know a Policewoman who is a Lesbian and while she has it easier, because Lesbians are accepted here, she still has it rough...
I dislike complaining about my life circumstances, but I just don't think it's fair that people who have even more freedoms then most of the world, take it so lightly and for granted...you don't know how lucky you all are, you really don't.
Have you noticed the lack of Carribean people on here? I have, and that's because they are scared to take the risk of being discovered, and I know this because I was the same way before I joined here. I have always been "out", but to have access to me available to any body who here wishes to harm me, was scary and so I know how they feel.
Same for other Cultures like ours, Middle Easterns, Africans(not the South Africans, no offense), you just don't see many of us, but who do we see the most of? Americans and Europeans. Why? Because you guys are more open, don't run as much risk as we do and have the protections we don't.
This is why it annoyed me to read this, because you all have something I desperately wish I had growing up and that's freedom(and I am aware of your American History, but I mean in my life era) instead of the torture, humiliation, threats on my life and degradation...
I had to fight to get comfortable in my skin, to love and accept myself in a culture that tells me I should die because of who I am and with constant fear of being hurt...no matter where I went.
I still love my Culture, my People, but I don't love the restrictions Americans do not have to face....
Anyway, I'm done...lest I shed a Divine Tear...
I didn't mean to offend anyone, but this is how this made me feel...
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