I am so lame–Pride Month is over today! Happy Pride! I love Pride Month–I always want to take my homophobic students to a parade and say “Look. Not all gay men wear buttless chaps. They’re regular people, just like you.”
I am the advisor for SCC PRIDE, a safe-zone group at my school. I love it, but I realize it’s not ideal, because I am an ally. Problem is, I don’t think any of the people in the LBGT spectrum who work there feel safe enough (work-wise, not violence-wise, I hope) to be the advisor. How’s that for shitty? So I do it, and I’m honored to do it.
However, one student called me out. She said it wasn’t my fight, since I don’t know what she goes through every day. Fair enough–no I don’t. Some folks don’t trust allies for that reason. Understandable. But it’s still my fight, because of all my family and friends who don’t have the same rights I do. Civil rights fights are everyone’s fight. Plus I fell desperately in love with Harvey Milk when I saw the documentary THE TIMES OF HARVEY MILK when I was an undergrad. MILK is phenomenal, too, but that documentary–holy shit. The candlelight march (which is in the Sean Penn film)? It still reduces me to tears.
It’s also my fight because I wanted to say, to the real Tessa who inspired SKY, that it would have been OK. Had she come out to me when we were in high school, I would have still been her friend. She knows that now, in real life. But I think she liked that it happened in a book, too. And it makes me happy that she likes it.
Graphic stolen from WIPEOUT HOMOPHOBIA ON FACEBOOK (which isn’t letting me link), a phenomenal page, except it should be “Wipe Out,” not “Wipeout,” like the surfing song. English teacher = always a possible grammar lesson. Sorry. :