Gsa Reflection

My entire life, I’ve known that there was something a little different about me. The way that my classmates interacted with each other was always strange to me. Valentine’s Day didn’t make sense and watching Disney movies where the princess always gets her prince just didn’t feel right. I tried to think like my male classmates and feign feelings for girls. It was not until middle school when I finally began to understand exactly why I was so different. I’m gay. And this scared me.

I was crippled and trapped between choosing what my society had taught me, what was considered to be right, and what I thought was better for me. Prior to summer academy and my immigration to the United States, I had a problem finding my true self in matters like accepting homosexuality. My thoughts and my judgments were corrupt in a sense that my reaction towards such people was solemnly based on what I had been taught. I was born and raised in an environment where homosexuality was considered to be an abomination and unlawful. After immigrating to the United States, I had little to no encounters with people who considered themselves as gay or lesbian etc. Unfortunately for me, upon attending the summer program, I was paired with a person who considered himself to be gay. Initially, every thought I had was filled with ignorance and closed mindedness. But then as time progressed and my grade depended on his effort, I decided to put all the negativity and what I knew aside and tried to learn something from this friend. By the end of the program, I found out that this person was just like me: funny, amiable, sociable and essentially the difference that existed between him and me, was our sexual

Before sixth grade, I wasn't even aware the word ‘queer' was in the modern vernacular- as far as I was concerned, the term fell out of fashion after the 1800s, when it still meant ‘strange' or ‘peculiar.' Hearing the class bully invoke the term confused me- why did this kid even know that word, and it's not even a real insult? My egregious misunderstanding was corrected after I voiced interpretation ("What? No, I'm saying he likes boys- that's gross!"). What a terrible statement... and yet, I felt a kinship with it, a sense of familiarity resonating within me.

This remained true for all of freshman year, even when my parents asked me about my sexuality. I can't even explain the amount of anxiety and fear I would get every time my parents questioned my reason for being in GSA, or being told to be careful since my friend who was a girl liked girls, and what if people started to think I was a lesbian? I became this paranoid corpse who couldn't even stare at a girl for too long because then they would know. And if they knew, I'd be that relative who you whisper about over Christmas dinner, because even if they were slowly beginning to accept people of different sexualities and genders, I knew they could never fully accept their own

As I continued to grow older, my definition of “gay” changed. It wasn’t until fifth or sixth grade that the term no longer referred to a stereotype or an unclear idea; it now referred to real people. Gay began to describe my closest friends, my guy-friends who liked guys and my girl-friends who liked girls. Gay was no longer a whispered about, dirty word. Gay referred to people I loved.

Being gay in High School can affect you in many ways it could be in a good, bad or you can even simply make it into your own little joke for four years. Was coming out “the closet” when everybody least expected a good idea?No, Am I mad at myself for doing it? Nope, Getting all types of comments from friends, family, and complete strangers. “You don’t look gay.” Am I supposed to have it written on my forehead? “You’re so feminine” “You should go back to liking guys.” No one can tell me who to like or how to feel? Hearing those type of things from a person you care about or even from a total stranger can make you feel many different types of emotions it could be positive or negative. I told my friends before my family that I was gay and that was hard enough, freshman year, I had my first official girlfriend. I remember being nervous to walk in but when I did it was a breath of a relief because I’ve been so scared to even talk about, All my friends faces their mouths open with surprise my other classmates whispering everyone came up to me asking the same question “ when did this happen” or “wtf”. No one seemed to believe me to prove it i kissed my girlfriend everyone in the cafeteria gasped but all i did was smile. It got easier as the days passed she wasn’t perfect with the smoking situation… I received a phone call from my aunt she said i had to break up with her because she found out she smoked and if I didn’t she would tell my parents. Months passed i turned 15 and I

When asked to write a candid and self-revealing journal about my experiences, thoughts, feelings and beliefs related to human sexuality, I became intrigued. Throughout my early life, my own sexuality has been something of considerable focus because I knew that I was different than the average boy. Later, I discovered this difference was called being gay, homosexual, a faggot, or queer. I remember these names stinging just a bit because I did not want to be different than other boys, I just wanted to be accepted and close to other boys. Consequently, my identity orbited around numerous fears, thoughts, and reactions by others and me to how I subsisted as a person because of what I discovered about myself during my journey through childhood,

Both my parents firmly adhered to the notorious stereotype of each member of the family having their designated role within the familial hierarchy. This notion created a repetitive, tautological cycle, with an apparent recurring pattern: the pairing of a man and a woman. This theme of pairing opposite sexes together set a fundamental understanding of how males like me are supposed to grow into a “man” and fit the description of what a “man” is expected to be according to how my family deemed it. Anything that deviated from these expectations was considered beyond taboo- they were shunned. As a child, this ideology generated a fine line between what was sexually “appropriate” and what was not. I recall a few years back when a close relative of mine, my cousin, and my best friend both came out to me as homosexuals and that they had been dating each other for some time. Hearing them utter the words “we’re gay” as they held each other was so overwhelmingly astonishing that I had dismissed the actuality of the current situation. At that moment, I was stormed with confusion but preceded anyway to congratulate them. Though I was aware of the LGBT community at the time, I did not have any personal connection with anyone from that community until my first encounter with two of the most important figures in my life. After several hours of digesting and

Again, as an underrepresented individual myself while being a resident assistant who have undergone trainings few times, I understood the importance of voicing for underrepresented groups like LGBT individuals. Hence, I posted LGBT ally sticker on my door since the beginning of the semester to show residents my zealous support for LGBT. In this semester, I am taking LGBT history course to comprehend the historic aspect of LGBT to understand the background of the issues and wholly support LGBT residents with the learned knowledge.

Growing up as a gay male has been a hard thing in today’s society. Due to the unfortunate circumstances that happened in Orlando and knowing that being gay isn’t the new “cool”; people have a hard time coming out because they don’t want to be a minority. This is exactly what happened to me. I am 16 years old and I have always known about my sexuality. I tried to cover up my sexuality by dating girls, and denying it to my friends, family, and myself. I wanted to tell people, but I know that some people wouldn’t like the reality of me being gay. People like my parents, or some of my “friends” would have a problem with me being gay. My family is one

Labeling my sexuality has been something that has been difficult and very stressful, fitting into society's labels, forcing myself into one I wasn't comfortable with and feeling like I had to pick one. The easiest thing I could put myself as was bisexual, I'm pretty sure I like both but whenever I'd say that it made me uncomfortable. I'm not sure exactly why but it does, I've struggled with forcing myself into it because that's what most people know that's common but over the past couple months, I've accepted myself as who I am and people don't need an explanation of what sexuality I am or a label, if at the end of the day I'm happy and stress free. Over the past year I've come out to all my friends and most of my family and thankfully everyone's been nothing but supportive and happy for me, which has made everything a lot more easier and a weight has been lifted not having to hide anything especially my relationship with my girlfriend I've been in for the last 15 months.

It is handing gay rights advocates their biggest victory yet. Although, the laws admit their rights, some people still have some negative thought about LGBTQ. Our group chooses this topic and this course of action because we want to inform the class and the community the hardships of those in the LGBTQ community and their “coming out” stories. We hope to inspire others who are “in the closet” to not be afraid of who they are and inspire society to respect the choices and actions of the LGBTQ. Though we are all different in shape, skin color, personality and sexuality, we are all human.

Last semester as I was planning my schedule for Fall 2017, I wouldn’t have ever envisioned taking this course. This course didn’t change my beliefs but it certainly changed the way that I view the LGBTQ community. I enjoyed the discussion boards and reading materials for they both provided a huge insight into the troubles and hardships of this community as a whole. I was especially fond of the way that students are able to interact in this course. Before taking this course, I was opposed to because I thought that I wouldn’t be able to voice my opinion without offending someone in some form. But, halfway through the semester I realized that everyone was so respectful and voiced their opinion on every topic without confliction. This course has most definitely opened my eyes to a lot of issues that I had no idea about.

In school, they teach students about the history of prejudice of races or social groups, whether it 's whites, African Americans, or Native Americans. The one group that the majority of schools leave out is the LGBTQ community. Many people might not even know what LGBTQ stands for due to lack of recognition for this specific group of people. LGBTQ represents the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning society. Society has found a way to shun this group, giving them little recognition and a lot of judgment. From the second children start school all the way till they graduate, students are not taught about this community. This is causing prejudice against this group in society, which can lead to serious consequences. Everyone deserves righteousness, equality, and fairness. It is important to give recognition to the LGBTQ community, and many benefits would come from educating students about this group.

To be specific, when I was in the seventh grade, one of my closest friends came out to me as bisexual. I had never encountered anything other than heterosexuality to this point in my life, and I turned to the trusted tool of Google to tell me what it was. The second that I read the definition, being attracted to both sexes, I replied to my friend. I told her that I was happy that she told me, and that I