while i was leaving chris’s apartment on saturday night, a car drove past me and someone in it aggressively yelled “FAGGOT.”
now, i consider myself a pretty well-adjusted human being, so normally things like that don’t bother me. usually i brush it off and pray for those people to be enlightened from their ignorance, because that kind of insidious hatred just doesn’t make a happy person.
but this was somehow different.
maybe it was the fact that i was alone, or the fact that it was late, but something about it suddenly and invasively jerked me back to a kind of reality, and that reality is this:
i am living in a world that is full of blind hatred and no matter what i do, just because of one aspect of who i am that some people have decided to mark as despicable, i am constantly under the threat of violence.
hate crimes happen every day, and it’s terrifying.
people think that slurs like “faggot” are innocuous – that they are just mean words and people should just have thicker skin.
but no, that is not all they are.
they are weapons rooted in a kind of hatred that has the proven potential to kill.
they are stark reminders that we live in a cruel and dangerous world.
late at night, when i am all alone, they are reality checks to the fact that i am not safe solely because of one harmless part of my being that some people somehow find offensive.
suddenly, i’m a target.
and even though i am fearless in the face of so many other things, when it comes to this, i am afraid.