Coming Out is Getting Harder

By Celina R. De Leon, WireTap. Posted June 13, 2005.

"Coming out" with one's sexuality or gender identity has never been easy. Now there is a presidential campaign to amend your country's constitution so that same-sex couples will never be able to marry.

That's the new social climate many LGBT youth across the U.S. have to face. If passed, the anti same-sex amendment would be the first one to restrict citizens' rights. Could "the closet" ever look more inviting?

"By telling LGBT youth that they will not be able to have a legally protected partnership with a person they love, the campaign implies that it is wrong, bad, immoral, or unacceptable to want to marry someone of the same sex, and hence, it is wrong, bad, immoral, or unacceptable to be gay," said Alex Sanchez, a former youth and family counselor and author of the young adult trilogy Rainbow, whose main characters are gay or questioning.

A resolution to amend the constitution to define marriage as between a man and a woman was first introduced in the House of Representatives on May 21, 2003. A companion bill was introduced in the Senate on November 25, 2003. There is also the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which allows states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

"I came out before this amendment was introduced. But this amendment actually showed me people's attitudes on gay rights," said Tan Pham, 18, of the University of Connecticut, and president of the Queers United Against Discrimination (QUAD).

"Basically, I had close friends, family members, and people whom I recently met tell me that they support the campaign. That whatever the campaign taught -- such as same-sex marriage would give children the 'wrong' idea on what a family is -- they believe," Pham added.

Robyn Ochs, a bisexual activist and educator based in Cambridge, Mass., and co-editor of Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexual Youth Around the World, experienced first-hand an increase in homophobic incidents across the country.

"I have heard numerous stories from students of assaults, anti-gay graffiti, posters being torn down, hateful letters to the editor in school papers," Ochs said. "I personally believe homophobia is nothing new. What is new is that people feel increased permission to express their homophobia."

"My biggest concern [about the marriage amendment] is how the constitution would define 'man' and 'woman.' By creating stricter regulations for gender and sex qualifications, the entire transgender and intersex community will find itself at risk in a more dangerous legal, medical, and cultural environment," said Micah Ludeke, 21, a female-to-male queer community activist, and a transgender and queer women's health advocate at the University of Minnesota.

"Being transgender is difficult enough as an adult, but being transgender and a youth adds extra possible problems, as the daily peer pressure is often evident," said Sheila Mink, a PFLAG TNET 4-Corners regional and West Coast transgender coordinator.

Robert Smith is 18 and a Republican. He works at the Lesbian and Gay Community Center and TimeOUT Youth in Charlotte, S.C. Smith came out in January 2004, and said there are only two things he doesn't agree with President Bush on. "This, and the troops in Iraq," said Smith. "Most gay people who hear that I'm Republican are shocked. But I can't help it -- I come from a long line of Republicans -- and neither party is supporting us."

“The Bush administration’s amendment campaign makes bisexual and transgender people invisible by speaking specifically about gays and lesbians,” said Shannon Berning, writer on LBT issues and contributor to the 2005 edition of the women’s health book Our Bodies, Ourselves. “As if people who are bi or transgender don’t exist, or won’t be affected by this amendment.”

Celina R. De León is a social justice journalist based in the Bronx, New York.

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