I was thinking today about my reaction to the whole GMA debacle and why it was such a trigger for me.
I was born in El Paso, Texas right in the heart of the bible belt. El Paso is chiefly Catholic and Baptist, at least when I was growing up. The dynamics I'm sure have changed.
The one phrase I hear over and over again is "You guys are too sensitive. You need to stop taking everything so personally." You know what, I am sick to death of hearing that phrase dropped into sentences when people refuse to take personal responsibility for the venomous crap that comes out of their mouths. It's bullying, pure and simple.
I have dealt with bullies my entire life. When I was six years old, my mother enrolled me in tap/dance class at the local studio in Northeast El Paso off of Hondo Pass. I was the only boy in the class along with 12 girls. I loved every single minute of it. I felt confident in myself and my teacher was an incredible lady who always used positive reinforcement in her classes. The class was about to put on the first big show of the year when after a visit to my doctor, he and the other pediatricians on staff at William Beaumont Army Medical Center advised my parents to pull me out of that class because it would turn me into a pansy.
That word stuck with me for so long. In fact, through most of my adolescence. I didn't understand it at all when I was six years old. But, I knew I was different and I didn't like the typical activities that "normal" boys participated in. I hated contact sports, even though I enjoy watching them, particularly football and basketball. I went out for sports like cross country running and I loved golf. But when I began to grow into my teenage years I realized that I was indeed different. I knew I was gay at the age of 13 but unfortunately because of the stigma that carried with it and the bullying I endured during junior high and high school because I was involved in theater and music, I remained in the closet until I went to college and in the case of my parents, I didn't come out to them until I was in my mid 20's, after a suicide attempt that blessedly failed.
But, I endured so much bullying growing up and called a pansy, a faggot, and many more too vulgar to mention here. And due to the religious background I grew up in, I became a very self-loathing gay man as well as a self-loathing individual. Not being able to participate in dance and my non-interest in contact sports, I began to put on weight and drowned my sorrows, which I take full responsibility for, with food.
Because of my life up until now has been filled with so much self-loathing which has kept so much good in my life far away, the incident on GMA and the Fox news response, particularly from book author, Raymond Arroyo, I was triggered and I had every right to take it personally. Every single boy and man out there who has ever been bullied for their love of dance and art had a right to take it personally.
Today's society celebrates the bully. The bullies are put on a pedestal, they even get elected President. I am so sick and tired of everyone attacking one another and this stupid phrase going around "Make America great again." WTH? This country is already great, but it can be even greater if we can all embrace one another and learn to put out positive instead of negative words into the universe. Laura may have apologized, but the damage was already done. She may have not written the piece, but she laughed right along with the studio audience which really was the salt in the already open wound.
It's time we start to be adults here and stop tolerating bullying! It is NOT a normal part of growing up. It is a sign of weakness in the perpetrator and a compensating for his/her own shortcomings. They are taught that bullying is normal and that anything outside their own little world is strange and needs to be attacked and gotten rid of. Take responsibility for what comes out of your mouth and realize that words hurt. Words are powerful, and once uttered, can't be taken back.
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