A Fable

Deidre: A Fable of Coming Home

Deidre was born on an Island, but it was not where she grew up. She was taken as a baby, immediately after birth. She was of the unlucky one in fifty removed from her home and raised somewhere else.

Instead, she grew up in a harsh land, told she was from there, told she belonged there and nowhere else, and told the Island was lesser in all ways that mattered. In her heart, she knew these things were not true. Yet they stripped her of her name, gave her a new one she did not like, and refused to call her by any but the named they had placed upon her, and told her she would learn or she would suffer. She did not want to suffer, and so she tried and failed to be like them. For from as early as she could remember, she felt a longing for the Island that she was taken from on the day of her birth; the Island that she never truly experienced as others were able to but knew was her true home.

Her abductors taught her to walk in their way, talk in their way, dress in their way, and tried to make her believe what they believed. When she refused, or hesitated, or argued against these things she knew were not for her, were not of her, and which she did not agree, she was yelled at, taunted, punished, beaten, and worse until she learned to hide who she was, what she knew, and where she belonged.

During these dark years in the loud, rough land, death beckoned Deidre constantly while she lived among her captors, imprisoned in clothes, culture, and the mannerisms forced upon her. She was soft in ways they were hard, and that made them hate her, and soon she hated these things about herself. Death was an escape, truly the only door from her cage that she knew existed. She did not want to die, but she knew she could not live in the harsh land, imprisoned and forced to behave in painful, often cruel ways.

When she was still a young woman, hardened against the toxic world and its caustic ways, hiding well to avoid the pain heaped upon her whenever she deviated from the path forced upon her, she met a young man who would become her hero. This young man had been taken at birth as well. He was not from the Island, but had been raised there. He was from the harsh land and had dreamed of coming back one day. He knew of the harshness but in it he saw a beauty that called to him. He also had thought death was the only door until he heard of people leaving the Island and traveling to the harsh land.

Deidre and the young man found a quiet, isolate corner where the young man’s past of being raised on the Island and the young woman’s captivity would not be known to anyone but each other, and she asked him questions about his travels, about the path he had taken, about how she might go home.

It was dangerous and hard, she expected that and was willing to brave anything to go home. It was expensive, which would be difficult, but she would pay anything to be free. She could not take the same path he did; it would not work going the other way. There were similar paths, but he did not know them, had not traveled them, and they did not go the same direction as he had gone. She had more questions, but he needed to go. He was home and wanted to see everything he had missed. She understood that desire as it burned within her as well and so they parted as friends.

Deidre saved her money for the trip. She carefully sought information about a path she might take. There were a few people who wished to aid her, but they too were afraid of what might happen to them if they helped someone escape. Piece by piece, coin by coin, she planned her exodus. On the day she was to leave, she looked back on the harsh land where she was held captive for her entire life to that point and saw there were things she might miss about it, wealth and strength that could be found there for the right person, but none of the treasures could buy the home she felt in her heart, and so she departed.

The journey home was difficult, she got lost many times, the money she had saved to make the trip was spent quickly and had to be replaced by doing things she would never speak of again. There were mountains of pain and she bled often for there was no other way. Each step toward home, she felt herself becoming more of what she had always known herself to be. Each leg of the journey that brought her closer to the Island also brought her nearer to herself. At long last, she stood upon the shore, final leg of the journey, a boat ride across a misty ocean. Without hesitation she stepped off the shore and set sail for home.

The crossing was rough, stormy sometimes, and she felt sick to her stomach with each passing wave. She slept a great deal, ate very little, and stared unblinking into the fog, wishing to see the Island but not able to make out anything but the interminable ocean. Everyone aboard said they were coming closer, that they were on course, and she had to trust them. For they had been there, they knew the way, she paid dearly for their expertise and would have to trust it now that she was in their care, far out to sea.

At long last, the skies cleared, the water calmed, and she saw the Island. She wept for its beauty, even at the great distance from which she saw it again for the first time since her birth. Others wept as well, knowing what the Island meant to so many.

When the ship docked and she took her first step on her ancestral land, the home she was stolen from and denied to her, her heart soared. Other women from the Island saw her, they saw through the scars, both on her body and soul, and recognized her as one of their own. They embraced her with love and compassion, welcomed her to the place she always belonged but had been stolen from.

These women asked her name. She gave them the one she had been forced to use in the harsh land. They told her that was not her name. Her name was Deidre and she had been missed. She relinquished the clothes she was forced to wear in favor of the Island garb that suited her much better. They helped her change her hair to match theirs. They taught her all she needed to know of living on the Island, her home, things she’d not been raised to know. They called her sister and rejoiced in her return.

She had missteps and made mistakes. Everyone on the Island was from there, including her, but most of them were raised on the Island in one fashion or another, and knew the ways from birth, while she had been stolen, taken far away, and forced to behave in ways that were not natural to her and were not typical on the Island.

Sometimes people would see her and know she’d been abducted, know she had been imprisoned, see her often awkward, childlike steps on the Island, her scars, her fear, her pain, and they were angry. Not angry that she was taken against her will and forced to live in the harsh land, forced to adopt their ways that were not her own, but angry because she dared to come back.

“Go back to the harsh land!”

“You do not belong here!”

“You do not know our ways.”

“You were not born here and can never be from here!”

“We do not want you!”

“The Island is only for Islanders.”

They would yell all these things at her and worse. Many would attack her with more than words. Demand she be imprisoned until she was willing to leave. Punished her for being different. Hated her for the scars she bore that they did not.

She cried often and began to hide again from these people. She would not leave the Island, could not go back to the harsh land, and death once again seemed like her only door.

Other women from the Island, who knew her name was Deidre, knew she always belong there and had cried when she was abducted, who only wished for their sister, their daughter, their friend to be returned someday, they came to her.

“These people who say you do not belong, are wrong,” they would tell her. “You are here because you were born here and will always have a place among us. Do not listen to the people who demand that you leave. They are few in number and weak in spirit. The harsh land and the people from it frighten them. Their weakness makes them lash out at you, because the harsh land scares them too much to direct their anger there. They do not understand that your name is Deidre and you are of us, but we do, and we are happy you are home.”

From then on, she wore her scars not with pride, but with compassion. She still did not want them, still wished she had never obtained them, but no longer hated herself for having them. She still made missteps, although fewer and fewer as the years and months passed. She learned to ignore the weak minority of people who did not understand. Whose hatred and small minds drove them to attack one of their own because of what was done to her and not by her.

One day, she saw a crying boy. She saw through his Islander hair, garb, and name, and knew he was from the harsh land. That he’d been brought as a baby to the Island and he did not understand why he was there or how to get home.

“Dry your tears, young man,” she told him. “There are paths to where you want to be. There is a way home. I know it because I have walked them. And you can too.”

The LGBT Community Gets Two New Heroes: Michael Sam and Ellen Page

This month saw a groundbreaking announcement and one of the most beautiful coming out speeches in the history of gay men and women leaping from closets. Both were met with the expected kudos and cheering from the LGBT community and its allies (yay) and the typical bible thumping/hell fire threats and hate speech from the bigots (fuck y'all). These are normal, expected reactions to Michael Sam and Ellen Page coming out. But we've got some new middle ground folks that reacted in a few similar, but strange and insulting ways.

Firstly, let me tell you how freaking epic and important it is that Michael Sam came out. A little background on the situation. There are zero openly gay players in the NFL right now. That isn't to say there are zero gay players in the NFL, and anyone who claims this is living in a fantasy land; there aren't any OUT gay players. Statistically speaking, there are probably 1-5 gay players on every team, meaning between 32-160 gay players are probably closeted in the NFL at any given moment. That concern everyone keeps raising about "will they feel comfortable showering with a gay man?" Hate to break it to those showerphobes, but THEY ALREADY HAVE. Michael Sam isn't in the NFL yet, but he's pretty much a lock to be next season. He won the best defensive player of the SEC, a college football conference known for their defense. This means, come September, the NFL will have its first openly gay player, and that is pretty damn great!

This should only upset people if she steals your personal underwear

Ellen Page, an A-list celebrity and top candidate for most adorable person to ever exist, came out in one of the most beautiful coming out speeches ever shared. If you haven't heard it, you should immediately click here and do so. Don't worry. We'll wait. Cry if you have to--I sure did. Amazing, wasn't it? Ellen Page is up there with the most high profile people to ever come out. And yes, right now, that is an important distinction. More on that later.

In a lot of internet threads, articles, comment sections, etc. about these two events, I saw three insanely common new responses to someone coming out. We all expect the enlightened allies to cheer this stuff on and the hateful bigots to condemn it, but when did apathy and frustration become such commonplace reactions? On George Takei's Facebook post about Ellen Page probably half the reactions were of the "who cares?" or "It doesn't matter and I'm sick of hearing about it" types. For a little background info, George is gay and out and amazing--he's also a giant fucking internet celebrity, movie star, and a highly praised guest voice actor on Futurama so he attracts a pretty diverse following, which kind of seemed to surprise even him when many of the responses included people like...

The "I don't care" posters -- basically, they're liars. It wasn't as if George Takei individually asked all his millions of followers to personally look at an article he posted and give their opinion. If he had, then a bunch of "I don't cares" would make sense. But for someone to read an article that nobody asked them to read and post a response that nobody asked for...let's just say, someone going out of their way to post that they don't care would be ironic if it were true, but it's disingenuous because they actually do care. (There are things I actually don't care about. Do you know what they are? Nope, because I don't care about them enough to bother listing them. See how that works when the apathy is real?) For the most part, these people are just as bigoted as the ones decrying homosexuality as a sin, they simply lack the conviction. They want to deride and belittle the LGBT community by telling us how little the things we do matter to the delusional self-important people, but they want to do so in a way that doesn't leave them open for criticism. Too bad for them. I'm calling the "I don't care" response to these important events both bigoted and cowardly and in possession of an inflated sense of their opinion's value to the world.

The "I'm sick of hearing about this stuff" people -- Boo-fucking-hoo. Go back to the white heterosexual media coverage that dominates more than 90% of every movie, television show, radio station, and any other media source. This is such a whiny, narcissistic stance to have about the plight of a group that makes up more than 10% of the human population. Really? Because something doesn't directly impact or interest you, it shouldn't exist, or should only exist until you're tired of hearing about it? My answer to that is simple and universal: fuck off. I'm sick of privileged people telling me that the fight for equality shouldn't infringe on the monopoly of attention and focus given to the white heterosexual narrative. 90+% of all media isn't good enough for these whiny, self-important pricks. No, they need 100% to keep feeling special.

The "Why does it even matter?" camp -- This group is basically broken into two sides. Half of them don't understand that other people don't have the same rights and protections as them, so they don't see why coming out is even important. They're so narrow-minded that they think their own experiences and what they think is important is so universally accepted that if they don't understand why something matters then obviously it shouldn't matter to anyone. They're ignorant, thunderously ignorant at that. And, from what I've encountered, they're not all that interested in learning that their opinions don't shape the reality of every other human being on the planet--they want to be glib and they're basically just lazier versions of the "I'm sick of hearing about this stuff" people.

The other half of this group are more accurately "This SHOULDN'T matter" and that's as asinine as people who claim they don't see race. War shouldn't be an answer, puppies shouldn't be euthanized, mentally ill people shouldn't be forced to live on the streets, the impoverished elderly shouldn't have to eat cat food to survive, and gay people shouldn't be persecuted. But guess what, should doesn't have a lot to do with what actually happens. How completely worthless is a person who identifies that something shouldn't be happening, but all they do is say that it shouldn't be? Marriage equality exists in less than half the states, a majority of states offer no workplace discrimination protections for LGBT people, hate crimes are still a daily occurrence, and that's the best THIS country can offer. Don't get me started on what happens to the LGBT communities in Russia, Iran, and Uganda. It doesn't matter one bit if a person thinks something shouldn't be an issue if it directly contradicts reality. It shouldn't matter, but it damn well does.

Gather around, all you "Why does it matter?", "It shouldn't matter", "I'm sick of hearing about this", and "I don't care" folks, because I'm going to explain to why it is important. And anyone who doesn't feel like explaining this shit to them, go ahead and link to this post and add your own reasons in the comment section. For LGBT youth, hope isn't easy to come by and a pride in sense of self is even harder. A young, gay man who wants to play football doesn't have role models who know what he's going through, doesn't have heroes like himself to emulate, and is essentially told if he wants to pursue his dream, he has to hide who he is. That is why Michael Sam is important and why what he did matters. If a person can't see that it is because they lack basic human empathy for anyone who isn't exactly like them. Michael Sam broke a barrier that existed for decades so others like him wouldn't have to encounter the same level of resistance--that is as heroic now as it was when Jackie Robinson did it. Ellen Page made a marvelous case for why coming out is important so I can only assume most of the people commenting didn't actually listen to the speech and just scrolled down to the section where they got to put in their own, ignorant opinion. She was dead on--gay women, especially women who don't look like society says lesbians should look, get some of the most condescending, insulting treatment as if heterosexuality is a prize that pretty girls can win, and aren't they ungrateful or stupid if they don't want that prize. That attitude is sick, wrong, and it ties together the worst parts of bigotry and sexism. Young lesbians...yanno what? it doesn't even just apply to young lesbians since Ellen Page coming out inspired me and I'm in my twenties...need to hear that their sexuality isn't tied to their appearance. Actually, forget about it just being a good lesson for lesbians of all ages, it's a good message for women of any orientation and age. I'll repeat it: your sexuality is not dictated by your appearance and it damn sure isn't dictated by what people think you should be based on your appearance.

As for the brain dead morons who said "I didn't have to come out as straight / Tim Tebow got persecuted for being an evangelical and nobody applauded him"...the level of stupid and entitled required to post that shit, especially if its attached to your actual name and Facebook/Twitter account, is beyond help, at least from me. Someone with a crowbar and a bucket of grease might come along to manually remove their heads from their asses, but it's just not worth it to me to bother.

Does any of this directly impact straight, white, males? Nope, but it doesn't have to for it to be important. Let me repeat that for the people who are still confused--just because it doesn't cater to the majority, doesn't mean it is valueless and the LGBT community getting a few heroes and role models doesn't diminish the fact that you have all the role models and heroes you could possibly want in every field and at every level. Another group getting the same treatment you already have doesn't mean your treatment got worse. More importantly, you're not in charge of what is and isn't important to the world. I hate to be the one to break it the heteros, but you don't get to tell LGBT people what is valuable. We get to decide for ourselves who we love and we get to decide that Michael Sam and Ellen Page are fucking heroes to be proud of.