Support

I have my own story.
I won't write about it this time.
I don't want to make it about me.
I want to take the time to honor my brothers and sisters within the LGBTQ community.

You runaway from circumstances, where your life has been endangered and where you just look forward to survive and eventually to start living. True, every experience is different for every individual, what causes me trauma might cause you nothing. What causes me pleasure, might be your pain. What triggers me might not do it to you.

I decided to support and help my community because I am aware that we need it as much help we can receive and give because even tho we are moving forward in equality there is a humongous fight to keep to accomplish full human rights equality.

On my first meeting with the immigration support group I cried, I told my story and I felt safe with a group of individuals that I had no fucking idea who they were or if I was ever going to see again. But I for the first time felt embraced and safe to be me, to think and to express as I truly am. Everyone embraced me and acknowledge my life and gave me love.

Then she spoke.

"I am from Jamaica. My family doesn't talk to me, they banish me from talking to anyone from my family. I have been bullied all my life for something I didn't understand before until I understood I was a woman and that I had been born with male anatomy. I freaked out and I seek for help and warmth from my mother. I told her. She told my dad. I was bashed for the first time in my life that day. I was sent to therapy conversion. They locked me down and I was being hit every time that a ' 'girl' mannerism would be noticed by anyone.
At the age of 15 I was being abused by my uncle and never said anything. I shut down at school, and I tried to not speak to anyone so my 'girl' behavior wouldn't be noticed by no one. By the age of 16 all what I thought was dead. I felt flat, no emotions and I just wanted it to be over. A guy was set on fire and killed in the streets the other day because he was caught buying nail polisher....it was for his girlfriend, but they assumed he was gay. If I get to die, at least I wanted to do it in my own terms. I met someone at school, she started to talk to me out of nowhere, how could she talk to someone like me, she was popular....unlike me. She said 'I know what you are and what you are going through, let's be friends and nobody will know, we can pretend, we can have our backs'. My mom find out about my 'girlfriend'. See everything is being normal now, your demons are going away.....she said. After a year, her dad find her with her girlfriend naked in her room. He killed them both. Then everyone knew about me, apparently she had a journal and she wrote about our agreement. I knew what was going to happen, and I felt fear, because for the first time in years I realized that I wanted to live. I was 18 already. I had my tourist visa. My parents were not home, I broke to their room, I took my necessary papers, I took my savings, I took a cab, and I went to the airport. I didn't know what I was doing, I just knew that I wanted to live and that I didn't want to die, I wanted to LIVE. I came here 8 months ago. Had nowhere to go, had no information, I slept in the airport the first two nights. Then I heard about the center and I lived in a shelter for 6 months, now I have a job and I'm no longer Jacob, I am since today officially Charlotte. I don't know anything about my parents or my family, I don't ever want to know about them or Jamaica again, NEVER. The only reason I would like to know about is to take all my sisters and brothers away from there so they can be safe and live."

My problems......vanished. I was broken. You probably have heard stories like this in the internet, tv, newspapers and other sources. But hearing them from someone is just frightening and so realistic. Listen to our voices. To hear them and see them acknowledge that we are worth living, that we deserve to be happy and that we deserve to be loved and to be who we truly are. Is so beautiful, it is so empowering. At the same time you think about all of those that can't make it, that their lives have and are being taken away just because they do not understand you and just because you do not fit their standards or their society rules. That we are being killed every day due to ignorance, due to religions, due to intolerance and superiority.

I was approached yesterday by this transsexual sister yesterday. She just moved from Bangladesh and she is still very afraid and scared of being her. She acknowledges who she is but she asked me: "Can I dress as a woman and as who I truly am here? Can I bring my dress and my make up and change in the restroom and be me here?" Before I answer I thought about my privilege and I thought about my answer.... "Yes dear, you are in a safe space here, you can be you here, you are not going to be judged in the lgbt center, nobody is going to point a finger nor tell you something. Bring whatever you want and dress here and if you need help dressing up I'm sure that we can assist" . She smiled back and hugged me. Then she ask "In the group you said that you are non-binary and that you are gender queer, and that your pgp is your name, does that mean that you want to be a girl too?". I smiled back and asnwered: "There are many things that you won't understand right away, and you will learn. No, I am comfortable with who I am, I just don't like the binary system that we have been imposed that discriminates one gender from the other and gives superiority to one over another. I am Mario and I do me, I am free from the binary system because I acknowledge the diversity and embrace it."

For a moment I stop and I realized that there are so many folks living out there in the shadows waiting for some light. It really upsets me to know that millions have died in the shadows all their life. That this world is so hard and to be against our human complexity is so unnatural.
I don't give anything for granted but I am privileged somehow and oppressed in other ways. But the privilege that I have been given I try to use it to empower my community, because we have to keep fighting and standing up for ourselves.

It triggers me a little bit, but I try to keep this stories in my mind everyday to remind myself that I am blessed and privileged, that my problems are nothing compared to others. That my life has been beautiful compared to others. That many of us are not here and we still are.

#LGBT #Support #LGBTimmigration #Privilege