Why I Take It Personally

In the Fall, I headed a "50 Shades of Gay" project on our campus. We found fifty LGBT celebrities and plastered their pictures across the campus in fifty different locations simply with their names and how they are known by the general population. Linked with these, we had "50 Shades of Kohawk," fifty more small posters each with a student's picture and/or statement about his/her sexuality. (Kohawk = "like a hawk" = school mascot) It was a Coming Out Week project, and fifty(well, fifty-three actually, due to the overwhelming amount of support) students were "coming out" as gay, straight, bisexual, pansexual, or simply as allies. These sometimes were placed just beside images of people such as Neil Patrick Harris, Ellen DeGeneres, Adam Lambert, Jason Collins, Frida Kahlo, and Whoopi Goldberg. It served as a mitigation of the "coming out" process in a way that was meant to show just how meaningless the words "I'm gay" or "I like girls the way I should like guys" are. Many student statements were posted anonymously, and as such showed just how far from complete LGBT support our campus appears to be, to some at least. I received personal messages from students and faculty alike stating how powerful they thought these messages were.

Within twelve hours, more than thirty had been torn down, many of which had been placed directly next to flyers from other organizations on campus. The message was received, however, and perhaps more effectively than if all 103 posters had remained where we posted them. Every student on campus saw at least a few of them. Most saw dozens in the span of a morning, and some remarked, mostly jokingly, that they were "everywhere" and that they "get it already." These comments made me question if we had gone too far, but I quickly realized that we hadn't. In fact, the amount of posters turned out to be approximately equal to the amount of LGBT people on our 1400-student campus - likely an underestimate. We were simply, for one week, as is the purpose of Coming Out Day/Week, making those numbers visible, showing how many of us there are.

I was told that many were torn down by someone who claimed that they felt uncomfortable by the images and by the statements. A few - which I know to have been personal first-time coming-out statements by students - were torn down by faculty who disapproved of their placement. One was mocked by a group of students right in front of me.

Some of it was ignorance. The member of the faculty who decided to tear down a freshman's image and statement that he was gay didn't move it to a better location. However, much of it was simply a lack of acceptance.

People told me, "Don't take it personally," and, for a time, I didn't. I realized what they were saying; it wasn't an attack on me or on anyone necessarily. It was just stupidity, ignorance, etc. Then, I realized that someone had to, and I still do today.

I take it personally for the same reason that I take it personally when I'm sitting at O'Hare reading a book and a man in his forties or fifties comes up to me and asks me, "are you gay?" and when I say "no" tells me, "You sit like a fag," and "You dress like a fag," and says to the man next to him, "He even sounds like a fag" and then he thanks me for not being a fag because he "hates fags." I take it personally for the same reason that I take it personally when I'm getting my hair cut a week later and the woman asks me if I've had many girlfriends and for the same reason that I take it personally when a close friend of mine tells me that I look "Barry Manilow gay" and that "I'm so much gayer than I used to be." And I take it personally for the same reason that I take it personally when I see a Salvation Army sign stating, IF YOU SUPPORT GAY RIGHTS, PLEASE DON'T DONATE, and when I read a story about another teen suicide caused by homophobic bullying, and when I see, read, and hear constantly about how someone can't wait to get married as though everyone can, and when I'm asked if a man's gay because, naturally, I must know, being a gay man myself.

I take it personally because, one day, I'm going to post on Facebook, In a relationship with _____ or I'm going to be getting married and these thoughts may be going through the minds of people reading my Facebook status or sitting in the audience watching my first kiss with my husband.
I take it personally, but I don't necessarily take offense. These are extremely personal actions and statements whether they are committed or stated maliciously, indifferently, or supportively. Therefore, I may take these words and action to heart without being offended just as someone can take a comment about the interior design of their home of ten years personally.