#this rant was brought on by the extreme amount of transphobia I keep seeing on my feeds on my other social media accounts | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

highstandards-nomotivation · 7 years

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Values, Strengths, Passions

Equal treatment for everyone, no matter their defining facts/features, is something that takes up a big space in my heart. It fuels me and keeps me thinking how to change the way the world treats its inhabitants. Thankfully my values and passions go hand in hand with my greatest strength - I am extremely empathetic. I constantly find myself putting myself in other people’s shoes, seeing the world through their lens. Seeing how their life is impacted by the set ways of our society that favours the straight white man. Systematic oppression is something inherently wrong with our world. While systematic oppression is usually centred around sexism, many people fail to realize that it is all connected. We can’t abolish sexism without ridding the world of all oppression like racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, xenophobia, classism, and others. They are all connected to one thing, oppressing those who are not deemed powerful due to old fashion beliefs. My strong sense of empathy is an asset that I believe I have incurred to help those oppressed and educate those who are oppressive without even realizing. I have been discriminated against because of my defining facts and features before, which is why I think I have such a strong sense of empathy for others. However, I wouldn't be able to have empathy for others, if I wasn’t able to have empathy for myself.

There are many covert ways of oppression and stifling who one wants to be. Most of this is taught to you in your younger years based off of your parents/guardians view, or just simply your peers. My mother grew up in an extremely conservative home, her values and my values are very conflictive. Although, when I was younger, we had the same views. It wasn't until I was started to feel uncomfortable and awkward about what my mother had taught me, that I began to change my ways. I grew up racist, sexist, and homophobic, because I was not able to form my own thoughts and opinions, instead my mother’s where taught to me since day one. I didn't think there was a variation from the way she thought, I believed it was the correct way of feeling. I remember my mum telling me that I had to shave my legs, I obliged even though I felt uncomfortable and questioning in my head why I had to shave my legs but my dad was allowed to be hairy. I now don’t shave my legs or armpits because I do not believe that I have to just because I was born as a female. I was met with resistance about this from my mother saying that it was disgusting and not to turn into one of those “hard core feminists.” I have debated with her and tried to get her to see the error of her ways, but she is a work in progress. In high school people would ask why I didn't always shave my legs, and my response was always “because I don't have to” - I was met with people calling me a “feminazi” or unhygienic or straight up weird. A lot of gender non-conforming people face this scrutiny - if they present as female but have hairy legs their integrity and validity is brought into question.

I grew up in the Catholic Church, as I lived with my roman Catholic grandmother who lived in Italy for most of her life. The church and its congregates taught me that being gay was a sin. Any lustful feelings you have for the same sex are thoughts of the devil and should not be pursued. I remember sitting in church and listening to the priest go on an anti-LGBTQ+ rant. While I had been taught to agree, I sat there with a newfound tightness in my chest and a heavy pit in my stomach. I new in that moment that I did not agree, not only did I not agree but it made me furious (I would later on realize the ferocity came from the fact that I was a young closeted queer kid). The high school I spent a good amount of time in didn’t have any clubs to support the scared LGBTQ+ kids at a very intensely catholic high school. Religion class was a mandatory class, and taught a lot of questionable content. I don't think it was the curriculum but instead the bigoted thoughts of my teacher - who would constantly go on anti-LGBTQ+ rants and get most of the class agreeing with her. I think in most classes I am categorized as the shy kid, but I was not in that class. My teacher and I would get into heated debates in the middle of class due to her thinking. After the semester was over, the class would go around and write down a bible verse that represents someone in the class and they will be anonymously given. I didn’t receive a bible verse, but instead a small note from someone in the class thanking me for trying to educate our teacher - because they were in the closet and felt like they couldn't say anything out of fear.

I was never taught a non-oppressive/non-discriminatory way of thinking - I had to learn it from the immense amount of displeasure I found in myself when I was being berated for things I didn’t feel like I could change, or things about myself that I was actually proud of. I don't think that everything I know is right, there is no way it can be because I just do and say what feels right. I have not experienced severe oppression or discrimination - but through the little I have I can only imagine how overtly oppressed people feel. My empathetic ways make me see just how oppressive the world it. I want to protect those who are vulnerable due to the society they live in. I want to be able to install a high level of confidence in those oppressed. I want to help rid the world of systematic oppression and oppression in every single form - no matter how “small” it may seem. This is the most important and vital part of who I am, and I am excited to see how much father this part of me will grow in the upcoming years.

#equality #LGBT+#LGBTQ+#feminism #oppression #learniversity

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