on hate, consequences, & leslie ellison.

cw: homoantagonism

ms. ellison,

your hatred has been the lump in my throat all day.

i am a bisexual, (mostly) femme presenting, cisgender woman who has dated more men than women.

because i am passing (erasure is not a privilege) most days i get to forget that there are so many people who hate me just for existing as i am.

this week i have been unable to forget. because of you. because you insist on your right to hate me and the many, many amazing students like me that i get to educate. the queer ones. the different ones.

this week i am a patchwork of open wounds as i watch your sins rightfully broadcast. as i watch people who have sworn to educate and protect all children stay silent or worse — co-sign you, and thus your hate. i can’t understand the hate.

i remember the first time i watched a classmate be bullied because his mother was a lesbian. this continued for all four years of middle school, and i do not remember a teacher saying a thing. i remember reading an article in “elle girl” in fifth grade about a teenager who was bullied because he was gay until he tried to commit suicide. i remember a classmate saying “good. he deserves to die.” i remember coming home that afternoon. i cried and cried and cried. i couldn’t understand the hate.

i didn’t know then that i was queer. all i knew was that, somehow, i was different. and these acts of violence (and they are acts of violence) scared me. they contained a threat. a consequence for being different. a clear message that this would not be tolerated. a message: conform, or hide — or face the consequences.

your words brought me back to this feeling. you see, because of you and people like you who fought against workplace protections, even thinking about sharing these words makes my skin crawl with the fear that speaking the truth about who i am will be used against me, will keep me from doing the work that i love, will keep me from my kids. when i spoke to my high school students about identity at the beginning of the year, i had to tell them we couldn’t discuss sexual orientation because no-promo homo laws mean that those of us who are queer could face consequences for talking about all parts of our identity. it could cost me my job as an educator, could keep me from making a living.

religious freedom does not mean religious supremacy. your religious beliefs do not supersede our safety, our opportunity, our access, our dignity, or our right to exist exactly as we are (not as we “choose” to be, regardless of what you may ignorantly believe). no one is asking you to engage in any behavior, homosexual or otherwise, that conflicts with your beliefs. your freedom to be who you are, safely, is intact. but you have diligently fought so that our freedom is still tenuous at best. i cannot understand your hate.

this world has made it all too clear to myself and my fellow queer & other marginalized people that there are undeserved consequences for being different. for not being straight. for not being white. for not having money. for not being cisgender. for not being neurotypical. our consequences are often violent, sometimes deadly, and yet you insist to seth bloom that those of us who are queer have chosen this danger, and you fight for the right to act out prejudice against us.

today, you faced a consequence, a deserved consequence, for your hate. you faced a consequence for your choice to fight against protections for all children, despite the fact that your role is to do just that. and all that consequence was was to keep your job.

and the lump in my throat is still there.

with hope,

katie wills

p.s. to sarah usdin, i cannot tell you how grateful i am for your courage & your leadership.

p.p.s. woody koppel, you did your job today. you met the expectation.

p.p.p.s. ethan ashley, ben kleban, and john brown sr., you had a chance today to take leadership away from someone who does not believe in protecting all children. you had a chance to give a consequence for hate. you chose to co-sign it instead. nolan marshall, your self interest doesn’t change your past support. i sincerely hope all of you face consequences for this as well (& be advised that my hope comes with organizing and action).

(for context: https://peterccook.com/2019/01/14/dont-give-prejudice-a-pass/?fbclid=IwAR0Hn68EqObDeDYCng9QfdBkx1LYxUZhIC8FMGFQeYyAuaWE7M4zFUOfZ9c)