Thursday, June 26, 2014

Big O’ Gay Hoosier love

Holy shit Indiana. I wish I knew what else to say. A few weeks before leaving the states I remember leaving the phone bank for the HJR3 at the UU, feeling completely disheartened and thinking this is never going to happen, stupid Indiana, with its stupid hilljacks and people from Bedford.  And yet, here we are, five months later, and Indiana has decided to make this huge step in civil rights. Puchica! When facebook told me, I literally didn't believe it, then after scrolling through, seeing my lovely people getting married, people who had up until today been denied basic rights. I felt so overwhelmed with happiness for these people, for this paso towards equality that I just started to cry in the PC lounge. I don’t remember the last time I cried from happiness, I mean full on unable to stop tears from coming cry. I feel so privileged to live in a time where something like this is possible. For maybe the first time in my life, I am proud of Indiana. And for the first time since being here, I very much wish I could be there with you all, celebrating, enjoying, and relishing this victory. Instead I will go home, take off my pants, watch Ellen do some standup, and wish to God that I had some boxed wine to drink.
The only downside to today was that during my euphoria I realized that I am right now the only one of my kind. The only lesbian in my group, and I think currently, the only lesbian volunteer in country. Today I miss having queer community, I miss having other people to realize the gravity of what today means, what it feels like to feel acknowledged just a little more as a person deserving of all rights. We have so far to go as a society, there are still so many injustices, so many disgusting, hateful things people do and get away with because the victims don’t have advocates, they weren’t born with the privilege of being cisgender, of the dominant race, able bodied and minded that society deems appropriate. Poca a poca we will get there, friends and family. Let us enjoy this period of progress knowing that there are so many more to come, and that every day we will fight, advocate, love, and hold each other up.

Cheers to you my friends. 

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