SOMEWHERE, OVER
THE RAINBOW When we talk about equality, we talk about politics or economics: we measure the success of a nation by its GDP, the freedom of a country by its citizens’ right to vote and their access to public services. That same logic applies to how we think about the place of LGBTQ people in American society: if they are allowed to marry and participate in politics, haven’t they already achieved the same rights as everyone else?
Feelings of not belonging emerge early on, when we stump signs of Queerness and stigmatize the parts of LGBTQ people that are immutable. When we exclude same-sex education from schools, we are erasing the validity of gay existence; when we make people feel that their most intimate desires are wrong, we rob them of their right to pursue happiness. Even after coming out and experiencing acceptance, meaningful relationships or even marriage, sentiments of unworthiness might endure.
But we very rarely have conversations about something that fundamentally disenfranchises millions of Queer people from their communites: the extremely high rates of childhood shaming and rejection that sometimes lead to homelessness. Today, nearly half of the country’s homeless youth identify as LGBTQ and many of them are also victims of physical abuse.
We must confront the root of the dysfunction in our community: the fraught relationships we have with ourselves because of the multitude of rejections many of us faced early on. We must also scrutinize a huge, some would say ironic, reality: the fact that in the United States, a lot of the bigotry tearing families apart is disseminated through religious institutions, meant to bring communities together and promote compassion.
Modern psychology has proven the link between childhood rejection and selfesteem; two in five LGBTQ children say they do not feel accepted by their loved ones, according to the Human Rights Campaign. Queer people also suffer from the highest rates of depression and 30 percent abuse drugs, compared to 10 percent of the overall population, according to the Addiction Center.
We must believe that there is a better place, somewhere over the rainbow, where LGBTQ children are celebrated and parents don’t feel the need to give up on their children. Although it may be difficult to imagine, that place might be much closer than we think.
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