It’s Pride Month again and it’s always refreshing to see that the number of straight allies and accepting families continues to grow; however, there are still a lot of people who are not even remotely aware of all the struggles that members of the LGBTQ+ community have faced and continue to face to this day.

A few years ago, I reconnected via Facebook with a classmate from the 6th grade who I had not seen since we were 12 years old. Now that he has passed on to the afterlife, I realize that he was part of a story that I now wish to share today to demonstrate one such challenge as an opportunity to learn from the past experiences of others.

He was a member of one of the prominent cliques in our class who recognized early in life that they were different from most boys. They were unapologetically loud, highly effeminate, experimented with wearing make-up, were very vocal about having boy crushes and exclusively preferred to excel in volleyball (which was seen more of a girl’s sport as opposed to soccer and basketball – at least, that’s how it was for my generation in the Philippines). They were frequently teased and bullied (kids can be mean) and tormented by teachers, brothers and priests for their supposed “deviant behavior.”

Sometime in high school in the early 80’s I gathered that some members of this group and their parents were called into the principal’s and rector’s offices. They were advised that they were breaking a code of conduct, forced to come out, denied being on the honor roll and deemed not a right fit for an exclusive private Catholic school for boys such as ours, and thus they were being expelled.

They were given no choice but to continue their education at another school that would be willing to accept them. I was away from home, studying in another school, thus I only became aware of this incident several years later.

I was shocked and appalled when I heard about it. For me, it resembled some form of ethnic cleansing. I can’t imagine this happening today in the US without any legal repercussions. Eventually, I reconnected with some of these guys in adulthood and was happy to discover that they fortunately didn’t allow this atrocity to damage their psyche and continued to still be loud and proud about having been true to themselves.

I’ve seen some of my present-day LGBTQ+ friends share that they, too, unfortunately experienced being bullied when they were young. Fortunately, for me, this was something I could not relate to. My only bad experience as a kid occurred when I lived away from home and was going through prepubescence in an all-boys boarding school (seminary) with no exposure to girls, media and the outside world.

Naturally, it was inevitable for some boys to end up forming deep friendships and engaging in experimentation that almost resembled young love supposedly meant to be only between a boy and a girl. I was one of those who had one such experience. When the priests confronted us to inform us that our friendship was a sin, it was my first experience with feeling deep shame and guilt (albeit imposed), which eventually led to repression, regression and then rebellion.

Who knows, had it not been for this I might have realized and come out sooner than later in college. Fortunately, that was just a small part of my story and I just grew stronger from it.

So, when you meet someone or have family in the LGBTQ+ community, please don’t celebrate Pride with them like it’s just about rainbow flags, festivals, parades and/or hashtags. Take the time to get to know their own personal journey since there is a range of realities and every story is significant and provides each of us with an opportunity to learn.

Celebrate who they are today and recognize what they had to go through to reclaim their authentic self and garner the fortitude to embrace and share their own truth.

Please try to learn or continue to be a supporter, advocate and ally because the community needs you. – Seán, Los Angeles

What’s your Pride story? Let us know! Send an e-mail to charles@personalstoriesproject.org to share yours!

#PrideMonth #PersonalStories