(this reads like a rant but it’s a message of remembrance and reflection)

Rose-colored glasses? I remember my realization in the 90s and being in the closet for the entire 00s. Me and other queer peers were terrified of our own family, openly being mocked in school by students and faculty, I have friends that have attempted suicide more times than I have fingers per person. You should not know the ER staff on a first-name basis. Friends who didn’t reveal they were trans until they were in their 30s and separated from anyone but their closest, most trusted friends. Friends who still, after years of therapy, are still suffering from depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. And this spreads wide with the people I grew up with. It’d actually genuinely be difficult to think of someone in my extended social circle that didn’t have the view that school was literal hell because of the constant belittling, insulting, second-class treatment from everyone from the students to the principal (I can think of literally just one individual). We had at least one person I know of who viewed the Columbine shooters as someone they looked up to, because of how badly they were treated at a place where you are supposed to be safe.

It’s not all rainbows and unicorns now, but it’s a stark contrast to what it was 20+ years ago. Children shouldn’t have to wonder if they are going to be stabbed or shot or beaten by so-called ‘adults’ and ‘caregivers’ for who they like. They shouldn’t be scared of being put out on the fucking street for taking their partner to prom. They shouldn’t have to create a second life of lies and then mirror that data around so if anyone questions anyone in the friend circle, the stories match up.

A child/teenager should be happy and joyous, not like a fucking prison sentence. 20 years ago, it was. I lived that hell, many of us did. Abuse everywhere you turned, even if you were still in the closet (to everyone but us). People were absolute terrible bastards, but the victims are changing that, because we are the people those fucks who call themselves adults should have been. Everyone I’ve spoken about is in a better place now - scarred physically, suffering from mental trauma, often still questioning why they don’t make today their last, every single day. But we are still here, we have always supported each other, and we want this hellhole to never be experienced by others ever again. A tall order, but we are trying.

I’m sure there’s thousands, shit, millions of others just like us. We are the shy, timid ones, boiling in our memories of bullshit, our permanent rage. Suffering one last time in the hopes that others don’t have to. Out in the world, some of us just want peace and quiet, to be left alone and forgotten, as their defense. Some carry weapons, due to their location and popular opinion against them. Some relocated to more accepting parts of the world, many right out of high school. But we all want all of us to live safer, happier, better lives. Together, we make progress, bit by bit.

My siblings and their friends, I hear them talk about things now and then. A few years makes a huge difference in tolerance - two decades might as well be completely different planets.

Just don’t pretend or romanticize years past, is all I’m saying. Progress is forward, not backward.