Our True Words Are Powerful Things

Last week, I finally wrote my piece in response to the It Gets Better Project. I sat on the idea of writing it for a long time, unsure of how to talk on this website about my experience, because, while I've written about my gender and sexuality here before, this site has become increasingly more public to friends and family over the last year. In the end, though, I knew that I had to do it, no matter what judgement I might feel from friends, family, and the internet at large, because, although I am happy and comfortable in my own skin now, this was not always the case, and I would have given anything to see myself reflected in the world like this in my teens and twenties.



And so, I wrote about how hard it was while I was hidden and about how much better life is now that I'm on the other side of the closet:

I didn't really start talking about the real truth of who I am until I was in my thirties, and, even now, I don't mention it very often. Coming out, though, writing it down and being open about my identity and experiences, has been nothing short of liberating. I have shifted from someone who felt unworthy and invisible to someone who feels and is worthy and seen.

I am beautiful, and I am loved, and I am here fully in this life in a way that I only dreamed of when I hid what I once thought of as my great sickness but I now know is the gorgeous fact of my personhood and humanity.

As much as I received a lot of positive feedback on that entry, though, time passes quickly on the internet, and it doesn't take long before you feel like your message has been buried and forgotten. I learned today that this is only partially true.

Some of what we write here does get lost under the reams of content we pour into the internet every day, but some of it sticks with people and gets carried further while we're not looking. Some of it keeps going in conversations in middle schools in Iowa, which you find out through an email from a friend:

I was at a girlfriend's house the other night talking with her, another friend, and her 14-year old daughter. The subject of sex came up and then homosexuality and cross dressing. Ultimately, we started talking about the myth of choice and stereotypes.

I brought up your story and the way you have described sexuality and gender as being on two different spectrums. That analogy has always been so powerful for me, and I could tell it made a lot of sense to them.

The next day my [friend] relayed something her daughter had said. She said talking to me really opened her mind up and she went to school and talked about it with her friends.

Middle school kids in small town Iowa are having a better conversation about gender and sexuality this week because you shared your story. Perhaps someone at their lunch table will recognize themselves, or maybe they will remember that conversation later in life when a friend tells them their story. Maybe it will just be an interesting talk they had one day.

Wherever the ripple goes, I wanted you to know it was moving here, too.

Thank you for your courage. I'm so grateful you've been given the gift of communication so that you can share your story with us, with me.

...

Britt Reints

I cried after I read this email, because it confirmed my greatest hope: that what I said changed the way a few people thought about people like me, and that not only did what I wrote changed minds, but it changed the minds of people who likely will never see my original words. You know you've expressed an idea worth sharing when the specific words you put together matter less than the idea they seeded that continues to spread.

I hope those kids' conversations continue. I hope that they take those conversations home with them. What I hope most of all, though, is that there was some kid like me there to hear that they are not alone, to know that their peers might be more receptive to them now, and to understand that it really can get better.

Most importantly, Britt's email confirmed for me that what we do here — when we write out true things on our blogs and record it in videos and share it in photos — matters. What we do here matters not just during that few days when people bother to leave comments but for weeks, months, and years afterwards. We can't always see the offline effects of what we create when it moves out into the world beyond the medium in which we expressed it, but what we do continues on without us in places we do not imagine, shifting the minds and hearts that build our culture as it moves.

Our true words are powerful things.

Comments

[Suebob]

Yes, truth is an unstoppable force - what every tyrant fears most. I love you and I love hearing your constantly unfolding story.

[elaine]

hope you know what a powerful change agent you are, thank, you

[erin margolin]

Elan,

I lurk here a lot. I get nervous about commenting and w/ new baby don't have a lot of time. But you should know how much I admire you and EVERYTHING you write and publish and share.

I wish I could sit down with you and talk about some stuff. But I'd probably be too nervous and shy. Your bravery and openness are awe-inspiring...

[alexandra]

Your words are powerful things.

I have been following you, and my favorite other truth speakers, for four years now.

You are what keeps me sane: my survival kit.

Without someone who makes me feel normal for me, I'd go back to feeling as alone and isolated and out of the circle of society as before I discovered the internet four years ago.

I am grateful to those who blog with no fear.

Who send their words out with the belief and conviction that they will land where they need to land.

And these words save me, every single day that I come and read, they save me.

Thank you.

[Megan]

Yes, yes, yes.

[Jen]

Buried? Forgotten? Never.

You write some of the most honest words I read online, and those words are deeply memorable. They matter, they spread, they last and they live on. They reach hands and hearts and minds like spilled ink, indelible and impossible to control.

May you never stop writing them.

[C]

I just found your website and it was such an amazing accident. I am a woman in my early thirties, happily married, and just last week started to be honest with myself and a few friends again (I recloseted myself to the external world after getting married) about being bisexual. I still don't really know how to talk about this well, as I was on the receiving end of the some offensive questions when I got married to a man that either implied or outright said 1) I must have been going through a phase or 2) my marriage was suspect b/c based on my and his previous relationships, the marriage was obviously going to end in divorce b/c one or both of us must be gay.

But I am bisexual. I am a female happily married to a male. It was not a phase. I haven't met anyone else who is like me that I know of, and I feel cut off from others who might understand this kind of sexual identity. My heart goes out to you. While I haven't experienced the physical, gender identity questioning you bravely lived through and beautifully wrote about, I have experienced a similar sexual identity process. I was reminded in the last several days that I still am going through this and need help. I just wanted to write this and send it out there somewhere. I'm trying to get better about seeing my story in writing. Thank you for sharing yours. I will keep reading.

[schmutzie]

C, I think stories like yours and mine are far more common than we know simply because they're complicated stories to tell, and few of us ever step forward to tell them.

I didn't tell mine for a long time, because I had received the same negative comments you did, and I questioned the worth of talking about it from within what looks like a pretty average, heterosexual marriage.

What I've learned is that it's worthwhile to talk about what's important to us no matter what we think outside perceptions are, because the emails and comments I've gotten about this are many.

We are not alone; we just don't see ourselves reflected in our culture's discourse.

[C]

Thank you for your writing and your reply comment. I am tearing up a bit while I type this because I just don't know how to start this conversation and what to do next. As with most things relatively like this, it feels like a weight I have been holding onto and want to put down but have no idea how. I think you're right. It is more common than it appears. I just wish I knew those people and that I could talk to them.

[schmutzie]

C, this is something I have no idea about. I've wondered, too, if there is some place where people like us gather.

Your comment, though, lead me to google "bi marriage", and I found this (http://www.experienceproject.com/groups/Am-A-Bisexual-Woman-Married-To-A-Man/7994) among other things. I hope you find some resources in there. I know I'm going to be falling down that rabbit hole right now :)

[C]

Thank you! I'll definitely keep checking in on your site as well. Some of the things I've found just doesn't have the same tone as your site and I'm very grateful for it. All the best.

[C]

Gah - "just don't have", not "doesn't". I don't normally correct my own grammar on comments, but that one's too egregious. This is also me with a little laughter saying thanks again.

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