Getting better?

OK, confession time, everyone. First of all, I LOVE the "It Gets Better" project. I LOVE that so many people wore purple on October 20th. I LOVE the increased attention to The Trevor Project. And I thought of uploading an "It Gets Better" video myself.

But then after talking a little bit about bullies and bullying, I realized I felt a bit hypocritical about it. Because I was a bit of a bully once, too.

Not a lot. I was not someone that anyone would be scared of. I was not physically strong. I did not look for fights. But I can remember at least two times that I bullied other kids.

The first time I can remember, I grabbed a girl by her collar and shook her violently. I don't remember why. I was in third grade. I do recall a few things about this girl: first of all, she was unhealthily obsessed with sex for a third-grader, and would jokingly say that she'd seen other kids having sex. Like, ALL THE TIME. Second of all, you always knew whether or not she was happy with you because you always knew whether you were invited to her birthday party. If you pissed her off, she'd say, "You're not invited to my birthday party." Then when you were on her good side again, she'd say, "Mariah, you can come to my birthday party."

Anyway.  As I said, don't remember why I was mad, why I shook her - though I guarantee it wasn't because I thought she was gay. But I do remember how I got out of trouble: when a teacher questioned me, I said, "Well, I thought you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and I like it when people do that to me." I mean, what a transparently bullshit excuse, right? But as I recall, I didn't get in trouble. I'm guessing it had something to do with the fact that I was a good student, and I was a girl.

Flash forward to fifth grade. This time, I kicked a sixth-grade boy in the nuts. His name was Tyler. A few kids made comments about his effeminacy behind his back, but in my memory he wasn't tormented about it a great deal. I could be wrong about that. Anyway, a comment I'd gotten repeatedly throughout my life was, "You look so much like your brother," a comment which infuriated me because how DARE anyone say I look like a BOY? And, of course, sometimes when another kid found out how much this annoyed me, they'd say it just to piss me off. Tyler was one such kid. One day, when he'd said "you look just like your brother" just one too many times, I hauled off and kicked him in the crotch. And he doubled over crying.

The teacher saw him crying and came over. "What's going on here?"

Tyler, crying: "She kicked me in the balls."

Teacher, to me: "Why did you do that?"

Me: "Because he kept saying I look like my brother."

Teacher, to Tyler: "Well, you know, sometimes words can hurt more than actions." And to my memory, she walked away and I got off scot-free. (I also decided to tell my father this story in the car later, and, again, did not get into trouble.)

This teacher in particular was enamored of my writing and math skills, though this wasn't unusual because for much of my life I was something of a perpetual teacher's pet. So again, my two hypotheses from the collar-shaking incident apply here: I think I got off the hook because I was a good student, and because I was a girl. Oddly enough, I got in much more trouble for straddling a girl on the swing set, or for a false rumor that I'd been masurbating in class (I hadn't, but whatevs), or for doing a striptease on the playground down to my leotard and tights from dance class, than I ever did for hurting fellow students.

(By the way, Tiffany and Tyler, if you're out there, if you see this: I'm sorry. I truly am.)

I didn't come out to myself as bisexual until my senior year of high school, for a number of reasons: Catholic guilt, internalized homophobia due to hearing "that's so gay" about 1038249632478 times, and so on. Once I came out to myself, I was so close to graduation that I kept my news to a few close friends, so I escaped any bullying or harassment at the time. (Incidentally, a number of people who were not out in high school have since come out on facebook. I think the environment trained us to wait.)

I then went on to a liberal arts college, where I also went on to revise my self-definition to "pansexual" or just "queer," and where most people were completely unphased by the idea of two people of the same gender getting it on. I was pretty much unharassed; for the most part, the one annoyance (which I still get to this day) is when people would ask, "So, do you like girls or guys more?" or express disbelief that bisexuality even existed. (Also, when I shaved my head on a whim, apparently some people thought I did it "because she's a lesbian," which baffles me to this day.)

The one time I did feel harassed at college was when I took a female date to a formal dance. We were dancing very close, and some jagoff in a tie and a baseball cap (beer in hand) approached us and said, "Kiss."

"No," we said.

"No?" he replied.

"Not for you," we said. And he went away.

Still, even that wasn't that bad. It pissed me off, but I didn't feel unsafe. The times when I've felt unsafe as a result of expressing the not-straight parts of my sexual orientation have all come since graduation from college. Getting catcalled or getting comments when I show affection to a woman in public, even if nothing sexual is actually going on (I got some comments for just scratching a friend's back on the subway), has mostly been a part of my adult life.

So I've made the reverse journey from a lot of my LGBTQI siblings. I've gone from a sometimes bully to the sometimes bullied. I've gone from a position of incredible privilege - the teacher's pet who can do no wrong - to one of...well, still incredible privilege. Because I have a boyfriend and the only people whose gaydar I seem to tickle are often gay themselves, I go about my life mostly passing as straight. When I don't, though, strangers - men - sometimes comment. Sometimes approach me and the person I'm with. Sometimes make me wonder if I'm going to have to call the police.

Then again, I've gotten harassed much more often for simply being female than for my perceived sexual orientation. And that has been a constant throughout my life. If I'm out after dark, I always feel unsafe as a rule. But that is another blog post entirely.

The point is: I was never bullied or harassed as a kid, not really. Now, sometimes, I am. And after reading this phenomenal essay about two trans people's experience with things really NOT having gotten that much better, I can't shake the thought that "it gets better" isn't always true. In no way do I question the "It Gets Better" project's value - anything that gives people hope and keeps them from killing themselves is a great thing in my book. But things do not always, in fact, improve. There is harassment at the workplace. There are hate crimes against grown people. We should take schoolyard bullies to task and give bullied kids hope, but we should take the grown-up bullies to task, too.

(Also: we seem to have an image in our head of bullies as being male, hateful, and unable to be anything other than a bully - I've heard more than one person say that there's no changing bullies. I hope my stories about my own bullying can change that perception. If someone had simply disciplined me for hurting my classmates, I would have felt ashamed and never done it again. But nobody did so. I only did it twice, but what if I'd gotten a taste for it? Kept going, because I knew no one would stop me? The bullying I did called for greater vigilance than was shown. And that should concern us all.)

As far as "it gets better," though, I will say this: I've been through rough times. Not as a result of bullying, but still plenty rough. I've literally not known whether I'd survive those times. And I did survive. Maybe I'll make a video about that. When I feel braver.

For now, I'll just say that I'm pretty damn happy these days. Consistently. I'm full of hope, I laugh a lot, I feel creatively fulfilled. I spend lots of time with really lovely people, but I'm content to be alone too. I fell in love. I learned what I needed to do for myself in order to be consistently creating. I found good situations for myself and stuck with them. None of this seemed possible when I was grieving or heartbroken or traumatized, but it WAS possible, because it has happened.

It gets better.