This community has been very vocal with me about how they felt and continue to feel. And these feelings have been expressed verbally in passing on the street orshouted from the window of a car. I have received phone calls and digital messages filled with slurs and threats. Now why might people be telling me to kill myself? Because of ignorance and because of bigotry. This wasn’t some misunderstanding, I have been intentionally followed and harassed by people who know who I am and have explicitly told me that I shouldn’t exist. This perpetuated ignorance, I don’t want to blame it on the individual, I don’t want to blame it on my peers. However these intentional acts were meant to cause me direct harm. I originally downplayed how I wanted to get this across, however to put it simply there are some whose intentions are entirely malicious.
It is the educators, leaders and parents responsibility to eradicate this ignorance. It is the responsibility of our education system to ensure every student leaves understanding that bigotry is wrong. That racism is wrong. That homophobia is wrong. And yet I left highschool because the teachers wanted to pretend I wasn’t getting called a faggot everyday. Nobody wanted to take the initiative to tell these students that what they’ve been raised to believe is okay, is not. So here I am, and there they are, waiting to terrorize the next queer kid that comes around.
And why do I care so much about this? Because I was that queer kid and I am that queer kid. And to clarify what has been so previously misinformed, I am bisexual. And I don’t label myself, really at all but for sake of confusion that is the best word to describe me.
That leads me to now. Since leaving public school in 2017 - on a month to month basis - I’ve been followed, threatened and constantly reminded of my place in society.
This string of consistent events has left me emotionally and mentally exhausted. This has placed me in a situation where I have to put on a front everytime I leave my house because I don’t know that I will be safe, or that I won’t be publicly degraded for being a certain way.
When these incidents became the most severe, I went to the police and reported two separate vehicles that had been following me and yelling slurs out the window. Because of my choice to report, I lost the opportunity to come out to my parents. I was forced to verify on record that I was in fact a sexual minority, because it impacted the severity of the crime being committed. I was forced to come out to my friends because I felt unsafe. I was forced to put myself in a box that I wasn’t even sure I was in yet simply because it had to “make sense” to these officers. And being put in a box is how I ended up at the station in the first place.
See, people spread rumours about my sexuality before I could speak up, which gave these strangers the fuel to find me and tell me how they felt. These actions are not only extremely selfish but also dangerous to all queer youth.
It is clear that I am perceived as less competent as a man and thus I feel less respected. These subtle differences aren’t ruining my life or my relationships, but it proves that stigma in some forms is still ever present even within some of my circles. And this stigma is isolating, I always feel like I have one foot in the door. That only the “straight” half of myself is accepted. While it may not all be conscious behaviour, we all have an individual responsibility to educate ourselves and become aware of our biases and discriminatory beliefs. I am not expecting perfection, but it is our duty to try.
The reason I wanted to share all of this publicly, is that I never want this to happen again. School District 71 has not adequately dealt with instances of harassment far beyond my own,that is fact. Situation after situation from students across the district have been made aware to teachers, counselors and principals to no resolution.
I have female friends who had to endure authority figures approaching them in hallways and exclaiming “Boobs, belly, butt!” As a means of enforcing a sexist dress code. It’s been widely known that a high school educator repeatedly spews transphobic remarks to students and colleagues without ever being reprimanded. Furthermore this same educator is openly known to make inappropriate remarks to female students - This is currently taking place within the Comox Valley. In regards to transphobia, transgender students have been allegedly seperated from other students of their gender as a rule enforced by the district. They have had pronouns disrespected and their identities outed without any consent. This needs to change.
And talking directly to the community, how do you think it makes us look when our rainbow crosswalks always have skid marks? Or that our elected officials, including our MLA Ronna Rae Leonard have dismissed incidents of racism within our valley? Do you really think that makes this community feel accepting?
If we as a country and as a community, want to continue with the narrative that we are a place where being yourself is what unites us all, that we find strength within diversity;
We need better resources, education and representation.So finally, what is my suggestion? Conversation. Let’s talk about it non-defensively. Clearly living in denial has only caused harm, so let's acknowledge the gravity of the situation. What does this mean? How are we really practicing tolerance? Everything from school board meetings to surveys to calling out bad behaviour; as long as the pathway of communication is open, we are capable of change. Let’s exchange perspectives, understand why these issues are so prevalent and what needs to be changed.
I hope you resonated with what I had to say.
Thank you very much,
Mackai Sharp
Photographs by Nula Jewel Power & Mackai Sharp
8:00 PM, December 14th, 2020.