TCF doesn't scare me - not any more. I survived 13 years in a Midwestern catholic school conveniently named "Catholic Central." Homophobia was an omnipresent fog spread throughout my childhood: a monotone low note that now hums in my memories. I came of age surrounded by a disease: the fear, hatred, and exclusion of queers. A social illness gone unchecked. In the small farming community in which I was born, it spread like wildfire on the prairie, infecting neighbors, relatives, classmates, and friends. Fear and hatred followed me unwaveringly throughout my childhood, pragmatic in its irrationality.
I have been raised in a garden of disease, and not granted leave at Tufts. In fact, the TCUJ's recent TCF ruling deemed the homophobia of my small town roots acceptable by Tufts University standards. Now, standing on the brink of womanhood, I find health in my anger and safety in my fight. And the good news is I'm not alone.
Lost like a rainbow-striped kernel stuck precariously in my father's golden cornfields, I met violence the moment I stepped off the school bus. From the cool evasiveness of the chitchatting mothers club, to the flex of the football team before breaking the next effeminate freshman boy, violence wove its way through my youth. Negotiating my way between school and survival, I walked stinging, almost electric, through a hailstorm of biblical passages, condemnations to hell, and the legendary dark fates of past gay kids. Quiet in the lunchroom, quiet in class, quiet during the hallway sound eruption after the bell rang; reclusion became my trusted safeguard. As I watched the masculine girls and feminine boys get it, I knew not to spill a word. A hint, a nuance. Keep your mouth shut or lose everything.
Question: I, like most queer people, spent some time in hiding, followed by an extraordinarily painful "coming out." Many fear the loss of a home, familial, friendship, and spiritual kinship. Many are pushed into exile. Who can estimate the health of a social rite of passage that often requires complete self-denial and frightened self-disguise?
According to TCF, self-loathing is all it takes for a queer Tufts student to be granted a spiritual home. Once that student makes the choice to come out as self-loving, the TCF promises to reject them in the time it takes to read the golden rule. The TCUJ upheld this criterion, hence lending institutional support to a policy that presents Tufts students with two options: hide or stand vulnerable to infinite loss. Tufts University's approval of TCF's discrimination has sent a message loud and clear to all Tufts students: Do not relax and reveal who you are. Watch your back. Hold your breath and you just might be safe.
Back at Catholic Central, my face would turn blue by the end of the day. After quietly suffocating in hiding, I would allow myself to exhale, and be myself off school grounds. After withdrawn days (Can anyone tell I'm different? Did they sense it? Do they know!?) spent closely self checked behavior, I road the bus home to the bumble and hum of country roads. I grew relaxed and relieved after each day ended, watching the town-limits gradually forget themselves in the country. The sidewalks slowly became gravel, and open fields stood in the place of residential boulevards. I turned my eyes to the cornfields, ponds and meadows out my window, and felt anonymous and safe. I am I am I am I am.
"Dyke!" As if inhaling the secondhand smoke of someone else's disease, violence betrayed my rural anonymity. Someone was found out, pinched, and mortified on the bus. Someone, somewhere, anywhere, me. To the pop of my momentary relax, I reminded myself to watch what I was doing. Don't say a word! Okay, calm down. It wasn't me. They don't know.
After a childhood of constant self-checking, they ultimately did know it was me. I chose to end my hiding after the options of sunny depression or non-negotiable self-acceptance became inevitable. Goodbye, Aunt Ruth. Goodbye, high school track team. Goodbye church. Homophobia made you sick and left me in exile. Me standing, shaking, finding the door that you recommend I exit from. And for any queer Christians at Tufts that had a spiritual home in TCF, I meet you in exile.
Previously isolated and excluded, we are building a new home. We, not just the gay kids, but also anyone who has ever been kicked out for coming out as equal. I lost my home to homophobia, you to racism, and you to sexism. Together, we are joining the long march in exile to our OWN "righteous kingdom". We are making family where there was not one before. We are healing and growing strong. We will not keep quiet anymore. Oh, and guess what? We are pissed.
TCF, you do not scare me. I have scars that run deeper than your disease. I love and accept myself in the face of your social illness. Me, the dyke, faggot, freak, I have spent a lifetime at war with homophobia. And it has left me, and my family of "not-good-enoughs," stronger than you can ever imagine. We are soldiers now. And we will never sit down.
Thea Lavin is a senior majoring in history. She is working on a women's center grant for violence against queer women.
