Sweater Weather Monologues

Track 1

You Need To Calm Down, Taylor Swift. 

My name is Rey, I'm bisexual and non-binary in a world of the white Christian cisgender straight man. Awfully specific isn't it? The world is rigged against people like me. Every time I come into contact with new people, all I feel is fear.

Are these the people who want me dead?

Are these the people who see me as wrong?

Are these the people who deny my existence?

Are these the people who think of me as sub-human?

The people who fought against my right to marry and exist freely?

Did you know that I'm a criminal in 71 countries for who I am? I am a criminal for being. Isn't that fucked up? Isn't that terrifying and unreal? It is real though. It's just as real as people denying me opportunities for who I love. It's just as real as people denying me basic human respect and decency because I don't feel like a girl.

The words, you're going to hell, have been so deeply ingrained inside me. Those words have always stayed with me. Always persisted in the back of my head. When I hear any positive reference to religion, in music, movies, passing conversation, my head immediately reminds me "doesn't apply to you".

"Those people don't care about you,"

"Those people want to see you burn," 

"You're going to hell, remember?" 

When you live in a family where the constant reminder is god is real, you break. You can't look at your family the same anymore. You lose your trust in what you know and what surrounds you. I feel distanced, isolated from my family in what they believe so strongly, and want me to believe as well. How can I believe in something that is bent on my destruction? How can I see good in something that only teaches hate towards my very being?  I'm so tired, so tired of being degraded, being debated, being hated. For a belief that focuses on being a kind person without hatred, I'm feeling pretty hated. 

I just want to live in peace and be who I want without fear. Why is that so much to ask? 

Why do people like me have to hide who we are while heterosexuals flaunt their love and freedom all around us? Don't force your sexuality on everyone they say when all they do is force theirs on us. Dress this way, stop dressing that way. Here's your emotional range and here's yours. Here's your box and stay in it.

Bullshit.

Shade never made anybody less gay.