User:EnsignDisposable

Operation Mailbag This user contributed to the Mailbag and had their e-mail answered by Chris.

This is the same E.D., I just totally forgot my password and didn't have an email set up. oh well

Until the Operation: Mailbag page is back, I shall draft here. I'll see if I can't make this really heart-wrenching, and then see how Chris answers with "whatever" or "I am STRAIGHT" or edits it to hell and back.

From: Lyla Gowan (?@?)

Dear Chris,

My name is Lyla Gowan. I have something important to say to you. I don't think you're gay, but I know why people keep saying you're gay: you act like what people think gay people act like. You like little-girl pop music like Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys, you like girl's toys like My Little Pony, you like wearing sports bras. These are all meant for girls and women, but because you like them it makes you look like a stereotypical gay guy. And then you go on about how gays are evil and need to be reprogrammed and these people think you're a self-hating gay man who wants to erase gays so you don't have to think about it.

I don't think you're gay, but I do think you need to see what things are like from our perspective. I'm a lesbian, Chris, and I have to live with oppression every day.

You gotta understand that gay people suffer a lot. We're hated because we break with how men and women are "supposed" to act. People that are uncomfortable with that like to quote the Bible at us out of context and use that to beat us down. We're alone and hated all over the world. It's terrible. It's like 1960s America, and we're all black, and the law is against us and lots of the people are against us and every step forward we take seems like it's followed by a slip two steps back. The difference is, we can pretend to be someone else, pretend not to be gay... but it's all just pretend. It hurts. You believe in truth and honesty, but the way things are, we can't be true to ourselves, honest with ourselves, just because we're different. The world doesn't want us to be who we are.

You suffer like us. You're different and people hate you for that. But then you go and hate us because we're different, or because you don't want to be lumped in with us and made more different. You don't seem to realize that people hate us for the same reasons they hate you. We're ore alike than different. Like I said, I don't think you're gay just because you like My Little Pony and stuff. The same people that hate gay people for who they are also hate people like you because they think what you do is "gay." Gay people who see you act like a stereotypical gay while also hating gays think you're some kind of closet case, and so they make fun of you. Mostly I think they're out of line, but when you keep saying things like "gay people need to be reprogrammed," that just makes my heart sink and I start to wonder if you deserve it for being so mean.

You keep linking that old cartoon, but you don't take its message to heart. You don't like when people say you're gay just because they think you fit what gay people look like. But you hate gays for the same reason! You think that being gay is "unnatural," so you think they should be fixed--that they're not really bears, just men in fur coats, and that their fur coats can get taken off and they'll fit right back in. But you'd just be hurting them just like other people have hurt you. It's a sad and sick situation and it hurts me to think just because some people call you gay that all gays have to go. Every day I wish the world would accept us for who we are, and even though you could be helping us and helping yourself, you just keep lashing out at people who are like you.

I just want you to know that I think you should be free to be yourself... but I wish you could think the same of me, Chris, and the same of people like me. I hope you can understand us more, Chris. I hope you do.

Love, Layla Gowan.