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Ralph Fox is from Channel 4's My Transsexual Summer

Rowan is Proud2Be Bisexual

My Moment of Change

My moment of change happened gradually. In middle school I really looked up to my sister. She was very protective and I loved that. I loved being Emily Evans’s younger sister until high school, when being Emily Evans’s younger sister came with infamy. Emily was one of the first, if not the first, people in my small private school in Texas to come out. She initially just came out as bi-sexual, but as the years went on she was clearly only dating women.  Everyone was accepting, but the overwhelming ignorance of “queer culture” in the schooling system in general really affected my sister. She didn’t feel like the normal 16 year old she was. She felt different, abnormal, and it was a constant struggle to keep up with that label. We learn from an early age that a mom a dad and 2.1 kids is the norm and if you deviate from that you are, in some ways, a deviant. She felt as if she had to live up to this deviant label just because no one told her that it is okay to be exactly who she is. She can still lead a normal life; have a good career, and a healthy family life even though she has deviated from what is seen as normal. I realized that the backbone of a more understanding and progressive society starts at the schools. It is not “indecent” and does not “put ideas in kids’ heads” to teach about alternative lifestyles in school. In fact that education could save a kid’s life.  It is important that from a young age we start accepting ourselves and that is why I joined the Proud2Be campaign with Stephen Fry.  He has suffered with severe depression and anxiety because of the repression he experienced as a child.  The ridicule of being an intelligent, gay man living in a world that is only beginning to accept him almost proved too much for Stephen Fry. During the taping of Out There, a documentary about his life as a gay man in the public eye, Mr. Fry tried to take his own life.  Fortunately for us, he survived and has learned from the experience.  When Stephen Fry was a kid there was no outreach for him to discover his identity and therefore still struggles with it today.  

Mission Statement

“The human cultural jungle should be as varied and plural as the Amazonian rainforest. We are all richer for biodiversity. We may decide that a puma is worth more to us than a caterpillar, but surely we can agree that the habitat is all the better for being able to sustain each.” 

                             -Stephen Fry, The Fry Chronicles

Proud2Be

The Proud2Be project is a community interest campaign with a lot of different slants.  Some use the Proud2Be outlet to talk about their experiences as a gay man or a lesbian woman. Some talk about the struggle of coming to terms with their transexuality, a taboo still today despite a more progressive society. My goal in Proud2Be is to change federal sex education laws to include the full spectrum of sexual identity. In 2013 we know, or should know by now, that sexuality is not black and white. A lot of people don’t feel comfortable with their sexuality because they were made to believe if they don’t fit in to the two designated boxes there isn’t a place for them. That is to say they are not allowed to love, which is every person’s most basic human right. We need to own up to the fact that as a society we are oppressing our children. We aren’t allowing them to develop their own identity because either what they feel isn’t “normal” or appropriate.  Beyond just sexual identity, I believe schools should address sex as what it is meant to be, not what we have turned it into. To patronize the kids in saying that they are sinners because they are having desires leads to ignorance and recklessness. If the schools had a more healthy approach to the topic of sex instead of assuming the “if you ignore it, it will go away” position I think we would have less shows like 16 and Pregnant and more responsible, self-aware adults.

“I am happy to be counted as a supporter of Proud2Be at every turn” - Stephen Fry