This is a poem about the discrimination that I face as a gay woman
when walking down the street holding hands with my girlfriend I am subject to stare after stare
by people who supposedly ‘care’ about equality.
(But only if it’s not being shoved in their face
s).
Making faces when we can’t hold hands but they can display the most gip-worthy PDA, yet because it’s a man and a woman, they have nothing to say.
‘Why can’t we just exist?’,
I want to say.
‘Why is our right to exist a debatable topic?’,
I’m too scared to say.
Fear.
This is a poem about the fear that I feel as a gay woman
when walking down the street holding hands with my girlfriend I am struck by the realisation
that all it would take is one extremist with an unfounded source of hatred against gays to decide that today is the day for my life, our lives, to be over…
Blink your eyes and it’s over
and we have become just a couple more deaths for our community to get over
a community that is founded on love
yet a community that is filled with so much hate from people who have no place in it.
A place to be seen and heard and not told that we have ‘nerve’ when we dare to step foot outside of the house
as though we are contagious,
as though we are monsters,
evil
man-hating,
bra-burning,
‘rad-fem’ lesbians.
Please,
just let us have this for us.
Stop trying to ban us,
eradicate us,
trip us up
with
‘But there’s no straight pride’,
the guise that they use to accuse us of wanting ‘special treatment’
when really all we want is human treatment…
To not be treated like animals by men who love to sexualise lesbians as though we exist only to appease the male gaze.
This is a poem about the anger that I feel as a gay woman
when walking down the street holding hands with my girlfriend the male ego forces us to let go so that we can get past.
Because they can’t comprehend a relationship without them in it even when that relationship consists of two women.
‘Well one of them must not be cis,
one of them must have a dick,
which one has the dick?’
#Not all men,
but all women.
#Not all straight people,
but all queer people.
United in the oppression,
the discrimination,
it’s constant.
Can you believe that it’s 2024 yet we’re still living like it’s 2004, a decade before gay marriage was legalised, when stares were expected because
how dare we.
‘It’s not natural,
it’s not right.’
This is a poem about the need for change that I feel as a gay woman
when walking down the street holding hands with my girlfriend I can’t help but notice how it’s been 20 years, yet still, they stare.
Aren’t they tired?
Don’t they want to blink?
Aren’t they curious about what lies behind our eyes?
About what lies beyond their lies?…
About all of the things that they can’t see when we go home with our lovers at night?
We’re not monsters,
we’re not evil
we’re in love.
And if you, dear reader, have ever been in love, genuinely been in love, then you will know that there is nothing that anyone could ever say or do that would take away from what you have at the end of the day
when the door is closed and the curtains are shut and it’s just you and your lover against the world.
This is why we have pride
because even in the face of it all, still, we rise.
Portfolio of Hope 