Hey everyone!
It's finally Friday.
And usually that means that I'm on
Facebook.
But, today is a special video because
for any of you in the LGBT community
and for those of you who don't know
what that stands for, it's
um
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender
um, and the LGBT community,
has been very excited in the States!
yay!
Because
they, um, changed some of the laws
that had come into place in the last
I guess,
20 years, really.
So, where it all started
and I'm going to read from Wikipedia
cause Wikipedia knows everything.
There was, um an act put in place
in 1996 called
The Defense Of Marriage Act, DOMA
and everyone's talking about DOMA
D-O-M-A
They put all over the news
And this was a United States,
or it is, I guess I shouldn't say "was"
is a United States federal law
that allows states to refuse to recognize
same sex marriages.
That were performed in other states.
So, for any of you who don't know,
um
Let's say I was a lesbian
and I had a partner
and I wanted to go get married
I would have to go to Hawaii,
or I believe Vermont,
and I think Massachusetts is one.
There's a couple states that do perform
same sex marriages.
But then,
if I wanted to move,
come back to California,
They wouldn't recognize it
because of Prop 8.
Which um, I think came up in 2010.
And Prop 8 was our state wide
um, proposition.
Stating that we, as a state do not want to
recognize same sex marriage.
And so,
what that was saying under
DOMA, under Section 3
was that, um,
That they, that states could
have the ability to not recognize them.
But, they recently overturned it,
this week, saying that states don't have
the right to do that.
So they have to be recognized.
And that is amazing news!
Yay!
So that's really exciting for a lot
of people. I personally,
have a really close friend of mine
who's even in my wedding
that has a partner she's been with for
oh god, like 15 years.
And they've been wanting to get married
but they wanted to get married here, and
yeah, it'd just be a ceremony
and it wouldn't be legally recognized
and that didn't feel very good, right?
And so, it's really exciting news that we
are moving on with this and people
are being able to recognize their
relationships and get married
if they want and have all the rights
that a spouse gets to have.
So, that is very very exciting.
And in light of this,
Um, I want to just talk briefly
and I will definitely touch on this topic
more, but I just wanted to, um
to say congratulations and it's exciting
that they're doing this,
that they're moving forward, and that we
don't have to live like that anymore.
It's just so, ugh
You know, we thought we were so
progressive but that's just not
to me, that's just not right.
But, um
I wanted to talk briefly about how
being gay
and being in a county where for
the longest time, many states
don't um,
won't recognize you and your spouse
how that can make you feel and how
that can lead to mental health issues
as well, self harm and
eating disorders, and suicide attempts and
it honesetly, um
plays into
the negative talk.
And I know I talk about that a lot,
and if you are new to my channel,
you can look through a lot of my videos
about talking back to the eating disorder
voice, talking back to the suicide voice
self harm voice.
And I'm always saying that because
it is so important.
Even as a person without any
mental health issues, that are
"diagnosable"
like, just,
I'm just feeling depressed today.
Talking back to that negative voice
can really help.
And so the way that being, um
in the LGBT community
affects our mental health is that we're
not only potentially having that internal
negative voice, but we're having an
extreme external
um
influence. So the voices from
our family, our friends, um
it could be even just the whole community
that we live in.
I know, in college a really close
friend that was from a small town in Texas
And he was like, I swear I would've been
tarred and feathered if they
found out that I was gay.
To have that feeling and that fear
and the fact that people "look down"
on you, and think that you know,
it's a choice and we can, you know
force it out of you.
I've had a friend,
cause I went to a Christian university,
Pepperdine's a Christian university,
um
People say that they got sent to
bible school, saying that
that would, you know rid them of
the demon that is homosexuality.
And how does that feel?
Because it's a part of who we are.
As a person.
I mean the fact that I love Sean and
I'm in love with a man,
is a part of who I am.
It's a part of my life.
And if I was to love a woman,
that, that's so close to me.
That's such a,
it's like the blood pumping through my veins
and for someone to tell me that
that's wrong, and I should be ashamed,
imagine what that does to my psyche
and how that makes me feel.
And I think because for many of us,
we haven't felt the right and the ability
to speak up for ourselves and to say
I am gay, and I'm proud.
and um,
you know, to have the acceptance
that we all deserve,
has really taken a toll.
And many of us have mental health issues
that we might self harm because
if for many of you, I have a lot of
self harm videos, and I talk about
how a lot of times it's a physical way to
express an emotional pain.
And imagine the emotional pain we can feel
if no one is accepting of who we love,
who we are,
and everything in between, right?
So I think it really amplifies
what other people go through because
not only may we be uncomfortable in
our own skin, and as we grew up we're
unsure, but we have that extra, added thing
where our parents may say
So when are you going to find a cute boy
and have a baby, if you're a girl.
And you think,
but I don't like boys, mom.
I told you, you know.
Or if you're a guy, and they're like
Oh there's this pretty girl that's
going to be at the party.
Even though they know that you like boys.
And that can really feel terrible, and
it can feel really
unvalidating.
I guess is the best word.
And so, that I see
I don't know if that's clear enough,
but that's how I see them connecting.
Because, we have these beliefs and
these thoughts and feelings and people
aren't recognizing them. So,
I'm so excited that we are now able to
recognize love from, of all people. Right?
That's very exciting.
And we're all about that and we're all
about our community growing and I will
do more videos on, um
coming out, and how that is.
I'm going to speak with my girlfriend,
see if she might be on a video with me.
My guess is that she won't, but she might
help me out on how to talk about it, cause
I know that she went to a group for it.
So stay tuned for those videos.
But yay USA for getting that, um
knocked out, that
it's section 3 of the DOMA act
for any of you, if you
anybody brings this up then you kind of
know what's going on.
um, but section 3 was deemed
unconstitutional.
And so now we recognize gay marriage.
Horay!
So everybody have a wonderful weekend.
It's really toasty here in California so
if you live in California,
drink lots of water and make sure to
wear your sunscreen.
And I will see you all on Monday.
Bye!
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