The Hush

This is the third day I've hung out in the Rainbow Center between classes to get homework done and I'm not entirely sure I'll be coming back. It's a safe space, sure, so long as you aren't a straight cisgendered person (ESPECIALLY not a male one). Man alive some of the things these kids say; nasty generalizations and awful giggling vitriol aimed at entire groups of people that aren't "family". Everyone that isn't them is ignorant and awful. No one understands them and they wouldn't dare let them understand them. They're too special. Sit down and they'll educate you. Maybe. If they're not too "tired" or "annoyed" or "sick of you and what you represent".

Maybe the self-aggrandizing is a function of their being young and often on the receiving end of hate and discrimination. Still, I would have hoped that such things would have had an opposite effect, engendering openness and kindness to ALL people. I would have hoped that this was the sort of place where everyone was welcome, and where honest conversations take place without name-calling nor condescension.

I've heard this sort of talk each time I've spent time here, and, frankly, I no longer feel welcome. What if I'm more "them" than "us"? What if I've crossed some invisible line and they've decided I'm not "worth talking to".

Maybe that's why not a single person has bothered to speak to me. Not even "hello". Not even after I've said hello first.

Strange to be in a place with "my people" and feel like I don't belong. I'm shocked and disappointed but maybe I set the bar too high. Maybe this is the norm.

Sure seems like it.

From now on, I think I'll do my homework in the library. At least there, the judgments are minimal. And, best of all, silence is required.