What if there was no prejudice?
Every now and then, I do a “what if” exercise. However, it has become more and more painful as I get older.
SOMETIMES I CATCH MYSELF DREAMING ABOUT ANOTHER WORLD. In my dreams, I think about what the world would be like if there were no prejudices, none. A free, impossible, unattainable world… I walk the streets and see apathy, I notice violence in traffic, I notice the looks we give each other. That hurts. And it is in this pain that many, many questions scream inside me…
In a world without prejudice, how many of the women we see married today would be married with children? How many men would be with their wives? How many bad jokes about sexuality would simply disappear? How many really serious issues would be discussed if there wasn’t today’s moralistic paranoia? How many children and teenagers would feel freer? How many girls, instead of being thrown into the lap of their “boyfriends”, could come home and say they have “girlfriends” without getting slapped? How many words like fagot, poof, fairy, fruit, would no longer make sense? How many straight men would feel more comfortable crying their pain without being labeled weak ?
How many men would be saved by just letting go of prejudices about a mere prostate exam?
How many boys would be playing with dolls with parents aware that this has nothing to do with sexuality? How many women would finally own their bodies? How many children today abandoned because of unwanted pregnancies would simply not have been born? How much mental and creative energy would be used for useful things, instead of trying to impede the happiness of the LGBTQIA+ population?
And have you ever stopped to think that, without prejudice, the acronym LGBTQIA+ itself might not even exist?
How much money would not be saved with therapy? How many boys and girls would have had sexual orientation classes without their parents wanting to kill the teachers? How much misogyny would fall to the ground? How many parents would stop being “manly machos” to just teach their children how to be vulnerable? How many politicians would we be deprived of?
How many smiles would we see on the faces of transgender people because they have a life expectancy greater than 35 years?
How many times would we see goals being celebrated with kisses between players? How many lives would be saved in stadiums without the sexism that imposes aggression? How many different couples would we see on the streets? How many priests wouldn’t be priests because they didn’t have to hide behind a cassock? How many families would be spared from disunity? How many women would still be alive? How many LGBTQIA+ would have stopped committing suicide? How much bullying would go away?
How many liters of tears would we avoid shedding?
Yes, I think about that a lot. It shouldn’t, I know. Because it hurts. It hurts to know that the world could have been better, but, generations after generations, we choose this simulacrum of life full of stereotypes and demands. It hurts to see churches talking about friendship and respect, while in practice they humiliate those who don’t fit into the nonsense of “normality”.
It hurts to think that yet another LGBTQIA+ colleague of mine couldn’t handle the senseless pressure and killed himself this May .
I’ll confess one thing to you: it hurts a lot. Very much so. More than I let on.
Beneath this mask of strength, I cry.
