Open letter to a 17-year old enabler of bigotry

Dear Gutless Hypocrite,

What in the fuck is wrong with you? Did being bullied your whole life just deprive you of any empathy whatsoever? I know you like to believe that you're a good person who would never hurt anyone who didn't ask for it, but keeping your bullshit concealed beneath the surface doesn't make it go away! You always act like you are so fucking woke that you don't have anything to learn about women, people of other races, and especially queer people. But here's a secret: you are a naive asshole who takes way too much comfort in your ignorance. It's not enough to say sexism, racism, or homophobia is bad, you have to understand what these words mean and why they're not just bad, but something to be actively opposed. 

But how could you do that when the boys' club at your school has taken over your identity? You can't blame your so-called friends for the anger with which I'm writing to you, but you certainly didn't go out of your way to distinguish yourself from them! They treated women as sex objects in theory and you laughed along with them and even supported this crap by supplying them with tons of porn. They joked about being nazis and you chose to see their identification with a fundamentally racist ideology as nothing but irony. They made fun of your mentally disabled friend and you didn't challenge their use of the R-word or refrain from using it yourself from time to time in anger. They made gay jokes almost daily and, of course, you had no problem saying "That's gay!" negatively around them.

I don't need to tell you why that last part is the worst, but other people need to know why you have been so detestable to me so I will anyway. The truth is you are queer. I know this, you know this, and no amount of denial is going to change this fact. You've known ever since a friend tried to pressure you into sex. You really didn't want to say no, but you invoked your religion anyway to tell someone you supposedly cared about that his desires were wrong. To your credit, you didn't actually say this because you actually believed it, but because you were so worried that he was baiting you into a trap that he could humiliate you for later. But therein lies the root of your problem. You were so damn afraid of the stigma of being attracted to a boy that you closed yourself off from anyone even presumably queer out of fear of being labeled gay by association. When you close your heart to an entire group of people, even if it's just to protect yourself from straight people, how could you not begin to hate them? How could you not begin to hate yourself?

Don't try to pull the wool over my eyes. I am much older and smarter than you are and I know that the hatred is there. Have you ever tried to bully someone for being gay? No. But you never stood up for them. You never talked to them. You never openly acknowledged that they were people who deserved to exist without apology. You tried so hard to avoid associating with people who are queer because you  think you are bullied for enough reasons and you don't need anyone calling you a ton of gay slurs on top of that. You cling to your "straight" privilege like it's a fucking life preserver and I doubt I'm the only person to have ever noticed this. Is having a bunch of bros really worth the pain you're putting yourself through?

You can stay in the closet for as long as you want. It's not my place to tell anyone when to come out. But you can't fucking deny that being there has made you a toxic person under the surface, not when you have at least once let that internalized hatred become external. When one of the people you most associate with your tortured early teenage years had the audacity to try being nice to you for a change, you should have talked to him with an open mind. You could have made a wonderful new friend. Even if that isn't what you wanted, it would have sufficed to make it clear that you didn't forgive him nor want his company. But what did you do? You tried to shock him away with attacks on his perceived queerness. Neither of us know if that guy is actually gay or not, but that's neither here nor there. You didn't want him around because you had your doubts about his sincerity but he's going to go on believing you are a piece of shit because you were too lazy to articulate your problems with him (by the way, don't even get me started about the problems your laziness will cause for you!). 

The good news is that you don't have to be this way forever. A year from now, you are going to be an adult with the opportunity to explore the world beyond your hometown for the first time. You are going to meet a lot of fantastic people. You'll see real anti-gay violence up close for the first time and it's going to make you sick. As a result, you're going to learn to stop accepting any bigotry as part of the real world and start fucking pushing back against it. You'll make friends with queer people for the first time and become comfortable enough with them to defend their identities to your other friends. You'll still fuck up many times along the way, of course, but when you accept that you still have a lot to learn about people who don't match the mold you're so desperately trying to fit into, you'll finally be able to grow into a decent person instead of the spineless gremlin you are now.

Most importantly, you'll stop being afraid of that terrifying stigma that has haunted you your whole life and start to look at yourself more favorably. You'll realize that all of this masculine overcompensation is contrary to your very nature. You'll come to understand who you really are and finally become able to love yourself. It'll be a slow process, but when it's over, I'll see you in a mirror and finally be ready to forgive you.

But I can't speak for anyone else you might have hurt.

Love, 

You in 12 years

P.S. I know you're never going to read this, but I really wish you would start critically analyzing your desire to be a woman now. You are wasting too much of your finite life pretending to be something you're not.