Restoring my soul.

It has been a long minute since I have felt the ability to write anything. I have been struggling with and receiving treatment for PTSD. I am well on my road to recovery and looking at my next chapter.

I have enrolled in a Graduate Certificate in Social Work and the Individual which is a pathway into a Masters Degree in Social Work.

I have a vision of working with youth, specifically LGBTQI+ youth, there is such a great need for these young people to have support as they navigate their feelings and identities. The suicide rates within this group are staggering and eye opening, 48% of queer kids will attempt suicide at some stage and just over half of these succeed. How any human can read these statistics and still think it is OK to vilify and bully and make fun of these young people defies belief. My aim is to work in a policy making field so that change will begin from the top down, not just organisation by organisation, but in real time across the community.

Society has been taken over by hatred caused by misunderstanding and fear, I ask you why would anyone be scared or fearful of a queer kid? Or any queer person for that matter, for any other reason than they cannot understand. The real truth is it is no one’s business what another person chooses to do with their identity or their life. Sexual identity is a very individual and personal choice and it effects no one else.

I have been hearing recently within the conversation around Drag Story Times in Libraries the word “indoctrination”. It is merely the voice of the uneducated, closed minded and bigoted groups, groups that once were easily silenced but now have the megaphone of Social Media to spew their hatred to the wider community. The truth is Drag Story Time has been happening quite happily within libraries for the past 10 years or more in some places, without incident and at the request of parents. There is no “indoctrination” there is no “brainwashing”, it is as Rueban Kaye suggested on Q&A last week a drag queen reading stories and singing some songs to kids. Nothing more and nothing less than harmless entertainment.

Society has been entertained by Drag since Ancient times and Drag has been an important part of modern day entertainment in movies and on stage. Hands up if you have seen The Rocky Horror Picture Show (movie or stage), Mrs Doubtfire, Tootsie. Just some of the mainstream movies that won big at the box office, please reply in the comments of any others you may have seen or know of.

I want to live in a world where we no longer identify people by their sexual identities, we stop saying “our gay friend” or “our transgender child”. Where we just introduce people by their names, Hi this is Bob or Mary. How amazing would the World be without judgement?