“How come there’s no straight pride?”

abearthatdoodles:

When I was a kid around 10 years old, I had a brace on my leg a-la Forrest Gump… I wore it for about two years to correct a hip disorder called Perthes disease. I spent those two years either hobbling around in a prototype brace (which I was lucky to be in the test group for), on crutches, or in a wheelchair. I wasn’t able to play much outdoors, not able to run around and be a kid, and not able to walk faster than an uncomfortable waddle. I was really lucky, but honestly – from a kid’s perspective? it sucked. A lot.

During this time, there were a handful of kids – not a lot, but five or six out of the thirty or so in my class – who were actually shitty to me about my situation. Seriously – they actually teased and bullied the kid in the leg brace like the antagonists in a bad 80?s coming-of-age movie. They were mad because I “got to be” pushed around in a wheelchair all the time. They were pissed that I got “preferred” seating near the restroom so I could manage more effectively. They were frustrated because I got attention that they perceived as something they deserved. They viewed the elements of my medical care as a “privilege” that they were being denied. They were actually jealous that I was stuck in a goddamned leg brace.

The point of all this back story is this: every time I see people moaning and whining about the lack of “straight pride”, this is the part of my life that provided my understanding of why. These kids were so jealous and shitty and selfish that they could completely overlook the discomfort and struggle (and outright misery, at times) of my situation because they wanted the attention I was getting. They took their health and their freedom completely for granted because they valued attention and privilege above all else, and had a complete inability to look any deeper at the consequences of the situation. If the attention wasn’t on them for one second, they did whatever it took to get it back.

I suspect that these kids grew up to become the jealous douchenozzles who write the posts bemoaning the lack of “straight pride” celebrations that show up everywhere around this time every year.