Me

or heterosexual, and everyone is simply who they are.

BATTLING PREJUDICE
    WE STILL HAVE a long way to go. If the world has changed, I believe it still hasn’t changed enough. It’s possible that today there are fewer prejudices than a hundred years ago, or even when I was a child, but that doesn’t mean that the prejudices don’t continue to exist and that there isn’t work still left to be done. There is a long and sad history of the persecution of homosexuals, and it is tragic to think about all the lives that have been damaged, hurt, and destroyed by the prejudices of others. I think about the great geniuses of literature, such as Federico García Lorca and Oscar Wilde, who, despite all their brilliance and the amazing legacies they left the world through their work, were persecuted because they were homosexuals. How can that possibly make sense?
    Sadly, these prejudices continue to exist to this day. The media often characterizes homosexuals as one-dimensional people with no depth whatsoever, as if a human being could be reduced to his or her sexuality. The very language used all over the world to denominate homosexuals is terribly degrading: words such as “faggot,” “queer,” “dyke,” “sissy,” and others, which only serve to perpetuate hatred and discrimination among the younger generations. Because of the emotional charge they carry, such words quietly create an atmosphere of intolerance and homophobia, in which young people are afraid to be who they really are. I am not going to lie; at some insensitive point in life I also used these words to make fun of people like me. But of course I did it to “prove” to people around me that I was indeed a “heterosexual.” I think you can only hate what you carry very deep down inside you. If not, why would we waste so much time on a feeling so destructive and painful as hate?
    Many people continue to say they are staunchly opposed to homosexuality; they reject and repudiate it, saying that it goes against human nature. But is there anything more normal than love? What is abnormal—and infinitely cruel and unjust—is to discriminate against someone because of who they are. What is abnormal is to think that there are first- and second-class citizens, and that we don’t all have the same rights.
    That’s what’s wrong. And it is unacceptable.
    Generalizations cause discrimination, and as long as there are still people in the world who are willing to label people according to their nationality, race, gender, sexuality, or the color of their hair, there will always be discrimination. That’s why we have to stop it. In the same way that I never let anyone say anything negative against Hispanics, I will never allow anyone to say anything negative about the gay community in my presence. I will always insist that everyone is treated as an individual, regardless of how society may want to “label” them.
    I wish I could say that I am a homosexual for this or that reason. But I can’t. As far as I know, no one goes around explaining why they like the opposite sex, why they like blondes, or why they like bald people. One feels what one feels, and to try to explain it is not only futile—but wrong. Attraction does not have a logical reason. It simply happens, and as humans, all we do is react to it.
    I have always thought that attraction, like love, is a matter of souls that find one another and collide. Souls aren’t feminine or masculine; they simply find one another, and when there is a connection, when there is something that grabs you and turns your insides, that is when the magic is born along with attraction and love.
    Love has no gender. I have been deeply in love with a man, just as I have been deeply in love with a woman. I have felt that visceral connection, that desire to always be with someone, to know everything there is to know about them, that critical need and passion for another person. So does this mean that because I am a homosexual I cannot feel something intense when I’m with a woman? No. I sincerely believe that souls have no gender, and just as I felt that my world was turned upside down when I first fell in love with a man, I have also felt a very special connection and compatibility with women. But my physical instinct, my animal instinct, and my inner desires ultimately drive me toward men. At the end of the day, I follow my instinct and my nature, period.
    I remember one day, many years ago, after getting out of a