Authored by Christopher Belden

The COVID-19 pandemic left humanity navigating life in fear, feeling depressed and isolated. Humanity grew universally hopeless as the pandemic dragged on for two years, but for many, the feeling was all too well known because of another pandemic that long-preceded COVID-19 by decades: homophobia and transphobia. 

From an early age, millions of LGBTQ+ youth realized they were different, and most self-censored themselves into a state of isolation as an act of survival. They grew up alone in fear that someone would expose their secret. Once the pandemic hit, the persistent othering and attacks on LGBTQ+ youth spiked as the rest of society began to experience a type of anxiety and fear of uncertainty that characterizes the life of LGBTQ+ youth. However, counterintuitively through all the darkness of the pandemic and anti-LGBTQ+ hate, quarantine was a beacon of light for a portion of the community, such as myself, allowing us to explore and eventually accept who we were born to be. 

When March 2020 came, the mask was gone.

For nineteen years of my life, I lived deep in the closet. Hearing the word “gay” would instantly trigger an anxiety attack. “Do they know? Who else have they told? How did they find out?” My mind would tirelessly stress as my heart raced, ready to explode in shame. This anxiety of exposing who I was started when I was three years old, when I began to realize I was different than my twin in ways that I could not express. It was not until fifth grade when my neighbor blatantly out-of-the-blue asked me if I was gay did I realize that that was it. Defensively, I did not even let him finish his sentence before I interrupted, citing my one-day relationship with a girl in fourth grade as evidence that I was “straight.” It would take me almost another decade and a several-month quarantine finally to accept the fact that I was gay and there was no changing that.

Prior to COVID-19, my authentic self was masked behind the simple phrase, “I have homework.” I masked my secret, my loneliness, and my isolation by investing all my time into my studies with no time for parties or being social. I convinced myself that if I socially distanced myself from other people the chance of my “secret” being exposed would diminish. The only way I saw myself surviving high school was through isolation. 

When March 2020 came, the mask was gone. Having homework was no longer an excuse or a cover for my self-isolation. Not having the option to distract myself with my workload forced me to face reality. Throughout the endless hours of quarantine, I found myself investigating the homosexual feelings I had been experiencing for nearly a decade. Day by day I learned more about myself than I had in the last eighteen years of my life. I slowly became more comfortable with the fact that I was gay and eventually had the courage to “come out.” 

If it was not for quarantine making me face reality, I would probably be the same depressed, easily aggravated person I was in high school. That might have led me to become just another statistic that is all too common for LGBTQ+ youth but yet hardly discussed. In the midst of the fear and anxiety over COVID-19, the ignored pandemic of homophobia and transphobia surged assaulting LGBTQ+ youth. While COVID-19 forced humanity to live in fear universally for the last two years, LGBTQ+ youth have spent their lives in fear. 

Thankfully, my family and friends have accepted me for who I am. However, too many LGBTQ+ youth have unaccepting families that believe emotional and verbal abuse would somehow shake the gay out of them. These LGBTQ+ youth have been some of the most vulnerable to COVID-19’s mental health ramifications. Adding fuel to the fire was the slew of anti-LGBTQ+ bills that have been written and passed not just in the United States but worldwide during COVID-19 with hardly any light shed upon them.

Recently, as the Omicron surge declined, homophobia and transphobia spiked with Florida Governor Ron Desantis signing Florida’s House Bill 1557, more commonly known as the “Don’t Say Gay Bill.” By the stroke of Governor Desantis’ pen, he robbed a parent of being able to see their child every day. Signing this bill is signing the death certificate for that depressed teen who cries themself to sleep feeling like they do not belong, only to leave them to wonder if life is even worth it. Before quarantine, I was that teen who questioned whether it was worth it to be continuously called a f**. I was always depressed, and suicide was always a thought but never an action. However, there are youth out there in a more vulnerable situation than I have ever been, especially those with intersectional identities such as black trans youth. They do not need to hear “it gets better” because it’s easy to say that in hindsight. In the thick of things, they do not know if they can bear one more day. What they need is for Florida Governor Ron Desantis to protect their right to exist as who they were born to be! 

Governor Ron Desantis: How many more need to become a statistic until you finally realize you cannot sign the gay away?

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash