“If You Only Knew What It Cost Them”

You said you loved him.
That you only wanted what was best.
That it was just a phase.
That you were trying to save him.
That you didn’t hate anyone — you just didn’t understand.

But now, there’s a chair at your kitchen table that will never be filled again.

People always think there’s more time.
More time to come around.
More time to talk it through.
More time to say the words that should have never been withheld:
“I love you exactly as you are.”

But hate doesn’t always look like slurs or fists.
Sometimes it sounds like polite disapproval.
Sometimes it wears the face of religion.
Sometimes it sits quietly at the dinner table — and never says a word.

And then one day, it wears black to a funeral.

He told you who he was.
You told him he was wrong.
She showed you her truth.
You tried to correct it.
They asked you to see them.
You chose not to look.

Now a name is carved into stone, and suddenly, love floods your mouth like an afterthought —
but no one is left to hear it.

And the truth, though no one dares speak it at the service, is this:
That child did not leave this world by choice.
You didn’t protect them. You punished them for existing.

People say LGBTQIA+ youth are more likely to die by suicide.
But the numbers don’t explain the why.
Not fully.

They don’t explain the long years of hiding.
The threats.
The shame.
The prayers prayed over them like exorcisms.
The way love was made conditional —
and how acceptance was dangled like a prize for being someone else.

This is not about politics.
It’s not about opinion.
It’s about lives.
Lost ones.

It’s about mothers standing over caskets.
Classmates writing eulogies instead of yearbook messages.
Siblings staring at unopened birthday cards they bought too early.

So if you still call it a “lifestyle,”
If you still think it’s “just confusion,”
If you still say, “I don’t hate them, I just don’t support it,” —
then you are part of the problem.
Even if your hands never touched them,
your silence left bruises just the same.

They didn’t need your permission to exist.
They needed your protection.
And now it’s too late to give it.

If you only knew what it cost them to survive your silence,
maybe you would’ve spoken sooner.

Don’t mourn what you refused to love.
And don’t look away from what’s still happening — every single day.

There are queer kids out there tonight
crying quietly under their covers,
hoping someone — anyone — will choose them over their own fear.

Choose better.

---

But How Is This Still Happening?

It’s 2025.

We have flown rovers to Mars, built AI that can write books, grown organs in labs… and yet —
trans children can’t go to the bathroom safely in certain U.S. states.
Queer teens are being told their identities are “inappropriate.”
Books are being banned. Rights reversed. Histories erased.
And adults in positions of power are not only allowing it — they’re celebrating it.

This is not an age of misunderstanding.
It’s an age of manufactured fear.
Of willful ignorance.
Of leaders who know exactly what they’re doing when they turn entire identities into talking points.

Hatred isn’t always born.
It’s taught. It’s spread. It’s systematized.

---

The System Was Built This Way — And It’s Time to Tear It Down

What we are watching is not confusion.
It’s a pattern.

A centuries-old strategy:
Dehumanize what you don’t want to understand.
Control what you fear.
Erase what threatens your illusion of “normal.”

And it’s not new — it’s just wearing different clothes.

The same systems that tried to “cure” gay men,
that locked up trans women,
that mocked queer love in sitcoms,
are still here.
They just have more funding. More laws. Better PR.

If you think this doesn’t affect you, think again.
Because any society that can justify hate to preserve comfort
will eventually turn on anyone who doesn’t fit the mold.

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Where We Go From Here — A Series That Speaks Truth

This isn’t a blog for pity.
It’s not for debate.
And it’s certainly not for performance.

It’s a call to see what’s happening.
To feel it.
To question what you were taught, and why.

Over the next four entries, we’ll go deeper:

➤ 1. “Why Do You Hate Them?”
An unflinching look at where anti-LGBTQIA+ bias comes from — faith, culture, politics — and what it really costs to uphold those beliefs.

➤ 2. “You Said It Was About the Children”
A takedown of the lie that these attacks are “about protecting kids” — and an exposé on what truly harms them.

➤ 3. “The Mirror You Refuse to Face”
A post for the “I’m not homophobic but…” crowd. A challenge to confront soft hate, passive silence, and the subtleties of cruelty.

➤ 4. “We Are Not Going Away”
The finale. A declaration. A love letter. A line in the sand.
Because after all the grief, rage, and truth —
there’s still hope, still fire, still future.

---

This series won’t make everyone comfortable.
That’s not the goal.
The goal is to make silence impossible.

Because if you’ve read this far,
you already know — deep down —
this isn’t just someone else’s fight.

It’s yours too.

 

-Thîrteen