Just had a conversation with my oldest brother. He apologized for teasing me as a child for being gay. The first time he's ever said he was sorry. He thanked me for being a bridge to him and his gay son. He ended with he couldn't hsve asked for a better role model for his son😥😥
People don't understand, my oldest brother was our father figure growing up. After our father walked out in 1988, after my stepfather was murdered in 1995, he was the consistent male figure in our lives. He was very strict with Guyanese mentality. Being gay was NO in his book.
Being someone who wasn't out, I did like to play with dolls since I was 5. He teased me so bad, it terrified me to what to expect as an adult. We would be in Guyana he would literally mock the LGBT community for living in a segregated place away from people. He was just mean.
My older brother was very protective, very loving, very strict but he was ignorant for one of the smartest people I knew. He was brilliant. He was stuck in his culture ways which rejected LGBTQ people and created songs calling for violence and assassination of LGBTQ people.
He was the very last person after my brother and mother because it was like telling my father, shit it was telling my father, I told his wife before I told him because I knew her since I was 17, she knew I was gay because she told him. But after his reaction she left it alone.
If I had to bet who would've rejected me for being gay, I knew my mother and middle brother would accept me but for my oldest brother, that box would be hard to bet on even though I know he have protected me my entire life but when it came to LGBTQ he was so ignorant.
It wasn't like we were not around the LGBTQ, my mother always had the community around as a professional hairstylist in NYC. My mother was always open to people of all kinds and that's how she raised us but either him he couldn't bring himself to be respectful to the community.
When his son was born, around 4 years old, I noticed the mannerism of his son, and I knew he was going to be gay. Fastforward teenage years his son is fully gay and out. He asked me, do you thing, because of him teasing me is the reason he has a gay son, in my head I said yes lol
But I told him, no, being gay is not a Karma, I just hope you now realize people can be born gay, and heterosexuals are responsible for the creation of the LGBTQ community. Without heterosexuals LGBTQ community wouldn't exist because y'all give us life, so protect your son.
Through out the years, I mentored his son, counseled my brother, helped him communicate with his son, who is gay. It's like we found a new way to connect beyond brotherhood and we have built a stronger union. Same obstacles that broke us, are the same ones that unite us.
Today apology was more than an apology, and it's one I accept with my whole heart.
