~ I am the girl kicked out of her home because I confided in my mother that I am a lesbian. ~ I am the prostitute working the streets because nobody will hire a transsexual woman. ~ I am the sister who holds her gay brother tight through the painful, tear-filled nights. ~ We are the parents who buried our daughter long before her time. ~I am the man who died alone in the hospital because they would not let my partner of twenty-seven years into the room. ~ I am the foster child who wakes up with nightmares of being taken away from the two fathers who are the only loving family I have ever had. I wish they could adopt me. ~ I am not one of the lucky ones. I killed myself just weeks before graduating high school. It was simply too much to bear. ~ We are the couple who had the realtor hang up on us when she found out we wanted to rent a one-bedroom for two men. ~ I am the person who never knows which bathroom I should use if I want to avoid getting the management called on me. ~ I am the mother who is not allowed to even visit the children I bore, nursed, and raised. The court says I am an unfit mother because I now live with another woman. ~ I am the domestic-violence survivor who found the support system grow suddenly cold and distant when they found out my abusive partner is also a woman. ~ I am the domestic-violence survivor who has no support system to turn to because I am male. ~ I am the father who has never hugged his son because I grew up afraid to show affection to other men. ~ I am the home-economics teacher who always wanted to teach gym until someone told me that only lesbians do that. ~ I am the woman who died when the EMTs stopped treating me as soon as they realized I was transsexual. The last thing I heard was them laughing at the freak below them slowly bleed to death as my other transsexual friend yelled at them to save my life. (yes, this actually happened...) ~ I am the person who feels guilty because I think I could be a much better person if I didnt have to always deal with society hating me. ~ I am the man who stopped attending church, not because I don't believe, but because they closed their doors to my kind. ~ I am the person who has to hide what this world needs most, love. ~I am the person ashamed to tell my own friends im a lesbian, because they constantly make fun of them. ~ I am the boy tied to a fence, beaten to a bloody pulp and left to die because two straight men wanted to "teach me a lesson" ~ I am one of millions who is feared, misunderstood, and hated. We are brought to trial every day by those who could find it in themselves to do this simply because of something that is only a part of who we are. In this unfair trial we are judged for our "crimes" when our only "crime" is that we love. We know it, we have it, we give it without question because it is what is in our hearts. That is my crime. I am guilty as charged.