Inkmarks On Empty Dreams

“My name is Ilem and when I was 13 years old the entire school found out I am lesbian because of a letter I wrote to one of the most popular girls in school, of course, the letter reached the hands of the school board. The truth is, at that time I haven’t even defined myself as a lesbian, and even when I have always liked women, as a kid I thought that was something that only happened to me in the whole world, it was a very distressing feeling and made me feel isolated and abnormal. But the students and teachers did know how to call me: “la cachapera” (it’s an offensive way to say “dyke” in Venezuela).   Of course, the students made me their object of mockery, the boys came to me in groups to insult me during the recess, my classmates gave me nicknames and even some teachers turned a blind eye about the derogatory comments I received at the middle of class. I was very confused and scared, I felt weak and without wheeling. As the gossip runs like powder, the rest of my family, frien...

“I grew up in a series of small military towns. I came out at 11 years old. By the time I turned 19 I lost three friends to LGBT related hate violence. My story is the unconventional casualty of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. In the mid 90s the military was a culture of fear for LGBT service members, but many people don’t realize the DADT culture of fear was also handed down to the LGBT family members of service people. I was the oldest daughter of a teenage mother. My family had no idea what to do with a prepubescent queer kid. This isn’t an uncommon occurrence. 40% of homeless youth identify as LGBTQ. Those figures are pretty remarkable when you realize that LGBTQ youth only make up 3-5% of the general population. Many homeless LGBTQ young people cite family rejection as the cause of their homelessness. I was homeless through out college. It’s an untraditional form of homelessness and very common with college students. I had room and board provided through my scholarship but it only covered t...

“My name is Lorenza , I come from Italy, I’m 25 years old and I’m in love with Ilenia, my girlfriend. I always thought to be heterosexual up to 20 years old, when I fell in love for the first time with a girl. It happened just when I finished high school and I went on a trip through Europe with some friends. There, I realized that my feelings for my friend Ilenia exceeded friendship and I realized I was in love with her. In a short time we became a couple, but I realized that I had a great obstacle to my happiness: my family. My parents are divorced and I have always lived with my mother. My father remarried and had another daughter, my step-sister which I was so attached. When my mother found out about my relationship with a woman, she was suffering from cancer and the world fell on me. I felt responsible for her unhappiness, I felt her biggest disappointment. Right now she began using an offensive language to contact me, refusing to accept me and my relationship. Every day was a stru...

In Arab countries, especially Muslim ones, lesbian love is illegal and religion not only forbids it, but the women are stoned to death as the divine purification, just what happened during Inquisition in Catholic countries of Western Europe, women believed to be Witches were put to death for the cause of religion without much evidence. We're in the 21st century and in the Arab countries women are still seen as goods, recipients for perpetuating the species and the family  and they always include this social mistreatment in matters of religion. God's forbidding it in their interpretation and that's final and love is illegal. God never prohibited love, love is not a sin and women of the Middle East need education and freedom to live, love and believe in their intelligence both mental and emotional that they can evolve and become high individuals on all states of mind and evolution.And we need to help them.    This is Nina's story from Jordan :  “I used to play football in...