There has always been a refusal to accept the different. The different bothers because it highlights something in ourselves that we don't like and, therefore, we reject, criticize, and don't want to discuss.

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Since adolescence, we seek any identity with the group to which we belong. We seek the same clothing brands, the same common gestures, the same Christmas toy. At this age, we want our parents to be like our friends' parents, and nothing should deviate from this model that has been deemed correct and normal.

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What deviates from this pattern is considered abnormal, bad, and subject to punishment. It deserves to be punished and should be treated as a mortal sin. Poor us, mere mortals, who believe in this chaotic order.

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Not accepting the different is not accepting oneself first and foremost; but it mainly means killing the diversity and greatness that we are, or that we can be. Not respecting differences is putting an end to the potential that we are, as thinking heads endowed with reasoning. It exterminates the best of our essence to the detriment of a common place where everyone can reach, and where the lack of creativity and life are inherent.

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We are what we are born as; the environment only transforms us into something worse or better, nothing more. It gives us the necessary tools for the fight, but it does not teach us to fight. The task of learning to fight is done by each of us, and it will only be present when we do not accept being just another one, when we want to make a difference through our differences.

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As long as gays, lesbians, transgender people, and all other minorities continue to feel like victims, the situation will remain the same. Massacres will continue to be committed, and atrocities will continue to be blessed by humanity, by governments, and by the church.

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It's time to change the discourse, to start fighting, and not just count our dear dead. It's time to say ENOUGH to those who have always imposed a fatal sentence on us for being who we are: fighters who use the differences that so enrich us as weapons of combat and survival.

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© Maite Schneider
Vice President of the June 28 Paranaense Institute of Human Rights
maite1@uol.com.br