Expose and Comment

This project is the one I was looking forward to the most. Coexistence is something very near and dear to me. My friend Reymond was born as Raeann. We have been friends for over 20 years and as we grew up together I saw the hardships she endured as a gay woman in small town, south western Pennsylvania. I never could understand why she was treated so poorly when she was such a talented, caring, hilarious person with a huge heart. She endured bullies belittling her for being out and emotional issues such as severe depression. Small minded people were the real issue. After we graduated high school Raeann made her way to Philadelphia, where she fit in well in the gay-borhood. She spent her time learning and reading anything and everything in every gay bookstore she could find. Making a name for herself in the LGBTQ community but never feeling quite like she fit in. Something was wrong, something was so wrong that it was causing my beautiful friend to be depressed and nearly suicidal. It took just one amazing book to finally explain her feelings of being an outsider. Raeann, reading her book as she walked home from the bookstore, began to weep as she realized that her problem was not that something was wrong but that she should have been born a he. The world finally started to make sense. This realization lead, many years down the road, to gender transformation. Raeann was finally going to be happy as Reymond. He could finally be himself, feel comfortable in his own skin and be perceived as the man he knew he was inside. Rey still worries about what people will think or do when they realize he is transgender. This is why I wanted to expose coexistence. It doesn't necessarily mean just an alliance between all the major religions. It stands for an alliance between all people, who need to accept that everyone is different, some of us are very different but that isn't something to be afraid of. If you are genuinely curious about a person, ask questions, don't hate them just because you don't understand. This project hit very close to home with the recent shooting at Pulse in Orlando. A man who just couldn't accept that the people attending that club were just different than he was lead a young man to become a mass murderer and to be killed himself. It will never be worth it to hate someone so much that you feel you can't live in the same world. Everyone is different and the sooner that is accepted, than the better off the world will be.

and won't even begin to try.