I definitely hope things pick up and more folks offline'll treat ya nicer like folks here can! (: It can be especially tough for any adult since we don't often go meet with new folks, but I hope wherever ya work next if ya do has more people that'll actually treat ya kinder! I'm always hoping for ya. (:

Thank you, Nishi. Put simply I got a nasty letter last night that I had to follow up on today in which had unsavory results. So the best I could do is poetry to ease my mind.

The hardest part is how the Mrs. wasn't exactly happy with how I used the Rainfeather picture I had done to show what makes me happy over on Facebook. I know she doesn't like that side of me but it is what works to make me happy and stay positive amidst all this stuff.

I'm just glad I got more poetry done. It is nice to make something yucky into something more positive.

T needs to chill out. It isn't negative, it's your space to express stuff and this isn't like it's anything she hasn't known for years. Feelings can't be helped, but actions sure can.

Working the right balance between my coping mechanisms has been quite the bugger. But I'm hopeful my latest round of therapy will do the trick. Especially since I have much more rooted material to dig up to help me become a better person.

I hope so, because it's been years of you saying that you didn't feel respected by your partner and seeing the processes of "well, if I do this, them this time I'll surely be respected" in uncomfortably familiar. This isn't to say that I'm trying to reduce anyone to victim or victor here, just that even in good elationships there can be some not good or even unhealthy patterns.

I see a lot of what you're getting at here. I may actually feel this even more at times, and then other times it's completely gone. But if you're talking about what I think you're talking about then you took the words right from my mouth.

The poetry I write is about how I feel about a series of things in which surface at a given time. Though I do try to make them as open-ended as possible so that they can be interpreted by readers in ways in which could be insightful to all of us.

That's what's so great about poetry.

The struggle to be accepted isn't one that is always proper, I think. If LGBT Studies has taught me anything, its that anything involving the "outside world" is just that, outside, othered, and onto this othering its reflected back onto us as being othered by that world as well. The difference is that we're trained and our society values these norms that are not necessarily normal to be a part of; and its our ability to cope with fitting into the molds of society's expectations that often gauge true success. It's similar to what my dad said about moving around so much "You have to go where the work is." - or as I could parody as "You must become the next ideal job seeker".

It must be really difficult for you, because you are a father, married to who sounds like a lovely mother with an adorable and supportive son; these are all things that are really normative in our society. Your relationships and kin are both defining you and defining what isn't you at the same time; defining you through your love and desire to be dedicated to your family and defining what you aren't through the heteronormative assumptions. I could only imagine the thoughts in some peoples' head who just don't understand life in the ways that people like us can, and they must think some very ill things; otherwise, you'd probably not have nearly as many troubles as you do as of late.

I offer this: the notion of refusing acceptance as a radical, queer, and self-defining movement that seeks to remove what people see from you and demands it be transformed into what you want them to see. I would encourage you to sit down with this piece and really think about the ways in which acceptance is an empty promise for somebody whose image is compromised due to elements out of his control, and what kinds of demands I'd want in response.

Naturally, these are the things I think of in this reading, and I would feel no harm if you didn't agree with it on any degree. Either way, I hope we can find someway to remove the unneeded scrutiny placed on you through your identity as a father, somebody facing disability, and as this creative identity rooted through the internet. I'm certain if we can find a way that you can sustain these identities, we could offer you some peace (and I mean we as our society as a whole). I hope this happens.

Man, if I had any idea that gender identity or sexuality were something that was okay to be talked about or discussed when I was much younger I would have saved myself about 2 decaes of hurt.

I'm in my capstone class for my LGBT Studies Certificate of Study, which discusses "Queer Futures", which begs the question "What is the future of Queer, who are a part of it, what does it look like and can it exist?"

This draws a lot of attention to Edelman's "No Future" essay which attacks what he calls the "Figurative Child", the idea that a child is something that is innocent and has to be protected at all costs. He asserts the very true idea that, say about a century ago, the child wasn't seen as the most important and coveted thing. Back then, if a child was wandering the streets of a city and something bad happened to them, they'd blame the child because the city isn't any place for a child. Today, the same narrative has us remembering commercials like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBy9VDEWKOE and thinking of Anita Bryant's out lash to Floridian homosexuals in her campaign to "Save the Children".

Now we are discussing a book by Halberstam called "The Queer Art of Failure" which discusses this scene from Little Miss Sunshine, one that depicts childhood sexuality - something that is seen as impossible in our current public lens https://vimeo.com/93427092 . While we discussed the ways this relates to the discussion of Low Theory and Queer Art, it does resemble the ideas we discussed as well that children are not nonsexual bodies.

Lastly, I also think about in response to your reply about my own work from when I first started into my studies in LGBT Studies, when we were asked to write some form of Manifesto discussing the ways we'd try to change the world to better impact LGBT identities. My Manifesto (https://docs.google.com/document/d/.....it?usp=sharing if you are interested) discusses the ways we have to include more perspectives for our youth to understand their worlds better as a whole; through both sexuality and identity. I also make this same argument in another body of work I did for a Professional Writing class https://docs.google.com/document/d/.....it?usp=sharing that discussed the reasons bullying occurs.

In closing, and thinking of the ways which in a world that seem so advanced and progressive, we still find people in between the cracks who feel absolutely out of place, I argue that yes, the topic being so closed and demonized in our public lens does create many issues for people who cannot align themselves with the heteronormative path of life. Having my own first and homosexual experience in the 5th grade at the age of what I believe was the age of 10 completely exposed to my entire class, I led a very interesting and harsh development into bisexuality; one that I question and ponder about daily. I can only hope your experience, while painful and with strife, can maybe become a source of inspiration and empowerment into your own identity; and that you shouldn't feel alone in feeling that way.

Thanks for responding~

Damn, that's a bunch of great reading, thank you.

I on how efforts to protect kids end up doing a lot of harm in a journal entry a few years ago here: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5180306/

Wow, Neo. You truly are a very profound and well educated fellow. It's no wonder I look up to you for your ability to share points through the written word. I definitely aspire to have the fluidity you do with making points that are both understandable yet still quite deep and very thought provoking.

As children we are programmed to think and feel certain ways. This is a matter I've been discussing with a number of folks over the past few months. In particular the bizarre nature of how children between the ages of 0 and 4 are often presented positive media about kindness, sharing, and understanding. However this all changes upon beginning into the education system. It is at this point segregation starts. First it is "Boys do this and girls do that" followed by a growing illustration through media influence on how you should only associate with those like you while not being open to diversity. By the time we reach High School a new mentality is formed that aligns with "Look out for yourself and your best interest" instead of what was initially taught to us as babies and toddlers about the importance of teamwork and valuing those around us as equals.

The above cycle repeats when we have children. We show them love, encourage them to play with other kids despite their race or nationality, and illustrate the importance of non-violent resolutions while reinforcing these through media examples. However once they begin grade school the media they see initiates the segregation cycle all over again until we are where we are today as ignorant adults who fail to see the world beyond the lens we have allowed ourselves to be stuck with.

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It's also interesting how you bring up your experience in 5th grade. My experience in homosexuality came in 7th grade. This is when I was scared for my life being stripped naked in a Jr. High locker room where the teacher insisted we shower after class. Being totally blind in my left eye helped little as I desperately sought a working faucet until I strafed too far to the left and bumped into one of the jocks. He ran out of the shower proclaiming how I was gay and continued to point out to the entire school how I was gay for the next six months. Being in a small town with such a title did me no good since I was already known as "The Blind Kid". Fortunately a skirmish put an end to that. Sadly it gave me a horrible case of homophobia that didn't go fully away until I started palling around with Nishi.

As for children being sexual I can also agree. I recall as early as 3rd grade having a friend who'd ask me to take off my pants and watch me play with my penis. One occasion of this was where he watched from atop a couch as I inserted my penis into a circular plastic thing that had a hole in the center as I twirled my part for his amusement. I don't know why I did it. Perhaps to be his friend but it felt weird. I think the last time he asked me to show my parts to him was actually in a Sunday School classroom. Though the memory is hazy it would've been about 4th or 5th grade and I laid on the yellow table of the empty, closed room and showed him my penis. (We were the same age)

A final note is how I'm hoping to help gain acceptance for people through Coping with Disabilities through Pony. It is a desire of mine to show our equality beyond those facets in which make us queer by any definition of the word. Your support these past years has really been of great help, Neo. If we get accepted for 2015 I hope to see you again.