Good Boy, Xicano Sol [books for 9th graders .txt] 📗

He came in and sat down with the demeanor of a well-behaved 3rd Grader anxiously awaiting the announcement for recess. As he told his story, it was one that I had heard so many times before and yet each version made unique by the storyteller. He told me that he was tired of living a double life and felt the fragmentation of his reality had a long lasting impact on the quality of his day-to-day living. He had spent so much time in the closet about his sexuality that even when he came out he clung to maintaining a secret identity.

Whether it was cruising the gym locker rooms or random hookups off the internet, anything dealing with his sexuality belonged to a world guarded by secrecy. When asked if he felt that he was doing anything wrong, his quick response was “No, it’s just no one else’s business but my own.” He followed up by saying that he just didn’t want to deal with the judgment from others, but in reality he was dealing with his own judgment that incarcerated his actions. Deep inside he still felt that his sexual actions with men were sinful and therefore cast into the categories of “good” and “bad”.

He thought that others couldn’t see behind his shroud of deception, but the more he tried to hide his secrets, the more glaringly obvious they became to those who cared for him. When he did something “bad”, that is engaging in actions he was conflicted about, he followed up the behavior by doing something “good” to balance it all out. He felt trapped in his own world of rewards and punishment, and it was exhausting.

I commended him on the insight he possessed to his own actions and thoughts. We explored the reality that the judgment he owned was actually the judgment he inherited from societal belief systems that had not yet evolved. He began to understand that if he desired to be “whole” then the fragmentation in his life would have to be mended.

Publication Date: 01-13-2012

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