Oct 27 2008
Speech I’m Going to Give
This is a speech I’m going to give to a group of students at UMass. I’m on the Speaker’s Bureau for the Stonewall Center. It’s UMass’ student group for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) students. I’ve been on the Speaker’s Bureau for about 3 years now and I really enjoy it. It’s good practice for my speech impediment. Your vocal cords are muscles and if you don’t exercise them, which in my case includes talking to people who aren’t used to me talking, you tend to lose muscle function.
I’m Martina. I’m 32. I’m bisexual. I’m a person of color. I’m in a wheelchair; yes, people in wheelchairs do have sex and I’m very annoyed that some people think that you need to rank your identity the way NCAA ranks football teams. This is so annoying for me. I swear the next time someone asks me what I am first, I’m going to hit them in the face or at least I’ll tell them I want to. I had one piece of advice for allies it would be to support your LGBT friends and classmates in accepting who they are in all the identity categories to which they belong. I know I would’ve appreciated such a person when I was first coming out.
My coming out story is typical, despite my disability. When I was an adolescent, I knew I was different. I knew I liked both males and females, but I didn’t know there was a word for it. I was scared that if I told anyone, they would label me a freak of nature or something.
The first day of college I made a new, gay friend. He told me he was going to a GLBU meeting, my college’s equivalent of the Stonewall Center. This was the 90’s, so we didn’t think about being inclusive to trans people, perhaps as much as we should have. I didn’t know what the “B” stood for either. My new friend explained that that meant “Bisexual”. I said, “What’s that?” He explained it to me. I was so happy I cried, literally. I said, “I’m normal! Not deviated!” Of course it couldn’t be that easy, people don’t just come out over night. It took me 7 months to come out fully and I really hurt the person who I loved the most at that point in my life. She was very nice and forgave me, however.
The reason that I’ve given you all a printed copy of my speech is to accommodate my speech impairment, which is the result of my disability. Whenever I give short speeches, especially on panels like this, I find it easier to give people a hand out because they’ll be able to follow along. However, I obviously can talk and will be happy to answer any questions. If you don’t understand what I say during the Q&A session, just ask me to repeat myself. I promise that I won’t yell at you. I’m used to it.
