When I was 13 I began to have my first experiences with hate.
Girls being mean to each other, just to be mean.
I couldn't understand why it was necessary.

When I was 14 my parents sat me down the night of the Supreme Court decision that gay marriage was protected by the Constitution.
They told me that they believed love is love and that they had friends that were overjoyed, tearful, because they could finally marry each other.
I couldn't understand why it wasn't ok before.

When I was 15 I started to come out as an ally to the LGBTQ+ community and speak love as a Christian despite people around me believing that gay marriage was wrong.
I was beginning to see the reality of the struggles that people of minority faced that I had never dealt with.
I couldn't understand why Christians who believed in love wouldn't support all kinds of love for people that obviously needed it.

When I was 16 I figured out I wasn't just an ally and came out publicly as bisexual and had an overall positive response.
But slowly I began to notice that my friends I'd known for years were quietly treating me differently, putting a little more distance between us and my mother, my own mother, wondered if it was ok for girls to sleepover anymore since I might have sex with them now.
I couldn't understand why this made me different, I was still exactly who I had always been, just a version that helped me make more sense of myself.

Now I am 17.

Now I am 17 and I'm beginning to understand the sheer reality of how complicated and screwed up this world is.
I am beginning to understand how to be an ally isn't just saying a few words in support, it's fighting by their side in ways that they lead.
I am beginning to understand the emotional turmoil that minorities face because of the way people treat them just because they're different than the majority, because I'm living it myself.
I am beginning to understand that this supposed land of the free, this supposed world that is said to have changed so dramatically for the better really has not, has only hidden the pain and hurt better.

But I still don't understand why it is this way.
Why people don't see it, stop it, end it.

What made me blind to it when I was young?
And how do we remove that mask of not understanding?