I want to talk a bit about the word hate, specifically how this word applies to judgments upon people like myself who happen to be married to a person of the same gender and/or being a gender other than the one that was identified at birth.

Hate is an emotion of passion; it is anger and repulsion towards something one cannot wrap their head around or accept. Hate can be violent and often is, at the very least, on an emotional level. Hate is harmful not only to the recipient but to the person who projects it.

I am pretty familiar with hate; I hated gay and transgender people with a passion. I despised them even though I didn’t dare to voice my feelings towards them. I secretly muttered under my breath my dark feelings toward them and was not above glaring hatefully behind the backs of people I suspected might belong to the LGBT community.

More than hating others, I hated myself.

I hated the feelings I had; I hated what I felt fate dealt me.  Hating myself was so much easier than facing the fact that I myself was trans and had attractions I felt were inappropriate. It was so much easier to say I was sick and flawed and even that I should die than to love and accept myself for who I am.

I suffered in hatred for many more years than I should have.

So now, when I see news stories about hate, I take note, but perhaps I do not look at the “hater” in the same light as others might. I ask myself, what made this person so passionate to feel such a powerful emotion about another? What pain haunts this person to inspire such misery gifted not only towards others but themselves?

When I ask these questions of motivation, the appearance of these folks turns from evil, misguided twits to victims themselves. Hatred never has a good outcome, nor does it ever bring anything positive to anyone.

In my own life, hatred festered in my soul for decades until it nearly drove me to destruction. It was not until I could understand and love others and myself that I could finally get rid of this horrid feeling.

Think about what our world would be like without hate. Think about how enhanced our understanding of ourselves could be if we could share ideas and beliefs without fear or violent or otherwise negative reactions. More so, think about how free we would be living in a world where it was okay to believe whatever it was we believed without fear of the response of others.

Can we as a people overcome hate? Can we make the world the way we want? Go ahead and hate me for my opinion if you feel you must, but I believe we can.