1. Yenning Lee
August 24, 2009
Period 3
My Lady Story
Some people grow up to become decent adults. I say some because for every good,
moral, god-fearing man, there are drug addicts, thieves, scammers, multi-level marketers, stock
brokers, alcoholics, rapists and child molesters to cancel out any kind of “good” in this
disgusting planet of green, brown and blue. Now where do I fit in? Am I the 5% that gets to enter
the pearly gates or the 95% that is destined to burn for eternity? I don’t know, I believe that the
way you judge a human being is based on your gender, family background, health, age, hobbies,
religion, race and level of pretentiousness.
My name is Anna Bella. Anna as in my name is Ann and Bella as in the Italian word for
beautiful. I was born with the name Antony Bells in a town called Indianapolis. I was born with
a set of male genitalia and an exclusive interest in female Homo sapiens. I could be considered
“normal” (depending on your level of ignorance) all throughout my adolescence. I wear ratty
jeans and ugly monotonous shirts to every social event and occasion. I had an intense interest in
Dragon quest, graphic novels and any female under the age of 40 that looked relatively
attractive.
Everywhere I go, people ask me the same question, “do you like men or women?” and I
will open my mouth and reply “it depends”, leaving the curious interviewer looking dazed and
confused. Isn’t it true though? A relationship cannot be based upon appearance and gender,
there’s something deeper than that. Some relationship phonies like to call the most important
element of a relationship “personality” or “chemistry”, but all this attraction issue just comes
down to one main component: Love. Now you might be asking, why? Why love? Well look at it
this way, you can “like” someone that has a nice personality, or an attractive appearance and
claim that you two have “chemistry” with each other but you would only be fooling yourselves.
Love doesn’t come by that often, it’s not the shallow infatuation that you have for that classmate
or colleague that you stare at for hours on end, dreaming about romantic picnics in the park,
kisses in the rain or walks on the beach. I’m not talking about your girlfriend that you take out
for nice candlelit dinners, your boyfriend that sends you plastic roses every morning or your life
partner that you share the same bed with at night.
Ever heard of the term soul mate?
I believe in love, free love, and by free love I mean that you can fall in love with any
human being that you express this emotion to, as long as it’s legal within your constitution and

2. federal laws. Love is a sacred thing; it doesn’t involve fornication or honeymoons, hand holding
or walks on the beach. There are no set rules to love, if your parents are sane, they love you. If
you are sane, you love your child. If your siblings are sane, they love you and vice versa.
Et cetera.
If you are sane, you love humanity.
Simple as that.
Now you might want to ask the question “if you were born with XY chromosomes then
why do you wear lime green fishnets and sequin dresses?” And I would reply “work”. Every
night in the limelight of New Orleans’ Bourbon streets, I will sing and dance with 50 other
Candy Darlings, Fancy Nancies and Tiffany Tipp-a-me’s. Every night men wearing tuxedos and
business suits watch a raised platform full of men in wigs, fishnets, 9 inch heels, feathered boas
and sparkly eye make up dancing enthusiastically to classic Broadway tracks. Every night these
men-women, these cross dressers, these transvestites earn over 20 Mr. Franklins and still wonder
why their parents refuse to answer their phone calls.
I’ll tell you what it’s called, it’s homophobia. We’re the sinners, we’re the scums and
we’re the sickos. People say it’s a mental disorder but I’ll tell you right now, I didn’t choose to
become like this. Discrimination and prejudice has divided our world since the beginning of
time. Why do we have to be the outsiders? Why do we have to be the ones you look away from
when we walk down the street? What about the men who beat their wives? What about the
mothers that torture her children? What about the kindergarten teachers that molest 5 year olds?
What about them, aren’t they sick too? My tongue recites this same line over and over again, and
there is never any change in this god forsaken world that we live in. We could rally, march and
shout slogans all we want and we would never be accepted in this world, there’s no place for us
no matter how much money we earn or how many books we write. I just want those hateful signs
off my lawn. I just want those key marks off my car. I want to wake up and not be reminded that
I will be going to hell. All the suffering, the discrimination, the tears and the rejections, I want
them all to end.