not mine just an example for taks
11th Grade TAKS Essay February 2004 Score Point 4
The expression on my face showed the shock of what I just heard. My sister just told me she was a lesbian. Not knowing how to react to the news, I just stood there, silent and shocked. Then I thought she must be joking. I had seen her kiss boys before and I knew she had boyfriends.
“No” she said, “this is who I am and I hope you can accept that.”
I didn’t answer. I acted on my first impulse, which was to be ashamed. Walking away from her, I selfishly wondered how it would affect my life. What if people found out? What would they say? Would they think I was a lesbian too? The next morning I went to school. I told no one. I didn’t want anyone to know. I wasn’t very popular and was accustomed to daily teasing. If the news got out my sister was homosexual, I knew not only was the rest of middle school going to be dreadful, but I wouldn’t be able to live through high school. From then on my sister and I had a terrible relationship. I didn’t even want to go out in public with her. I didn’t want to be different from everyone else.
My sister had plenty of friends in high school and some of them had younger siblings in middle school as well, so I guess that’s how someone found out. I was sitting in geometry, glancing around the room, when my daily tormentor strutted up beside me and announced to the class what I had hoped they would never know – that my sister was a lesbian. It only took a second for me to burst into tears and run down the hallway to the restroom. Ten minutes later, I walked back into class. To my surprise not one single person was pointing a finger and laughing. As a matter of fact one girl, whom I had talked to before in class, stood up and said
“It’s all right, my aunt is a lesbian.”
“Yeah,” said Michael, “so is my aunt.”
They all didn’t care. At that moment I realized even if they did care it shouldn’t matter to...