Truth & Advocacy By Calvin-Lee Hardie – Inverness

I see it.

The laughter reactions. The quiet profile views. The clicks without comments. The same few names showing up again and again — not to support, not to ask questions, not to understand… but just to watch.

Maybe you think I don’t notice.

Maybe you think you’re being subtle.

Maybe you think a silent smirk or a quick scroll doesn’t register.

But it does.

Because I know exactly what it looks like when people are more interested in the version of me they created than the truth I’m now telling.

Some of you laughed when I posted about what I’ve been through.

Not because it was funny — but because you expected me to stay quiet.

To hide. To vanish into the mess they made of my name.

You didn’t expect clarity. You didn’t expect resilience. You definitely didn’t expect consistency.

But I didn’t write this blog to play by your expectations. I wrote it to undo the damage your kind of silence allows to spread.

I’m not here to entertain you.

I’m here because I was publicly misrepresented — and privately erased — and I chose to do the thing none of you did: speak.

I get it. It’s easier to laugh than to reflect.

It’s easier to gossip than to admit you were wrong.

It’s easier to point and mock than to ask yourself why someone needs to build a platform just to tell the truth about their own life.

But if you keep coming back, that means something.

You don’t keep watching someone who doesn’t matter to you.

You don’t monitor someone whose voice you truly believe doesn’t count.

You’re watching because the story changed.

You’re watching because I didn’t fall apart.

You’re watching because part of you knows the power of what I’m doing — and it unsettles you.

And that’s okay.

You’re allowed to be uncomfortable.

But don’t mistake my truth for a performance. Don’t confuse my posts for pity. Don’t laugh because you’ve got nothing left to say.

I don’t need your approval.

I don’t need your permission.

And I definitely don’t need your emoji.

What I needed was space to speak — and I built that myself.

What I needed was a voice — and I found it in the very place they tried to bury it.

What I needed was to stop asking for fairness and start demanding it — and that’s exactly what this blog is.

So if you’re still here, watching silently, reacting loudly, or waiting for me to stop — you might be disappointed.

Because I’m not going anywhere.

Because I’ve already said too much to be quiet again.

And because the people who actually need this — the ones who’ve been misrepresented, mocked, and misunderstood — they deserve more than a silence disguised as strength.

They deserve someone willing to speak when others scroll.

They deserve someone who doesn’t flinch when people laugh.

And if that has to be me — so be it.

I won’t hide.

I won’t soften.

I won’t apologise for making the truth uncomfortable.

Not for you.

Not for anyone.

— Calvin-Lee Hardie