Episode 10 - Is Queer

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Is Queer

I'm queer. 

I'm pansexual, really. But above all else, I'm queer. I've always been queer. Before I knew what to call it, in a time when Rent was my identity, and television was extremely problematic. In a time when Matthew Shepard's murder showed us what society was capable of. 

I grew up in NY, surrounded by queer role models. My mom was queer, even though she later redacted and said it was a phase. Her best friends were queer. They always had me repeating back queer phrase when I was in my young parroting phase of life. "I read you like a trashy novel" is still my favorite of these phrases. Ballroom culture was part of me before I even knew what it was. Glitter, leather, gold lamé, feathers and rhinestones were at the center of my world. 

As I grew older I yearned for the dramatics, the theater, the color of life. I also really wanted to kiss girls as much as I wanted to kiss boys. When I was in the 10th grade, I had a friend over. She told me she was into girls, I admitted the same. And so she kissed me, in the laundry room of my mother's apartment complex. 

I came out. As best I could. Everyone I knew and trusted took it in stride. "You're queer? Yeah, so is everyone else", and we moved on with our lives. My mother accepted it but insisted it was a phase, continued to push that until my 20s. I never quite understood at what point she'd realize the "phase" had gone on too long to be a fucking "phase".

I held hands with girls at school, to which older, popular boys found issue. We got pushed into lockers, called dykes, threatened with head shaving, etc. The school was no better. I got kicked out of several dances for showing up with a female date. 

My senior year was easiest. Columbine happened and suddenly we didn't care to treat each other like shit anymore. We suddenly had common ground… we didn't want to die. We all hung out together, partied together and genuinely cared for one another. It was really nice.

Years passed and I became more confident in my queerness. Hanging out in the Village, going to gay clubs, attending pride parades (even marched once or twice), just living my best life. I found dating difficult as there is a stigma that bi/pansexuals are not dateable. That they are flighty and really want to kiss women to turn on their men. Infuriating. For a long ass time I felt like I didn't have a place in either the LGBT+ or hetero worlds. I was… something else. 

Luckily times have changed. While there are still stigmas, it's become more and more okay to be yourself, however you identify. We see things as spectrums now, as they've always been. Flowing, fluctuating, evolving with time. 

I'm queer. Maybe everyone is… a little bit at least.

Episode 9 - Has Been Attacked

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