My Journey To Pride

https://youtu.be/Cvwzhcyawcc

"Are You Gay?"   

When I was younger, everyone around me accused me of being gay. As a result, my earliest memories of my life all include trying to convince people that I was not, in fact, gay.

 Of course, people will say that I am exaggerating, but I am not.  More often than not, people either assumed I was gay, asked if I was gay, or suggested that I stopped being ashamed of being gay, but obviously in the closet.

Thinking back to my childhood is very difficult for me, mostly because I don't remember much of it.  

People say childhood amnesia is normal, and it very well might be, but it could also be normal because spanking your kids is normal and also traumatizing. The brain tends to try to block out traumatic experiences. 

What I do remember though is constantly being on the defensive about who I was.  It seemed that everyone I met felt like I was either too much or too little of something for their tastes. 

I remember my uncle telling me I was too "soft" because I cried during a haircut.

I remember my mother's friends daughter telling me one day that "little boys arent supposed to sit in the house, thats what girls do (which i hope she went on to have a fufilling career)". 

I remember pastor Mike who had been "delivered from homosexuality", telling me that I dont need to "tattle tale" on the other kids because "strong men handle things on their own"-even though I was concerned with some of the "games" they were playing. 

It seemed like me just being myself made other people extremely uncomfortable.

At home my mothers top concern seemed to be whether or not I was gay.  She constantly asked me if I had found a girlfriend, even before I had an opportunity even to know or understand what amorous feelings were.  

She closely monitored all of my interests and was keen to let me know which of my interests were "gay" and be sure to express swift disapproval-either through actual physical punishment or emotional withdrawal of affection.  

ABA Therapists would be proud of how consistently she applied punishments when I expressed what she deemed as gay behaviors. 

This same behavior was mirrored through others in my other social circles as well.

The things she and others thought were gay, though, were really just me...existing. People told me that I talked gay, walked gay, and just acted gay.  

When I asked my school bullies, which included boys and girls, for clarification of what I was doing that was "gay" so I could change it-and hopefully stop the bullying, no one could offer any specifics other than "stop acting so white". 

I remember even dating a white girl once, and I broke up with her because  I was told that dating a white girl was somehow gay. 

Growing up in the Church of God in Christ, the one with the purple and the organizational structure built like a pyramid scheme-being gay was the greatest sin one could achieve.  

I remember entire sermons preached on how being gay was a "lust for the self" or how "sissy men" were "laying up" with other "sissy men" and giving them demon aids, which was just gods judgment on them for their wickedness.

I am deeply saddened as I remember how I used to try to talk "in love" to my friend about being gay and how it was a sin. 

I hate that I was born into a belief system that conditioned me to believe that I was somehow loving when I was invalidating others.

As a child, I didn't understand what "being gay" meant outside "you like boys like you are supposed to like girls", but what did that have to do with the way I wore my clothes, or how I talked, or even the things I talked about?

I never understood how people knew something about me that I didnt know.  

I remember asking jeeves how do I know if I am gay? I remember being afraid that I was gay and didn't realize it...I remember being so terrified that I was going to burn in hell for all eternity. 

I remember being so ashamed and also just confused and stuck.

I heard that being gay was a choice and I also heard that people were just born gay.  

I remember distinctly feeling like this word "gay" does not fit with me. I do not feel like I am gay, and I don't like boys like that, and everyone around me is telling me that I am gay and just don't know it yet. 

So if everyone around me is saying it, if my mom is so concerned about it being true, then maybe I am gay and just haven't accepted it.

I honestly felt bullied into being gay. 

In college, I would sometimes tell people that I was gay.  To stop the comments and sometimes, to fit in.  

I remember being called out by a very lesbian woman who asked "do you just say that so people will like you".  The funny thing is; honestly, I didn't know. 

My ex wife thought that I was gay when we first met.  In fact, on one of our first "not-a-date" which was really just me drunk at a club acting more confident than I ever would have sober-she asked at the end of the night if it would be weird if we had sex. 

 That question always plagued me and throughout our entire marriage, I never asked her why she asked me that.  

And post-divorce (with the context I have that I am not going to give) it seems so damn obvious now as to be embarrassing.  She just left off the first part of the question, 

"[Because you are obviously gay]" would it be weird if we had sex? 

Now that I know how to speak up for myself, I may have asked, "Weird for whom?"...I digress

I have lived in this world of gay or not gay my entire life.

 Unfortunately, those seemed to be the only two options, and I lacked a language that adequately described my feelings on my sexuality.  

Hell, I never even got to define sexuality for myself. 

It wasn't until Coronavirus that I had the time and space to ask myself questions and come to understand my sexuality on terms that made sense to me.

I know that there is an entire school of thought on this called gender studies and that is great, but this is about my own personal growth and journey. 

Kudos to Dr. John Money for publishing his theories on gender and the construct of gender and Dr. Money was not a black man living in the conservative south when he came up with them.  

During Coronavirus I realized several things about myself. 

I do not like dating as most people understand it and all the time I spent looking for a partner in real life and on dating apps was simply because I never thought that "NOT" doing that was an option. 

I was simply addicted to the dance inherent in intimate relationships. 

There is a difference between liking someone and enjoying the feeling of chasing them.  

I am a male.

 I identify as male and enjoy presenting with traditionally defined masculine traits. 

Still, there are things that other people associate with being a man that I do not identify with—namely, the inability to express or share any emotion traditionally defined as feminine. 

That also includes fashion, word choice and usage, and the entirety of my non-verbal cues. 

I enjoy dramatic dangly earrings that are "for women".  I like to wear makeup, and by wear, I mean get raccoon eyes and just put it everywhere like a middle schooler just figuring out that they are not born with it, it isn't Maybelline, it maybe is a little too much eyeshadow.

I like being different, weird, eccentric and expressing my energy in ways other people find uncomfortable. For example, in ways they might describe as "gay" because they don't understand what the Q in LGBTQ means.

And up until Coronavirus, neither did I. 

 I did not think that "queer" was a word that could describe me because I was not gay. I don't know why I thought "liking men" was a requirement to "be queer." 

Ok, yes I do. I grew up in an environment where any expression of behavior that was not within my "small town" norm, was somehow "gay" and I had internalized the idea that if I were going to express myself in a more feminine fashion, then I must also accept that I must somehow like men too and be repressing it.

I was happy with the label of queer and even used it to describe myself when I was a guest on The Money Sessions Podcast with Tiffany McClain and it too has its limitations. 

 There is debate within the LGBTQIAPK community about the appropriateness of this term and whether or not "queer heterosexuality" is trying to have all the "good bits" of being in the alphabet mafia without all the threats of violence, gay-bashing, and adult shame that go along with it.

I do not find any sexual attraction to men and yet I still do feel as though I am a "queer" man, which would make me a "queer heterosexual". 

To those who would say I am appropriating an experience... I would say, but like what about my experience? 

I am not gay and I still experienced not just the threat of violence but actual violence because others perceived me as gay, I have been called "a bundle of sticks" more times than I can remember, and I constantly have to deal with other peoples discomfort around me when I express myself fully.

All the while, I have not experienced any of the "good bits" of being in the alphabet mafia, namely- a sense of community and understanding around a shared experience.

I know exactly the struggles, the discrimination, and the shame associated with being LGBTQIAPK and still feel guilt for wanting to associate because somehow I feel like I don't belong.

Which letter can I claim?

The issue of identity has come again for me because everyone keeps asking me what my pronouns are.  I honestly have no clue because I have never been allowed to ask myself the question without someone else doing it for me.

After many nights wrestling with the discomfort and searching for the proper way to refer to myself and my sexuality, I had an epiphany.

It doesn't matter.

It is such a simple solution and often the best ones are, but it truly does not matter what I profess to be because it will never overshadow what someone else thinks I am.

The specifics of my sexuality are only important to the person I am expressing myself and me. Therefore, the only person who has even a slight right to be curious about my sexuality is a person who is interested in being sexual with me.  

Once I realized it didn't matter, I decided to refer to myself as a queer man in public and professional spaces.

I will be a queer man to all of the people who meet me and ask me why I wear makeup. 

 I will be a queer man to all the people who wonder why I dress the way I do. 

I will be a queer man to everyone who asks me why I wear colored contacts.

I will be the eccentric, odd, and strange question in their lives that they project their insecurities on because they are afraid to ask themselves a question they so desperately want to answer by comparing my answer to theirs. 

I refuse to continue to help people feel more comfortable in their sexuality by allowing them to question me about mine.  They are asking the question to the wrong person. 

I have never celebrated pride month as a participant.  I have been a protester, I have been a supporter, but never a participant.  

I am proud to be queer and when people say, yeah I can see that but like what kind of people do you date, I will simply ask them

Why are you asking, do you wanna fuck?