Note: This essay was originally published in a Facebook note in June 2018. Names have been censored for privacy.
Today is the last day of Pride Month.
This is the first Pride Month I really celebrated. Last year, I was alone in Portland, Oregon, planning to move back east to be closer to friends and family. The year before, I was alone in North Carolina, where my mother lives. Same as the year before that. In 2014, my ex-girlfriend, M, and I were busy worrying about our impending moves out of Chicago.
I guess we sort of celebrated Pride in 2013, but I have a hard time counting that. Back then, I wasn’t yet going by Jay; in fact, it’d be over a full year before I started asking my friends to use they/them pronouns for me. I was still, for all intents and purposes, a “baby gay”; M and I had been together for a while, but I was still too shy and scared to hold her hand walking through our neighborhood in Chicago. Fun fact: Andersonville, where we lived for two years, is one of the most gay-friendly neighborhoods in Chicago. And I was too scared to hold her hand.
That’s changed, of course. I won’t shut the fuck up about how unabashedly queer I am these days, and I cannot wait until next year’s Pride Month so I can make out with my girlfriend in broad daylight on the streets of Boston.
This month was awesome. I’ve always had LGBTQ+ friends, but never like this. Maybe it’s because I’ve changed. I’m more out and definitely more proud. It was wild to walk through Government Center in the heart of Boston and seeing all of the other out and proud people there, just as unabashedly gay as I am. North Shore Pride was smaller, but no less awesome. I was moved by the way the beautiful angels with purple wings silenced the protesters that had come to try and rain our parade.
More importantly, though: this past month, I did a lot of thinking on my past. Since I came out as non-binary to friends in 2014, I never once thought, “I’ve been this way my whole life.” I know trans people who have had that experience, but it wasn’t mine. As a matter of fact, when I think on my time in middle and high school, and even at college before transferring, I refer to that person by my dead name, and she’s a girl. And that’s okay to me.
But I do think on that young girl in middle school sometimes, and I wonder how things might be different if she knew about these things at that age. I remember in maybe fifth or sixth grade, I was quite the little tomboy. I wore gym shorts and t-shirts, and I remember my hair had a perpetual wave to it because it was constantly in a ponytail.
I’m not saying that kid was non-binary. But I wonder if she would have thought about it sooner if she had known the language back then.
In seventh grade, I heard the word bisexual for the first time. A friend of mine at the time started using that to describe himself. Up until that point, it was always just “gay” and “straight”. I heard it and thought for the first time, “I like girls. Maybe I’m bisexual, too.”
I remember one night I rode the activity bus home. Mom picked me up, and in the car on the way home, I said, “Mom, I think I might be bisexual.” I remember that she laughed at me, like the thought was absurd. She quickly dismissed, “You’re not bisexual.”
Looking back, I don’t blame my mom for this reaction at all. I don’t think I’d otherwise indicated I could possibly be interested in girls. I probably caught her off guard—not to mention 2004 was a wildly different time. But I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if she’d asked, “Why do you think that?”
Young boys and girls are crushing on and dating and kissing each other by that time, so why is it always seen as so absurd when a child indicates they might like someone of the same gender? I wish someone had told younger me that it’s okay to question and explore.
In high school, I never dated. I’m sitting here right now thinking back on those years, and I think I maybe had one partner.
I remember that really frustrated me because most of my friends were dating and having those experiences, and I was not. It wasn’t even about girls at that point; I just wondered what was wrong with me that no boys even spared me a second glance.
It wasn’t until senior year that I met a girl online, and I liked her. I really liked her. She lived near one of the college campuses I was going to tour, and I remember the butterflies I got when we met. After I came home from that visit, I went to the movies with two of my best friends at the time. When I confessed that I really liked this girl to them, I gave the addendum that I wasn’t gay. I wasn’t even bisexual. This girl was just my “exception”.
I remember one of them looking at me so perplexed but still smiling and said, “I don’t care about that. If you’re happy, I’m happy.”
College was when things really started to change for me. I began to seriously realize that one girl hadn’t just been my “exception”, and freshman year, I heard the term “pansexual” for the first time. It felt fitting then. I started coming out to friends that this was a possibility.
One of the most vivid memories I have of that was during rehearsal for Into the Woods that spring. I was standing beside one of the other leads, and out of the blue, I turned to him while the directors were talking, and I said, “I just want you to know, I think I’m pansexual. You know, liking everyone regardless of gender.”
He beamed at me and said, “That’s awesome. Thanks for telling me. Did you know I’m bi?”
The more comfortable I got telling my friends, the more I realized I wanted to tell my mom. My best friend at the time, R, decided we would try to go to a concert near where my aunt lived just a few hours from our campus. My mom said she’d meet us there that weekend for a short visit since it was only a couple of hours away.
Before we left for the concert, I said, “Mom, there’s something I want to tell you.”
She encouraged me to tell her, but I said I wanted to do it privately. My aunt insisted that whatever I had to confess to my mom, I could say in front of her and my cousin. This was not the way I envisioned coming out.
(Also, for the record, no one should ever, ever, EVER feel pressured to come out to people they don’t want to come out to. I wish younger me had saved herself the agony and had put her foot down and insisted otherwise. But, I digress.)
Anyway, this wasn’t living up to how I’d imagined things. As we all sat down around the table, with me in R’s lap, my heart was pounding and I thought I was going to throw up. R held my hand and squeezed me, and I made myself look around at everyone around the table. I started crying when I said, “I’m pansexual.”
There was some confusion, of course. The word wasn’t as common then as it is now. I explained the meaning, and my aunt was quiet for a minute before saying, “That makes sense for you.”
It ended up not being a huge deal at all. My mom, of course, is one of the most accepting people I know. She’s supported me in pretty much every aspect of my life, but I still cried that day out of fear and out of relief when acceptance came. Maybe it’s because I remembered how she’d reacted in seventh grade. I can’t say for sure.
I didn’t even realize there was more beyond trans men and trans women until a friend of mine came out to our friend group as genderqueer when I was still a sophomore in college. I think. Actually, I can’t remember when exactly, but it was before I moved to Chicago.
I still get a little embarrassed when I think back on that. I was ignorant then; the people in the chat were calling my friend a shortened up, more gender neutral version of their full name, and I kept calling them the full name. They messaged me privately to use the shortened version instead because of how they were identifying.
I remember the day M and I met. December 26th, 2011. She was my first real relationship with a woman, and she completely changed my life. We’re not together anymore, duh, but she has remained one of my closest friends in the whole world, and I know she’s gone through her own long journey through queerness, just like I have.
So why the hell am I writing this essay? I’m sure you’re all wondering that right now: “Thanks for that nice little window into your life, Jay, but what’s the point?”
I think the point is, for the first time in a long time, I’m finally feeling totally, completely comfortable in myself, at least in regards to my identity. It’s taken a really, really long time to get here, but I’m glad I made it.
The point is, if a child tells you they like someone that’s the same gender as them, you should encourage that because they’ll remember that. And they’ll remember if you don’t.
The point is, you should be talking about your trans and non-binary friends without hesitation to your children because that child might grow up questioning their identity one day, and they’ll have the language to articulate themselves a lot sooner than I did. Kids are smarter than you think. They’ll understand it if you tell them the truth.
The point is, compulsive heterosexuality is real, and it is a HUGE burden. The whole time I was with M, I thought, “I’m not repressed! I was never repressed!” Oh, honey. You were repressed as hell. Let your questioning and baby gay friends know it’s okay. They don’t have to be scared.
The point is, learn from those around you. If you make a mistake, don’t pull that stupid, guilt-y, “Oh my god, I’m such trash. I’m sorry. I’ll never get it right,” bullshit. Just do better next time. It’s possible to expand your knowledge and be better in the future.
The point is, it is never too late to change and be who you really want to be.
Happy Pride, y’all.