#outober

"Goddamn the Quota, anyway."

"Heh, nothing we can do. No use spitting brimstone about it."

"He seems like such a nice kid. I hate to do this to him. Kid doesn't have the exoskeleton for it. 'Skin for it?' Whatever the humans say."

"Aren't you always the one saying they need as many nice people as they can get? Seems like you of all people should be ecstatic over this little morsel joining their ranks."

"Who knows if he'll even still be a nice kid by the time he finds his people? Go look at his parents' memories, it's not going to be a pretty time for him. I hate doing this, Zephriel."

"Oh don't sigh all heavy like that! You know I can't stand that pout!"

"I think it would bother me less if we got the cases with accepting families, or even an aunt who's like them so they don't feel so alone. Seems like you and I are always on Quota Balance duty."

"Careful, you start talking like that, people will think you're against the Quota--here, hold his eyelid open, I'll do it--and then where will you be?"

"Well, maybe I am against the Quota. Careful, he's rousing a little."

"Bah! Then hold him steady, will you? Anyway... you know the rule, some get placed in G-class homes, some get placed in P2-class homes like this. You know the new management can't stop talking about 'Quota-this', 'Quota-that'."

"I just don't see the worst that could happen if all of them got to grow up G-class."

"You're not human, you wouldn't understand anyway, Posarion. They seem to prefer it this way. Alright, there, this one's all done. Heh heh, rest easy while you can, kiddo. What's next?"

"Just up the street. The Meyerson's eldest."

"Meyersons!? New management has a sick sense of humor, maybe tonight will be more fun than I thought. Let's go. What are you doing?"

"Just... giving him a vision is all."

"You're not authorized to do that!"

"I'm just... showing him who he's going to be, just a sneak peak, just enough to maybe guide his way. You're not going to report me?"

"Bah! Of course not. You're a ball and chain, Posarion, but you're my ball and chain."

this is what t4t relationships are like

anyway happy early halloween,, here’s my self-indulgent transfem catgirl photo quota for the year

OUTober is here (or been here) so here’s a little essay.

++

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot, these days. And honestly, the worst that could happen is pretty dramatic: I could lose my job, I could lose my home, I could lose my life. Honestly, though, I probably won’t have to face any of these ‘worsts,’ and the worst I will likely experience if I hold my boyfriend’s hand in the street or kiss him in a café is some judgmental stares. Maybe some whispers. That’s it.

So why is it so hard for me to express that I’m gay in public? Just thinking about this issue is a little embarrassing, since it doesn’t seem to be a problem other people have. I know a lot of people who have come out of the closet and been outspokenly, joyously queer. They absolutely choose every day and with every encounter whether or not to come out to the new coworkers or strangers they meet, same as I do. I guess maybe they’re just a whole lot braver, more consistently, than I am. Honestly, it’s as if my silence—my reticence—is a constant flare up of the old disease of silence I’ve carried around since my time in the closet.

I got very used to being quiet about being gay. I told myself I was special, that what I was feeling wasn’t homosexual longing, it was something different, and that in my heart of hearts I still was attracted to women. Or realized that being with a woman was more important than any relationship I could ever have with a man. I told myself a lot of lies to protect myself. It was Silence born not only out of fear for what my family and friends would do if they found out I was gay, it was a Silence carefully crafted to protect myself from some nebulous evil. I was raised to think of homosexuality as a sin. I don’t think that anymore. But it’s as if, by practicing silence for so long, it’s grown into a life of its own. An allergic reaction to being myself. As if my ‘natural’ defenses don’t distinguish between potential abandonment by my family and a hard stare from a stranger in a restaurant.

Years later, I still default to Silence, to keeping my hands to myself when I’d like to be holding my boyfriend’s. It shortens every hug. It turns every kiss into a staring match with the scowling lady across the street. I don’t like being the center of attention, and maybe this is why I don’t feel comfortable in public displays of affection. Maybe it’s just the way I am. The point is, I’ll never really know. Where once it was a coping mechanism, now Silence is a disease that has affected me down to the core of my personality. This benefits the homophobes, of course, since Silence is exactly what they want out of the gay population. It makes me blame myself, which also benefits the homophobes: I’ve traded guilt over one sin for guilt over a sin of a different kind.

This is why Pride is important, it is the dissolution of Silence. No one bats an eye at a commercial for an allergy medication where the relieved sufferers are hiking and playing with broad smiles on their faces, or a yogurt commercial where a well-dressed woman is ecstatic that she’s regular once again. Pride is the cure and the celebration of the cure. Pride is the celebration of taking control of the cancer of Silence, if not defeating it outright. So sometimes it feels like Pride is not for me, and maybe right now it isn’t. I’m still dealing with the Silence, still trying to get on top of it. I don’t have the energy to be a Brave gay every day. I still fear people will hear me listening to Carly Rae Jepsen or see me wearing a rainbow bracelet or staring too long in the underwear aisle or a thousand other phantom signifiers I might be the Other. I have a lot of pride in who I am, don’t get me wrong. When I came out, I did so because something inside me was stronger than the silence. I did it because it had become life and death. That took guts. I’ll always remember what it took to get to where I am. But this internalized homophobia, this Silence, is older and more subtle than my sense of pride. It doesn’t realize I don’t need it like I used to. It demands to come to the fore.

But being Silent is not a sin, and Pride is for me. The impulse towards Silence might be a disease I deal with for the rest of my life, but my Bravery is just as strong, just as lasting, even if it’s a far younger emotion. I too often lament “what happened to the Brave man who told his conservative parents he was gay and that he was going to live a happy life?” and the truth is, that Bravery is as baked into my being as the years of Silence. I need a shift in paradigm, no more thinking of things in terms of sin and retribution, have to stop being envious of the braver gays. Silence is part of who I am, for better or for worse, and I can live with that. If Silence makes me feel ashamed, then at very least I must not be ashamed of the Silence. But Bravery is part of who I am, as well. Bravery is a force which affects my world as much as the Silence, and should be celebrated in every hug (no matter how brief) every kiss (no matter how anxious) every time I allow myself to be myself without turning down the volume or laughing off what I love.

“You know what your problem is?” Kevin jabbed a finger at him, “All you do is complain. There are people who would kill to have for five minutes what you’ve had your whole life!”

“You can’t just bludgeon someone into being grateful for the things you suppose are their ‘blessings’!” Paul shot back. “You have no idea what my life has been like, no matter how well you think you know me. Everyone’s got to fight their own battles, not someone else’s!”

“You’re just avoiding the issue!” There was a fire in Kevin’s eyes. “You go through life pretending to be the victim but you’re not. You’ve had a great life. Just because one little thing goes wrong, you act like you’re one of the underdogs. How insecure can you get?”

“Insecure!?”

“Yeah, insecure! Can’t you find enough meaning in the good parts of your life? Do you have to make up some negative thing just to feel like you’re worth a shit in this fucking world?”

“I’ve dealt with this my whole life! I didn’t just make this up out of nowhere! God, how little do you think of me?”

“You’re avoiding the issue, again!”

“You just say that when you don’t know what to say,” Paul scoffed.

“Everyone’s got their own battles, sure, but yours are objectively not as bad as a ton of other people.”

“But it’s all I know, Kevin! I’m not somebody else, I don’t know what it’s like to have it worse than I have it. Don’t you get that? I can’t believe I have to explain this to you!”

“Don’t patronize me!”

“I’m not trying to!” It had become a shouting match. “No amount of counting-my-blessings is going to fix the fact that I’m going through a really shitty time right now.”

“We all have shitty times, Paul, it matters how you react to them. It matters!”

“And I choose to make the most of what I’ve got—every day! Don’t you see that? God, people aren’t just perfect machines that can take all these shitty inputs and make positive outputs.”

“And yet plenty of people do just that.”

“I can’t believe you’d say something like that. I can’t believe you’d be that naïve.”

“Stop patronizing me!”

“Well do you always do that? Do you always make the best out of every bad situation? You never take the time to wallow in your own problems?”

“At least I can compare my problems to other people’s and recognize how good I have it!” Kevin spat, “I’m not trying to be a dick here, I’m just saying it honestly helps!”

“Of course you’re being a dick! You’re supposed to be my friend, you’re supposed to support me through tough times.”

“That’s what I’m trying to do, I’m trying to get you to realize that you have it better than you think. You don’t need to wallow in this.”

“I would never minimize your problems.”

“You are!” Kevin seethed, “You are right now! I would kill to have what you have! And you pretending like you have it so bad is absolutely minimizing what I go through every day.”

“You’re jealous?!”

“I’m not jealous, I’m just being realistic. My life would be measurably better if I had half of what you have.”

“If you had what I had you would realize it’s not as great as it looks.”

“And if you grew up like I did, you would get how ridiculous you sound.”

When I first started this blog back in 2015, I had very recently come out to about half my family. In a lot of ways, joining tumblr is what I did instead of whatever self-destructive else I wanted to be doing.

Since then, in October, I try to write slapdash little essays about coming out and being out.

I haven't written one in a long time, not just because I've not been on tumblr as often, but also because... I've been out for a while, now. I don't have the immediate experience of coming out anymore--not in the big-ways, anyway. So I sort of thought that I probably shouldn't comment about it anymore.

But maybe I have a few more things to say to those just in the closet and those just out of it. I want to talk about found family.

I know this is one of those phrases that's sort of... all over, now. I'm not going to define the term beyond its own denotation because the definition of 'family' is such a fluid one. You have to supply your own definition. That will make it harder to talk about, yes, but I want to just put forth my observation and leave it to you to see if it applies to you, hm? M'kay.

Queer Youth

Long before I knew I was gay, I knew I was different. I can't say that my connections to boys or girls were fundamentally different than that of my other classmates who ended up straight. But something felt off from a very early age. I think queer people start to realize they are not matching the growing-up program correctly long before they can actually point to queerness as the cause.

I felt this in my family, too. Youngest of my siblings, I had a really firm idea of how I was supposed to grow up, I'd watched my sibs go through it. I didn't know I liked boys, but I knew there were certain things I just couldn't talk about with anybody--especially not my family.

Part of being in my family meant that I could not be gay. So as I grew up and realized, first, that I was not into girls the same way other boys seemed to be, and second, that I was into boys. Shit. I was confident I had the mental fortitude to shake that and live a life with a wife and a family and my parents' blessing and approval. Being gay was quite literally the worst thing they could imagine a human being could do, short of outright murder. This is not hyperbole, this was an explicit statement.

When my family said "We love you", I heard, "We love you so long as you're not gay."

Queer Imagination

They could not imagine one of their wonderful Christian sons could be gay, it was the furthest thing from their minds. They had never even considered what it would mean to try to love a son who is gay. They just had no conception.

I don't interact with my family anymore, and mostly that is my choice. My parents still claim to love me, though they unequivocally condemn me: they believe the best way to love me is to constantly urge me to repent. This is the best they can conceive of "family" with me in it. So I removed myself from it.

They just had no other conception. Neither did I, not of what family was supposed to be. The queer imagination is a powerful thing. We imagine over and over how our family will react when we come out. We imagine--or try!--a world where we fit in. We've asked ourselves questions and imagined whole other worlds because you sort of have to in order to come to grips with your own queerness: there's not as many models of that in the popular consciousness.

But that imagination was flawed, because ultimately I could only build futures with the blocks I had. I look back now at my time with my family, feeling that splinter of otherness lodged beneath every good and otherwise loving memory. What I imagined, even up to a few years ago, was those memories, that happiness, with the splinter removed. That seemed the best I could imagine. It's a subtractive way of looking at life: the good life would be basically my life, with all the bad parts subtracted.

Found Family

I found something else with my found family. It's not just that they accept my sexual identity, not as if the only difference between them and my blood family is that there is no splinter in our interactions. These people understand me. These people love me unequivocally.

I have MORE life with them, I have an additive way of looking at the world. They've brought things into my life I could not have imagined with the tools I was given growing up.

This is supposed to be an essay where I break down what that means, but honestly it is so ineffable and magical to me, the best I can do is to say that my found family love me not because we are linked by circumstance and proximity, but because that love energizes them. I love them, and I want to love them more.

Maybe this is old hat for people with pretty welcoming families. It was new for me. So if you look at your family and you feel like there is a splinter between you and them, I just want to suggest that out there in the world there may be a family who will show you all new kinds of love, and teach you how to grow in it.