#personal experiences

Yesterday my wife, sister-in-law and I went to our usual karaoke spot. The spot famously doesn’t have Coke products but the near-by pizza place sells bottles the bar doesn’t mind us bringing in. And let’s be honest here: Coke is better than Pepsi.

And while we were there, a collection of clearly queer people were sitting at one of the tables. They were quiet, but one made plenty of noise without saying a word.

He was glaring at me, only me, with a burning anger I am all too familiar with. Every time I turned around, there he was, burning holes in my back.

My sister-in-law noticed, and confused, wasn’t sure quite what to say. Honestly I didn’t either.

When they finally left, we shared words about the experience, and Baruch Hashem for that, it made me feel not crazy.

It hurts.

It hurts to know that my brilliantly gold Magen David and my features (the nose, the hair, the beard, I can’t really be mistaken) make this experience unavoidable.

The antisemitism on the American left is out of control and in queer spaces in particular, pushes out queer Jews like me. This experience itself was far from the worst of it, and other Jews have attested as such. But it makes the warnings of my elders ring ever louder in my ears.

I am a staunch critic of Israel. A fierce advocate for peace. A union organizer. A husband. An artist. A scientist. An avid consumer of fiction. A skilled cook. A queer man.

But none of that was in his eyes.

the same one that's between sex and sexual assault/rape. Consent.

Is it consensual? is it not coerced consent? if yes, then it's literally not an issue.

I AM a boy trapped in a girl’s body.

I WAS born in the wrong body.

I DO hate my body.

I DO want to change it FOR ME and NO ONE ELSE.

I AM distressed because my body ISN’T right.

And I’m definitely not the only one.

It’s ok if you, as an individual trans person, hate the “born in the wring body,” thing. But stop trying to convince people that every trans person hates that way of describing our experiences.

You are 100% allowed to use whatever descriptions you want for your experiences, but so are we. We who WERE born in the wrong body and feel most comfortable describing it that way.

My parents didn't want me to have a phone for good reasons, and I'm not really mad at them or anything like that. They had good reasons to.

Citation: all the nasty parts of the internet

Don't worry, while I was phoneless for most of my childhood, I was not internet deprived. I just snuck onto the internet through other means. I don't think the phonelessness effected my social life much but that's because I am a weirdo loser.

Citation: you most likely related to my previous statement

On the internet, I lurked on reddit, read scratch comics and watched YouTube videos, mostly about warrior cats. I really don't go on Reddit anymore thank goodness, and I'm definitely more interested in Tumblr and Pinterest these days. I also went down the asexual rabbit hole and learned some things I would rather forget about.

But on the bright side, I learned about the existence of Clangen and Niche through the internet and it got rid of my internalized homophobia so I think that cancels out the bad.

now now hear me out

Elder Queer Blanc comes along and senses something queer about this young priest. Blanc is married, but he's not above flirting on a case, especially not with a man he feels a connection with.

Except, all Jud can talk about is God and the peace he feels with the church. Then after the case is solved, Blanc remembers the speech about Jud's boxing days, about being filled with hate and anger, that clues him in. If violent exercise isn't enough for release, then why not a sexual encounter? Why run to a profession that encourages or better yet praises celibacy? Because, in that environment, the lack of sexual pressure, a man without such desires flourishes. Without the constant unspoken or loudly spoken pressures from those around him, Jud was able to settle into his calling and more importantly, settle into himself.