#tw mobbing

I got attacked by a mob once.

I was a kid; sixth or seventh grade, and we were having gym class outside. It was cold, so I wore a coat. Nobody else wore a coat.

The teacher walked away for a minute, and that’s when it happened.

There wasn’t any signal, nobody said anything, but they surrounded me, and somebody forced the hood of my coat up over my head and somebody yanked the drawstrings of it tight so that it covered my face and I couldn’t see, and then they all pushed me around, laughing.

I dissociated. I felt like I was floating, all the fear I was feeling somehow distant.

And then the teacher walked back and they stopped. He must have seen, but he didn’t say anything. None of them got in trouble. I never told anyone about it because I thought it had been my fault for letting it happen. I should have fought back, I thought. I should have been strong enough to stop it. It was my fault.

For years afterwards, I never wore a coat.

I’m grown up now, stuck in the same small town where all of those people still live, and you know what they have? Guns. I’ve seen pictures of the permits, up on Facebook. Concealed carry.

I feel guilty, though, for being frightened. Illinois was a pretty solidly Democrat state—although I think a lot of the democrat votes come from Chicago, and I live in a very rural area.

But it’s not as if I’m visibly queer. I have long hair; I look like a cisgender girl. I’m not dating anyone; I’m only out as bisexual and genderqueer to a few people. I’m white. Logically, I’m relatively safe—as safe as anyone who looks like a woman can ever be.

And it’s not as if I see those people anymore, the ones from the mob. I stay in the house, mostly, and don’t see anyone, really, except my family: grandparents, cousins, aunt.

They voted for Trump.

My cousin has a baby shower coming up this Sunday—how am I supposed to go to it? How am I supposed to look these people in the eyes, these people who say they love me but think people like me are less than human?

I bite my tongue, second guess everything I say.

What a gorgeous woman, I say, when an actress comes onto the television screen, and then I wince.

I flinch when people use the wrong pronouns for me.

My mother says she has so much trouble remembering because she has to call me she in front of our family.

Just tell them, she says. What’s the worst that can happen?

My grandfather used to take me for boat rides when I was a kid.

He has a Trump sticker on the bumper of his truck.

They love you, my mother says.

My cousin taught me to ride a bicycle, to tie my shoes.

Voting Trump, she said on Facebook. Who’s with me.

He tells the truth, my thirteen-year-old cousin said.

What truth is that? The truth that people like me should be given electroshock? Or the truth that little girls like you are old enough for grown men to fuck them?

I am so angry.

Our family has lunch together every Sunday. At one of the lunches a couple of months ago, they had a discussion about how ‘homosexuals’ had ‘ruined’ the words gay and queer.

And there I am, in the corner, shaking.

I don’t go to those family lunches very often anymore.

They love you, my mother says, it’s not as if they’re going to disown you.

But I don’t want to be their fucking exception; I don’t want them to have to ‘overlook’ my queerness or ‘forgive’ me for it. Love the sinner, hate the sin—what sin, the sin of my existence?

I am so angry.

You act paranoid, my mother says, you act like you’re afraid for your life.

And maybe she’s right. Maybe I am paranoid. Logically, I know, I’m relatively safe, but I can’t help but feel that the teacher has walked away for the next four years.

I know the rules now, though: don’t wear a coat, if nobody else is wearing one. Smile when they call you she. Don’t glance at pretty girls. Bite your tongue. Present as your assigned gender.

The thing is, I don’t want to have to do that anymore. I want to be visible; I want to feel like I exist. Do you know, I didn’t even realize it was possible to be queer until I was twelve fucking years old? I learned it from a fantasy novel. I thought it was a misprint, at first, the main character and the love interest having the same pronouns. I had no queer role models growing up, because everyone I knew who was queer was closeted.

I am so angry.

I am tired of hiding; I am tired of feeling afraid.

I am so angry.