I've Never Been One for Flags, and Yet...

The fact that I’m making this post on the last day of Pride month should be fairly self-evident of the heistation I had in creating it. Not because I’m any less prideful of anything, but more so because I don’t think the revelation of my own relationship to gender and sexuality is anything noteworthy or brave. When I’m in most public spaces or in the professional realm, I don’t go very far out of my way to express myself as anything in particular outside of cis, heteronormative standards (unless you count how I wear my hair long, which believe it or not, many in my neck of the woods still consider to be outside some culty, masculine norm), but this is mostly because in my day-to-day life I don’t wish to be considered or noticed in most any capacity. I’ve always preferred a behind the scenes role, but part of my goal with this blog has been to challenge that, which is a necessity given that my aim is to one day, god-willing, make something of a living with my writing.

Hopefully some of my astute readers will have read between the lines a bit on my last post, particularly where I mentioned white, queer authors of classic Southern Gothic, which I imagined most would have simply assumed I consider myself a contemporary part of that same legacy. Despite that I’ve never been one to express myself in any sort of flamboyant manner, I personally claim the word queer, having grown up in the deep south, targeted and attacked, despite never even coming close to expressing myself in any radical way. No, simply being a cute, quiet kid that had no interest in sports was all it really took to draw accusations in the form of taunting and gay slurs from kids and adults alike. There was even a point in my young life where I just anticipated myself to suddenly turn gay at some point in my development, all because of the way people treated me, and really, things may have been easier in a sense had it been so simple. After all, I knew what gay was, there were always LGBT people in my life and in the media that more or less raised me - but I didn’t understand what nonbinary was until my mid-20’s, and even then, it would be a couple years before I realized that I related to terms such as genderqueer and gender fluidity more than anything else.

To sum it up, perhaps overly glibly, my physical, mental, emotional and spiritual self believes that gender as a whole is a complete lie - at least for me. I have at no point in my life wanted to be foisted with the expectations of what the willfully ignorant masses feel it means to be a man, or even a woman for that matter. Too much baggage in either direction, and neither a great fit for me. Perhaps this is a good deal of privilege talking, I acknowledge that - no amount of bullying, even in the deep American South can reverse the privileges I will always have. But ultimately, I want the freedom to possess my own traits and behaviors, free of cultural expectation imposed by simplistic and juvenile understandings of biology. This is something I would wish for anyone who felt even remotely similarly, unless of course gender is a good fit for you, as it’s also my wish that those who do fall comfortably into a binary be seen as their complete selves, despite whatever gender they may have been assigned at birth, which after years of quietly studying this stuff on my own (historically, culturally, biologically, spiritually, and neurologically speaking), I see as irrelevant to one’s wellbeing.

Ultimately, it’s in my best interest to be honest about myself and my feelings in regards to gender and sexuality, as three out of the four novel manuscripts I’ve thus far written have had queer and LGBT protagonists (and that fourth protagonist is a young child). My anxiety over the past few years has been that I would be seen as exploiting the LGBT community, just as countless corporations do throughout the month of June by rainbow-washing their marketing; but no, my characters are who they are because it is the most comfortable and sincere place for me as a creative. That said, I still open myself and encourage critique in this direction, should I ever mishandle any identity.

All this had to be said at some point, but more importantly I felt it necessary to present my personal feelings and identity at this time to stand in solidarity with those who have always been in the fight. I want to help in that fight, I want to help heal the world by beginning with being honest about who I am.

I don’t expect anyone to change which pronouns they use to refer to me, I’m open to all of them. “They” is pretty awesome, while feminine and masculine pronouns are both pretty cool.

Gender dysphoria is a fascinating phenomenon. I know now that I’ve experienced it as early as childhood and have had waves of it ever since. I was at my most masculine in my late teens, which is really high on my list of darkest periods of my life. Perhaps I’ll delve more into toxic masculinity in a later post, or perhaps in an entire work of its own. I don’t believe our current definition of gender dysphoria, at least in the colloquial understanding of the term, is quite broad enough to be useful to many folks who I see as suffering from it - for example, the cliche of a man who is ashamed to cry or express any other feeling he may naturally have, to me fits the mould of dysphoria. I hope to one day use my creative skills and “in between” status to help others, particularly young men, come to terms with their own pain inflicted by archaic cultural notions of gender and sexuality so they can stop hurting themselves and others around them.

This post has been little rambly and probably too personal, but I felt it was important and worth doing, precisely because of my anxiety about having to do it. Either way, I thank you for muddling through with me, as awkward as it’s been.

So, if you have made it this far, let me reward you with some updates on my work: It was only in the last week that we finally got completely settled from our move, and I’ve been slowly getting back into the habit of writing, having given myself the better part of the month off to ensure I could make it through with my mental health in tact while continuing to perform well at the ol’ day job. But Codetta has finally been re-re-re-outlined, though I’m still in the process of breaking out that outline to a sufficient state before committing to the redrafting itself. A few months ago I hoped to be finished with this entire redraft before my much needed vacation at the end of July - but this was before buying a house, and so I’ve adjusted my goals to instead securing a strong outline and solid position to begin the redrafting process once I’m back from said vacation, with the new final goal of completing the new draft sometime in the Fall - which is narratively appropriate for Codetta. Wish me luck.

Until then, keep your flag flying throughout the year. Be bold, be courageous and always be compassionate.