being gay (queer?) and anxiety lmfao

lmfao so a friend sent this to me aaannnddd…..

[image description: expanding brain meme with five panels. text is written on the left hand side and corresponding images on the right hand side.

panel 1 text: i’m gay
panel 1 ID: a blue image of the x-ray of a skeleton’s skull. the skeleton is positioned sideways, the “face” towards the text.

panel 2 text: i’m biromantic and homosexual
panel 2 ID: a blue x-ray image of a person’s skull with the amygdala highlighted. the person is positioned sideways, their face towards the text.

panel 3 text: my sexuality isn’t a rigid set of rules and there will always be exceptions so i just say i’m queer
panel 3 ID: blue image of a person’s skull. brain activity is demonstrated through pink glowing lights. the person is positioned sideways, with their face away from the text (opposite direction of previous photos).

panel 4 text: the entire concept of sexual orientation reinforces a limited understanding of gender, & since gender doesn’t equal appearance there’s no way to define often visual-based attraction in terms of gender, unless through words like femme & masc which still perpetuate a binary
panel 4 ID: blue image of a person’s brain emanating blue strobe lights with more intense balls of light surrounding their head. the person is positioned diagonal to the viewer, facing the bottom left corner of the image.

panel 5 text: i’m gay
panel 5 ID: aerial view of a person’s head, soft pink and yellow light emanating from it]

… and i felt ATTACKED lmfao

*sighs*

but as discussed in an earlier post, as a genderfluid person I have no idea where tf I fall in the realm of “queerness.” or maybe like, i feel as though there isn’t space for me. and even if I were to carve out my own space, what would that look like?

regardless of my label(s) or lack thereof, ive been an anxious mess lately. and by mess i mean quietly panicking inside my head 24/7. and if that’s not queer, i don’t know what is. but It’s Cool.

listen to Durand Bernarr’s new album, Dur& dis shit dope.

***not the best at image descriptions but tryna get better!***

rnb is sometimes a sad reminder that im gay

this music holds so many memories and thoughts and emotions for me. my sister started playing Let’s Chill by Guy. this song simultaneously transported me back to 1990, before I even existed; nights crying to sleep in my aunt’s house in 10th grade; falling in love again and again and again in car rides to who knows where.

the opening lyrics embody how i feel about my past:

Sweetheart, I’ve been tryin’ so hard to get over you
Just simply can’t
‘Cause the love we shared through the years
Meant so much to me

our past never leaves us, i don’t think. we may forget her, or she may be forcibly erased, but she’s always here, in our blood, in our hearts, hair, skin, teeth.

and in thinking and reflecting on my place in this world, and my identity lately, ive been thinking about what has been lost, because i feel such a huge sense of LOSS. but at the same time, my history is preserved somewhere within me. it’s confusing.

ive also been thinking about the time travel nature of music. it can literally transport me back to the past, back to certain memories and places and moments. so, so many moments.

and at times, it is a sad reminder that i am gay.

and this is not to say that i am sad about being queer (im a sad queer, but not sad because of my queerness). but it’s kind of sad to think about what my queerness has cost me. cuz it’s cost a lot.

i think what’s sad is that songs like “Let’s Chill” remind me of times that im never going to get back, and memories that i wonder if im even allowed to have. are they mine to cherish? can i appreciate the love that existed within my family and me, even though that love no longer looks the same? no longer tastes the same, smells the same, feels the same? is no longer embedded in that new jack swing, in that old school r’n’b, in Philly Icon Lady B, WRNB 100.3, and later, Tiffany Bacon.

and while it’s not the only reason, my queerness is the reason why those memories are being repainted with blue overtones every time “Let’s Chill” is played on my sister’s spotify instead of on the radio.

I’ve never really thought of this before, and I don’t necessarily blame my queerness, but I wonder if I was not gay, would there have been such a heartbreaking tear in my family’s love? would there be such a seemingly irreparable rip in the seams of our care, something already so threadbare and well worn and yet stubbornly holding together?

i know that my queerness is something that is irreconcilable within my father’s heart, and i know, perhaps even more so, that the distrust and accusations i threw at my father tore him apart.

but i wonder, that if i wasn’t gay, would i have had the strength and the safety to work from the inside out? to stand my ground in my father’s bigotry and be able to change my african aunties’ perception in a world that had already stretched their imaginations to the point that it was barely recognizable to those “back home?”

or would my soul still be tearing itself apart in a home that was not home and the unique pain that comes when the source of your love and joy is also repeatedly cutting you to shreds and you’re running out of the resources to build yourself back up?

this isn’t a particularly “useful” thought exercise. i don’t hate my queerness, don’t wish to be not queer (lol. would you um. would you rather be straight LMFAO omfg im never going to stop laughing lolollol). and i don’t even necessarily wish for my father to not hate my queerness. though perhaps i do wish that some day he will be able to see past that hatred. and i do hope that the day is not in the afterlife, but when he is still alive.

but i do wonder–what really is the breaking point for love to no longer be alive? mostly because, i am so, so tired of seeing family histories die. im not sure what would have to happen for me to want to cut family members (and ALL of my family, not this chosen found family bullshit. if you’re my kin, you’re my ride or die nigga wtf) off permanently.

like oh yes, there is anger, there can be anger, i have held anger. but never a kind of anger that makes me want to cast the kind of spell to be rid of you forever. only the kind of anger that comes from loving you, never too much, but always fully, and because i care.

and so I listen to “Let’s Chill” and I think about the cozy nights where I almost fall asleep in the car waiting for my father to come out of CVS with my $1.99 boxes of Honey Bunches of Oats that he knows that I love so much. and am sadly reminded that i am gay.

the funniest exchange ever; and why i am maybe a lesbian (lol)

last night, after revisiting a recurring discussion of me being a sad gay™ forever with a friend, we had the following exchange:

Me: being gay is too complicated, I want a refund @God

Friend: Would you um. Would you rather be straight

and I can’t really tell you why, but this is literally like, THE FUNNIEST THING IVE EVER HEARD. and i mean, i have some preliminary thoughts as to why:

1.) i was literally so shocked. like somehow, my brain didn’t process that the opposite of “gay” was “straight.” so i was literally shocked

2.) THAT RESPONSE SO CLEARLY EMBODIED OUR DISDAIN FOR CISHETS AJDLKSJAFJFJAFJDJFJ

3.) omfg that was the best comeback ever if you’re not laughing by now I don’t know what’s up with you lollol

And I mean, as funny as this (and it really is truly fucking hilarious. as was our ensuing conversation about useless and disaster lesbians [i am a disaster lesbian] but that is neither here nor there. lol), ive really been stuck about whether or not i should be pushing myself into this “binary” of sexuality. gay, straight, bi(sexual)…none of these labels have ever fit me, and i mostly haven’t wanted them to.

but ive been such a “complicated” queer from the get go, that figuring out my “place” in the world of queerness has been an extremely complex process. at the beginning it was like i could get just a whiff of queerness, but was never actually close enough to smell it, let alone taste it. i really didn’t fit in. was too much on the outskirts.

and i mean, i debate to this day if i didn’t “allow” myself to acknowledge feelings for women when i was younger because of internalized homophobia or feeling threatened because of my confused womanhood, but i honestly don’t think that was it. ive never felt like ive hated any of the queerness for existing inside myself. i moreso hated my father for not allowing it to come out.

and this goes back to the conversation about me “struggling” with my straightness. because there have been times in my life were ive actively been interested solely or mostly in men (i know, i know, kinda bleh). that doesn’t change my being panromantic, but i definitely do fall into the “straight read” category, and my queerness is in jeopardy. am i queer for being demi(or possible a-)sexual, or for sga (same gender attraction)? that’s really hard for me to deal with.

and that pressure definitely existed/became evident when i started to spend time with cis queers and wlw (women who love women). being afab, of course there had to be “sapphic energy” within my soul somewhere. of course i was expected to love women.

and so now i feel guilty for even thinking/wanting male partners, in a platonic/queerplatonic capacity (ive pretty much given up on romantic male partners lol). and i definitely feel the urge to talk about romantic interests solely in terms of women/woman-aligned folk.

and i mean, gosh, yes, women are beautiful. Black women are beautiful. i love women.

but talking about my love for women *always* has to be romantic, and talking about romantic interests means *always* centering women, and none of those are completely true for me.

a friend (who i dearly love) told me that i couldn’t call myself a “man-hating lesbian” (as a joke, lmfao) because that wasn’t fully accurate. i couldn’t be a lesbian, had i forgotten that i was ace? and also i wasn’t a cis woman wtf lmfao, and she laughed at me. and it was all in good fun lol, but i think she didn’t realize that that was a form of gatekeeping.

like yeah, there are ace lesbians. there are nonbinary and non-cis lesbians too. neither of those two things can prevent my entry into “lesbianism” (humour me, if you will. i am having too much fun with this😂😂😂).

when i was still on facebook (i left that motherfucker again lol) someone commented on some kind of controversial post that lesbian has always meant “non-men people being attracted to non-men people, regardless of who else they might be attracted to” (not the exact wording, but close enough) and i found that wildly interesting, but didn’t look into it anymore until i came across another post about how the history of lesbian and bisexual women are inseparable/intertwined and there really is a lot i didn’t know about the history of lesbian and bisexual as classification terms and as identity markers and i found that facebook thread to be really informative.

and if we used that definition of a lesbian: “non-men people being attracted to non-men people, regardless of who else they might be attracted to.” then a lottttt of people may possibly identify as lesbian.

so why has lesbian become so concentrated to gender? and from what it seems like on the surface, to cis women? or people who fit into the “binary” notion of womanhood? because it’s kind of weird and isolating to try and figure out what “spaces” you belong in as a queer person who is nonbinary. like, i feel like there is this assumption that all of us are bi or pan or whatever, and that is simply not true lmfao. like ive said before, there are “straight” enby people, and we/they are actively erased (still trying to figure out if me being heterosensual is me being straight. idk, idk, idk. lol).

and words that were really affirming for me in high school (like panromantic, aroflux, quoiromantic, polysexual–especially demisexual, polysexual, sexually fluid, and queer) no longer serve the same function for me as they did then. are these words/identity markers still useful? yes. while they no longer give me the feeling that i had street cred because i knew “what kind of queer” i was, they have been useful in seeking out other people i could connect with (like this demisexual blog on tumblr, or other demisexual people on campus, or people for whom the split attraction model also accurately described, like my friend (? or person i just know lol,) who is heteroromantic and bisexual). but this unwieldy list of words (femme-leaning panromantic demipolysexual, aroflux, quoiromantic, sex ambivalent and sexually fluid occasionally romance-repulsed heterosensual queer person) does nothing for anyone but me. it doesn’t explain anything to friends or potential partners because they get stuck before the first word. It kind of defeats the purpose of labels, as they’re meant to concisely convey a concept or idea or a representation of some aspect of your identity. like Black. and other qualifiers that might be added to it, for example, a dark-skinned Black woman, give more context without being overwhelming. my list of attraction characteristics reads off as a judge reading off all the charges a Black man is getting for dealing a dime bag in the ’80s. no joke.

and so im stuck in my queerness, right. in my little queer prison. and i feel like if i ‘fess up about being too complex for ~no good reason~ and pledge allegiance to sappho, i can regain entry into The Club of Gay.

because it’s hard, feeling completely invisible, even around others who are less visible, in a world where no one seems to just GET it.

my queerness is complicated and i feel like the best i can do for her is to stuff her into the costume that is lesbian and let her hibernate there for a little bit. by the time she wakes up, hopefully the world will have expanded its mind to the different shades of queerness.

until then. im going to be masquerading as a dyke✌🏾 peace out lol

not a day goes by

CW: suicide mention

not a day goes by that I lament the fact that I am gay, wonder if I’m actually gay, or contemplate about whether or not I should be gay. I constantly think of the pros and cons of queerness, contemplate becoming a lesbian, and think about how depressing the outlook is for ace aro queers like me who are maybe not ace and clearly aren’t queer.

sitting on this bench outside of a weird corporate building perhaps a few blocks away from my current residence in a city (town?) that is not my home, I’m realizing that these “jokes” are dying out. literally, my desire to be “gay” in I guess is it’s most literal sense—a person who romantically and sexually desires people of the same gender as them (and of course, in a monogamous kind of way) — is born out of a tiredness of being othered, and the fear that I will remain here forever.

im tired of being “complicated,” of being friendzoned meaning that there is a cap on the level of commitment and intimacy I can expect to have in relationships with people. you want to have platonic feelings for me forever? ME TOO. but please don’t throw me to the wayside. my heart has been broken too many times that way.

and i mean, deadass. looking back on the friendships and relationships that literally decimated my faith and trust in people—my heart was broken. a particular person who it took me over a year for me to feel like I could live independent of the pain and heart break, a friend told me the feelings I expressed to her sounded like the feelings she felt when her romantic relationships ended. and i think, honestly, that it was/is that same kind of pain.

gay men in particular have hurt me in ways that leave a certain kind of scar on my soul. and each one that breaks my heart digs deeper into that groove, carving a canyon into the fleshy bloody pulsing mess within my chest.

ive always been the “safe” friend, for changing reasons over time. too darkskinned to be attractive, too fat and hairy and ugly and awkward and weird and mean and depressed for me to potentially “steal” other friends or potential love interests. too ace or aro to worry about me developing a crush, too insecure to say much, and always there to listen. the only “drawback” to me is that my mental health meant you either had to deal with real heavy and dark jokes n shit, or that I would occasionally disappear into the depths of depression and suicidal ideation and be gone for what would seem like forever, for someone you assumed was a constant, hidden in the background, but always there. (i.e, I’d have a mental health crisis for a couple of hours or day or two and be accused of not caring for not being available 24/7)

Ive struggled with feeling invisible, unnoticeable, unremarkable. in my yoga pants, oversized hoodies and reserved demeanor, I was only memorable for being my twins sibling (growing up). in college, I’m probably most recognizable for my colored hair and occasionally being very, very loud. otherwise, I’m always “so and so’s friend.” I’m remembered for my association with others, and not for myself.

and I mean, some people will say that’s not true, and in a couple of spaces I will acknowledge that my relations to others is somewhat different. but even if my face is recognizable, the important details about me seem to never exist with others.

Ive been using they/them pronouns since I was 15. the summer i was 17, i was open about using they/she pronouns interchangeably and identifying as gender fluid at a summer program i took part in. to this day, it is something that people claim to not have known, even the person who was the closest to me during that time period (the person who broke my heart, btw).

the summer i was 18, every time I decided to open my mouth like a fucking idiot to speak at yet another summer program, i introduced myself with they/them pronouns. people still act like they’ve never been told.

today, in the few spaces that I tell people I use he/him (or xe/xem/xyr) pronouns, I see a bit of shock register on their face, and then they awkwardly try to refer to me without my name (which is ~too difficult~ to remember how to pronounce. a common theme in my life, it looks like) and without pronouns. at best, they use they/them, which I think people don’t realize is still misgendering.

and i mean, all of these things stay in my head as memories and slights that’ll probably be there forever. but i don’t hold grudges, only insecurities and wonderings if I’ll ever be worthy of remembering.