Growing Up Queer

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Abstract

is still an incredibly talented artist, but back then she drew more often the way most of us did our crafts more often in high school. (To think we always complained there wasn’t enough time! We had jobs, school, homework, social lives, and still played video games and read books and…)</p><p id="4eda">Anyway, there was a group of eight of us who were tight knit and we all had jokes about our personal quirks. I liked to pretend to be wildly and deliberately eccentric. (This was not inaccurate, as I have figured out as an adult.) Another friend was so quiet we used to joke that automatic doors wouldn’t spot her to open for her, etc. etc. The plan was to create little one page comics so my friend designed characters for each of us and, when I was designed, my character was male. That wasn’t the punchline either, it was just… how I was designed.</p><p id="5235">My point is, the people who knew me well… knew. (My parents did not. Take that as you will.)</p><p id="7452">The other weekend, I was rattling off a few tells to a friend who knew me later, in college:</p><ul><li>My first Halloween costumes were Robin Hood, Peter Pan, and Braveheart Lion. I was a Ninja Turtle for two years.</li><li>I made my parents call me Lion-o (Thundercats, Ho!). When I pointed this out to Dad he just said, “You liked lions!” in a rather helpless tone. (Since when did that stop little girls from playing the girl character when they played pretend? I mean really.)</li><li>(This is the one that made her laugh hard.) When Mom insisted I had to get involved in one activity, she gave me a choice between ballet and karate an

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d I said immediately, and with no deep thought, that it was going to be karate “because ballet is for girls and I don’t like pink.” (Yes, ballet dancers can be male and it’s extremely badass, I know that <i>now</i>.)</li></ul><p id="52bd">These are the early warning signs my parents somehow completely missed picking up on. When I got older, there was ‘pretending’ to be a guy online (and feeling crippling guilt for ‘lying’ to my online friends), telling all of my high school friends ‘I’m basically a gay man in a woman’s body’ and wearing 90’s boy’s skater shirts because they had dragons and I didn’t like girl’s clothes.</p><p id="c77a">As I pointed out to my sister, I’ve always been very much who I am. It just used to confuse people a lot more.</p><p id="4283"><b>What are some of your early tells? Let’s play this game in the comments.</b></p><p id="87d1">~~~~</p><p id="6603">For an example of how my parents REALLY didn’t get me, check out below:</p><div id="a38b" class="link-block"> <a href="https://readmedium.com/the-trauma-of-having-a-mask-forced-on-you-b3ade3e3250e"> <div> <div> <h2>The Trauma of Having a Mask Forced On You</h2> <div><h3>My senior photos are one memory that will probably always stick in my craw.</h3></div> <div><p>medium.com</p></div> </div> <div> <div style="background-image: url(https://miro.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:320/1*i3zl1BOzwgh32vTP34aGdw.jpeg)"></div> </div> </div> </a> </div></article></body>

Don’t we all play this game?

Photo by author who was deliberately ‘dressing like a boy’ at approximately age 19

We’ve all got the stories we pull out when we get rolling with new people, or the tropes we see on TV shows —

“Oh son, I knew you were gay when you were five and trotting around in your mom’s heels.”

“I used to beg Mom to paint my nails for me. There was never enough glitter!”

This is a fun game. The ‘wow, how was anyone actually surprised when I finally came out’ game. The ‘look how many early tells there were’ game. Near as I can tell, it also applies universally across the many flavors of queerness. A rare universal queer experience of the positive variety!

The ‘look, here’s a few times I was able to be my authentic self, even as a child’ game. Considering the number of years most of us missed out on by pretending, these moments seem extra precious.

Mostly, it’s just fun.

My high school best friend said, when I came out to her about five years ago now, “Oh, sure, I already knew that. I just thought you weren’t going to do anything about it.”

Before anyone gets on her case — she got that impression from me saying about that exact thing many times over the years. So. You know.

Back in high school, this friend used to draw a lot. She is still an incredibly talented artist, but back then she drew more often the way most of us did our crafts more often in high school. (To think we always complained there wasn’t enough time! We had jobs, school, homework, social lives, and still played video games and read books and…)

Anyway, there was a group of eight of us who were tight knit and we all had jokes about our personal quirks. I liked to pretend to be wildly and deliberately eccentric. (This was not inaccurate, as I have figured out as an adult.) Another friend was so quiet we used to joke that automatic doors wouldn’t spot her to open for her, etc. etc. The plan was to create little one page comics so my friend designed characters for each of us and, when I was designed, my character was male. That wasn’t the punchline either, it was just… how I was designed.

My point is, the people who knew me well… knew. (My parents did not. Take that as you will.)

The other weekend, I was rattling off a few tells to a friend who knew me later, in college:

My first Halloween costumes were Robin Hood, Peter Pan, and Braveheart Lion. I was a Ninja Turtle for two years.

I made my parents call me Lion-o (Thundercats, Ho!). When I pointed this out to Dad he just said, “You liked lions!” in a rather helpless tone. (Since when did that stop little girls from playing the girl character when they played pretend? I mean really.)

(This is the one that made her laugh hard.) When Mom insisted I had to get involved in one activity, she gave me a choice between ballet and karate and I said immediately, and with no deep thought, that it was going to be karate “because ballet is for girls and I don’t like pink.” (Yes, ballet dancers can be male and it’s extremely badass, I know that now.)

These are the early warning signs my parents somehow completely missed picking up on. When I got older, there was ‘pretending’ to be a guy online (and feeling crippling guilt for ‘lying’ to my online friends), telling all of my high school friends ‘I’m basically a gay man in a woman’s body’ and wearing 90’s boy’s skater shirts because they had dragons and I didn’t like girl’s clothes.

As I pointed out to my sister, I’ve always been very much who I am. It just used to confuse people a lot more.

What are some of your early tells? Let’s play this game in the comments.

~~~~

For an example of how my parents REALLY didn’t get me, check out below: