LGBTQIAP+ Milestones: Book 1

Queer Enough, After All

By Shilo Quetchenbach

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I have been unable to write anything since the shooting in Orlando on Sunday. I have been reading about the shooting, about people's reactions to it. I have been trying to distract myself with reading Drarry fluff, but the distraction lasts only until I read the last word.

I have been an in-the-closet not-sure-how-to-even-label-it queer for the past decade. I have written facebook posts and messages to friends, only to delete them again. I have planned to go to queer support groups/meetings on campus - both campuses - and chickened out at the last minute. I have convinced myself that I am "not queer enough." This shooting hit me harder than anything has in a very long time, and I finally "came out" to my friends and family on facebook. I am tired of hiding pieces of myself.

I have hidden bits of myself from my family and friends since I tried to talk to my mother about this in high school. I told her that I found girls just as attractive - if not more so - than boys. I probably sounded worried - I didn't know anyone who was queer then (though several of my good friends came out later, after moving away) and I didn't have the language to express myself. She said "Oh, that's normal. Everybody feels like that." I felt like she was shutting the conversation down, so I subsided. I didn't try again for several years, until I was talking to my boyfriend about it. He has been wonderful - he's my husband, now - and he has been very supportive with every step I take to figure out just who I am. He says he has never questioned himself, his identity, his gender, his sexuality. And, honestly, that baffles me. I can't recall I time when I *didn't.* When I knew for certain anything other than that I was not straight. Not a woman. Not. It has always felt so limiting, identifying myself by what I am not, rather than what I am.

Reading, and then writing, Drarry fanfiction has helped me immensely in coming to terms with my own views on my gender and sexuality. I won't claim to understand all the shades and nuances of the different labels. I chose the ones that I feel fit me the best. That I identify with. In the end, isn't that what it's about?

And if I can make even one person who had previously thought of me as a straight woman rethink their views on those of us who identify as queer, then telling the world will be worth it.

Here is the facebook post in which I came out to my friends and family:

I have been struggling with myself over this since I heard the news Sunday of the Orlando shooting. And I have been struggling over this for over a decade. I don't want to seem like I'm trying to make this about me. Obviously, it's not about me. I've never been to the club affected. I've never been to Orlando. Hell, I've never been to Florida. I've never identified as LGBTQ+ ... at least, not out loud. Not to anyone but my husband, a close friend or two. To myself.

I don't want to "come out" now if it makes anyone more affected than I by this tragedy feel that I'm riding their coattails, or stealing their thunder, or any other way of saying it. I don't even know why it's affected me so strongly.

But I have spent the past two days reading about the shooting. Reactions to the shooting. And my heart is hurting. It is screaming at me that this is wrong. That the people trying to make it about "all Americans" or "all people" are wrong. It wasn't an attack on Americans. Saying that it wasn't the largest mass shooting - that there were massacres of more Native Americans - is entirely missing the point. It was an attack on the LGBTQ+ community, and so many people are twisting that.

It wasn't an Islamic terror attack against America. It was a homophobic terror attack on the LGBTQ+ community. Deflecting from that is wrong.

LGBT, even with the added Q+, is intimidating. Am I gay enough? I don't know. I have long preferred Queer. I know some people find the word offensive, and if it offends you, I am sorry. I don't mean any offense. But, for now, I am more comfortable with it. It feels more like me. So... Queer it is.

I am happily married to a man. I have a child. And... I am not straight. I have never identified that way. I never knew what the hell I was - I'd never heard of bisexuality before I went to college. I'd hardly heard of being gay, or lesbian. It just wasn't a thing in my town. Or I wasn't aware of it, if it was.

All I knew was that I had crushes on male and female friends, from the first crush on, though I tried to squash the "weird" ones. I didn't tell anyone about them. A large number of the books that made it on (and stayed on) my "must have a copy of to reread" shelf featured Queer characters. Gay men, usually, but sometimes 2 men and a woman. A man, a woman, and a demon who alternated between the two. Rarely, lesbians - probably because men generally have more fun/freedom in fantasy novels.

I have quietly identified on census forms and the like as bisexual for a little over a decade. I have always - since I became aware that one *could* be attracted to someone else - been attracted to men and women. but... the middle. Not overly feminine women. Not overly masculine men. Queer men. Queer women. The middle. The people who straddle the "line," the people who blur it. I am Pansexual, perhaps. Queer.

So. Queer men and women. Artists. Hippies. Social non-conformers. In fact, you can pretty much summarize my sexuality/romantic attraction as "attracted to the entire cast of Rent."

More of my friends identify as part of the Queer community than not. And even if I have never been to a Queer support group - because I've spent over 10 years feeling like I'm not "Queer enough" to go - at the end of the day, this was an attack on the people I identify with in my heart. An attack on "my tribe" as is popular to say on the internet these days. And it hurts. And I can't just let it go. I don't want to just let it go, even if I could. I want to shout it from the rooftops. These are my people, and my heart breaks for them.

For over a decade I have been afraid to claim a part of the Queer community, because I did not want to be one of "those people" who are claiming to be Queer, while still able to pass as .. well, not. Because their lives are, necessarily, harder than mine because they can not, or will not pass. But I feel like I'm hiding - smothering - a part of myself and I don't want to hide anymore.

Even now I hesitate to post this. But, I ask myself, what if they think I'm, I don't know, trying to get in on the sympathy by claiming kinship? To which I reply: Why? I don't react like that to other tragedies. I hurt for the victims, their loved ones, because I value all human life, and these tragedies are... well, tragedies. But. I don't spend days reading about it, aching over it. I don't feel like those rip my heart in two. I don't feel personally betrayed by the people spewing hate, distracting and detracting from the tragedy. And now I do. And isn't it more likely, really, that I'll garner more dislike for it?

It's the same for the other things that are key to my personality. I tried to squash being an artist; tried to be a scientist, instead. Because it's what a "smart" kid like myself would do. Should do. It didn't work. I nearly broke myself. I have hidden, or played down, for a decade, my mental illness - through a fear that I would be seen as less of a person, that I would be seen as a poser, that I wasn't "mad enough."

I am tired of hiding.

Likely, no one will actually care. But, I need to say it anyway.

I am Queer. Pansexual. I am Nonbinary. Neutrois.

I am Bipolar. I have anxiety, depression, PTSD.

I am a feminist. I am an artist, and a writer. I am not-quite-a-vegan (I eat beef or bison once or twice a month, when I need the iron). I am Gluten-Free, because a hint of gluten makes me sick. I suspect I am Celiac, though I haven't been tested. I have migraines. I have fibromyalgia. I have allergies and asthma. I don't practice a religion, but if I had to choose I would maybe be pagan. Or buddhist.

I am complicated. I am human. I am me.

And my heart bleeds for the Queer community - my Queer community - tonight.