To Whom It May Concern:
I can’t tell you
the exact moment when everything changed. It doesn’t exist. I didn’t wake up
suddenly feeling different one morning. I have always felt this way. I haven’t
always understood it, but this has been my reality forever. Looking back, there
are moments that make more sense in light of information I have now. A smile
that held on too long after a hug. A steady admiration for an older student
that just refused to go away. At the time, nothing about these moments seemed
out of place. It is only looking back that has given them significance, and a
lot of that might be wishful thinking. I suppose it’s fair to say that the
information I’ve had about myself has never changed, it is simply the
relationship of that information to the world at large that has shifted over
the years.
I don’t know when
I was taught that little girls like little boys, but I know that I knew it as
early as four. That’s the earliest crush I can put my finger on. This kid named
Roger went to the same daycare as I did in Irving and I liked him. A lot
actually. Again, I don’t know how much of my memory is me transferring the
understanding and emotions of my current self onto my child self, but let me
tell you—it feels like fireworks in my brain. I liked this kid and on my very
last day at the daycare he came over and played with me and talked to me, and
that stuck with me for months after my mom moved us home. So I can’t tell you
when I learned about crushes and “liking” boys. But I can tell you that Roger
meant a lot to me before I ever knew what a real relationship could possibly
be.
DuBois describes
discovering his otherness like a “shadow” and a “veil.” He says the
understanding came upon him “all in a day,” like it was a sudden light bulb
coming on over his head and making it clear that he was different. I have never had that moment, at least not to my
knowledge. There was no sudden ‘aha!’ that told me who I was and what to expect
of my life. But the difference DuBois speaks of is race. It is a difference
both visible and historical. It has a defined past and a tentative future and
characteristics that are as unmistakable as they are undeniable. My difference
is and has none of these things. It has no clear edges. It isn’t immediately
visible to everyone I meet. I don’t have a history, except that which has been
created in recent years, pieced together from suggestions and memories. I have
little to no concrete “identity” to align with or disavow myself of. Despite
all of this, I believe I have some understanding of DuBois’s argument. My
otherness was not a lightning strike (more like a steady flood, building so
slowly you hardly notice until suddenly you’re neck deep and can’t remember a
life without trying to swim) but with its revelation came a different view of
myself. I see myself most often in light of how others view me. A
double-consciousness of sorts comes about whenever I make the decision to let
someone know just who I am. It is not the same, ever-present sensation that
comes with a visible, marked difference like a discriminated race, but it is an
awareness most people probably walk through their lives without. I am
different; I am other. And though my otherness is not written on my skin and my
face, it changes my interactions with others and with myself.
Maybe the veil is
not the most accurate metaphor for my self-discovery. I can’t tell you when I
realized girls were pretty any more than when I realized I wasn’t supposed to
think that. I have had no sudden moments of realization. As I’ve already said,
I can’t pinpoint the moment it all changed or everything became obvious or I
realized I was hiding. What I can tell you, though, is about the first time I “came
out”. I was talking to my best friend in the world, and one day I just looked
at her. “I think I’m bisexual,” I said. I think. Already, the first time I ever
faced that part of myself aloud, I knew well enough to distance myself from it.
I wasn’t sure. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it would go away. I think I’m bisexual.
8th grade was a really interesting time for me, I guess. Instead of
walking around living my life, I was sitting there examining it. Looking at my
understanding of who I was and how I related to the world. I had to make a huge
decision at a young age about the presentation of my identity. I had to be in
or out of “the closet” at 13! The politics of self-identification existed for
me even at that age, but I guess that’s true of most teenage girls. We’re
constantly trying to define who we are and what we like and whom we’re friends
with. Identity is malleable and fluctuating. So when her response was “well,
okay, just don’t talk about it!” I could quietly slip back into the mystical
space of “the closet” and just say I’d been wrong. It was a phase. People knew,
but it was never a big deal. I could forget about it. I made it through 9th
grade and a year later moved away.
Suddenly, I was
surrounded by new people, new friends, new enemies, and a brand new closet. I
had come out once, but once is never enough with the kind of difference that
exists inside me. If Eve Sedgewick is to be believed, it will never be enough.
I’ll never get past this stage of being in and out of the closet in different
environments. The closet isn’t a single location in space or time. It’s a
constant condition, something to define yourself against forever. Am I or am I
not? Should I tell or should I not? Will they believe me? Will this be a
surprise? These are but some of the multiple challenges, dangers, and questions
I’ll run into for the rest of my life. With the idea of “compulsory heterosexuality,”
instead of being nothing until you’re old enough to be something, everyone is straight until they’re something else. And straight is better,
so sometimes it’s easy to just stay straight in the eyes of those you might
have to interact with. And for a while during Sophomore year, that’s what I
did. I didn’t stand up and broadcast myself to the masses. I blended in. I made
friends where I could, and became a really loud ally. That’s actually the face
I’ve hidden behind for awhile. “I’m not sticking up for these people because
I’m one of them, but just because it’s the right thing to do!” Which,
admittedly, is not a position I disagree with. Everyone’s voice is important,
and we’re going to have to work together to make this a world for everyone to live
in. But I didn’t inhabit that position out of honesty. I was hiding in it. It
was easy to stand up for myself when I was really just standing up for other
people. I could help people fighting the same problems as I was without ever
owning those problems. It wasn’t ever easy, but it was a hell of a lot safer
than the alternative.
Of course, that
option didn’t last long, and I didn’t really want it to. I once again sought
the comfort and support of my friends, and this time I got it. They weren’t
perfect. They weren’t suddenly considerate, politically correct, loud allies
themselves. They made some hurtful jokes, but then they realized what they were
doing and stopped. They continued to love and support me. They honestly didn’t
react that much because high school in a big city was not the same environment
at all as small-town middle school had been. They showed me that life could go
on beyond the revelation of a deeply personal fact. I was grateful for that
knowledge almost more than the love and respect.
I really came into
my self-identification when I found Tumblr. I found supportive communities and
helpful infographics and words I had never heard of before. I found people
going through the same process, but mostly I found overwhelming evidence that
there is nothing wrong with who I am. I came in contact with the people willing
to stand up and fight like I had in my ally status. I let the Internet know
that I knew who I was and got nothing but support and nonchalance and
acceptance. I wasn’t “tolerated” by anyone. I was part of a community. My
family was still in the dark, my school didn’t care, and my friends knew, and I
was really starting to feel like maybe I was done with the need to announce and
explain myself for awhile.
Then I graduated
high school and college showed up and once again, I was surrounded by new
people who unknowingly shoved me back in this perpetual closet that just likes
to hang out in my life. No one here really expected an explanation of my
identity, but Heteronormativity isn’t a word for nothing. Assumptions were
made, and while on the whole they weren’t wrong, they weren’t completely right.
As much as I didn’t want to have to explain myself yet again, I didn’t want to slip back into the role of straight
ally, and there was no way I wasn’t going to be vocal and political. The
personal is political, after all, and my sexuality is definitely one that has
political significance. So I did it again. I shared myself with friends. And
when that was comfortable and sure, I shared myself with groups. And I’m at the
point where telling a perfect stranger, if they ask, isn’t the scariest thing
in the world. I have come into an understanding of who I am and I’m slowly
coming to an understanding of where I fit in the world, large and small.
So that’s my
history with the closet. It’s been a constant force, just like Sedgewick says.
As soon as I realized I was “different”, and maybe even before, a construct
appeared in my life that I had no say in. Our society has created this thing
that every queer person suddenly has to deal with, both within themselves and
in relation to those around them. The closet has some relation to the veil
DuBois wrote about, I think. They are both permanent features in the lives of
those they affect. The veil and closet both cause you to examine yourself in
the eyes of others. They make it so that your fundamental self is no longer
your own. It is the product and possession of those around you and their ability/need/habit
to define you.
In The Gilda Stories, the title character
writes a long letter coming out as a vampire to a very dear friend. She tells
of her history, both to contextualize her life, and because memory is extremely
important when you have the capability to live forever. I believe that even in
a life of no exceptional length, memory is important when defining or
explaining ourselves. We are a collection of our past experiences and the
influences of those around us. The past informs the present, but does not
define it. I can learn from what my past has taught me without thinking that
everything will happen the same way in the future.
I guess my
favorite part about Gilda's coming out in the novel was her motivation. She did
not do it because she felt some sort of need to explain herself. It was done
out of love and care for the person she was telling. In fact, she "wanted
to leave Aurelia with hope, an honest hope, born of who they really were"
(Gomez 128) and that's really beautiful to me. It wasn't an action born of fear
or pain or loss, but one of love and hope and change. I hope this emulates that
in some way. I want to explain my past and my present because it will mean
something good to the person I'm telling. It will mean a more complete
understanding of who I am and what my life has been, is, and may continue to
be. Of course, the fears laid out in Sedgewick's piece haunt me. I'm not sure
you will be surprised, and I'm not sure how you will react. I don't know that
you won't question yourself in relation to this, and I know for a fact that this
new knowledge will rock your understanding of your established place in your
own life. If you didn't know, if this is totally new, it will change how you
view things, but I can hope that it will not change how you view me.
Even in this act
of opening up, I feel like I have been avoiding the moment of the big reveal.
There have been hints, and since I know you aren't stupid, you've probably
caught on. But the whole point of coming out is... telling, right? It's
supposed to be a purposeful action moving past the insinuations and maybes that
have led up to this point. I know that, but I'm so tired of having to explain
myself in limited labels and words. I don't know how to convey with one
sentence the beauty of a girl's laugh, the appealing strength in a guy's arm,
or the way a smile can light up someone’s face and it suddenly doesn’t matter
what their pronouns are. I don't know how to explain that guys and girls are
not the only people I feel capable of loving without making this about
something beyond me. I don't want to explain the terms and conditions of the
world I live in; I want to illuminate myself. I want to step out of this closet
that still exists around me, and maybe I want to stop thinking of my spaces as
existing in or out of that closet. I want to be able to exist without the
limitations of expectations and assumptions, and I'd like to think that
eventually I will be able to do that. I am exhausted by pushing against the
walls of this closet and stepping back and forth in the doorway.
So yes, the point
of this is to tell you who I am, but I don't think I have to do that by giving
you one word to call me. I want you, concerned reader, to understand that I am
a loving human being who has faced my share of these moments of truth and fear.
I don't want this to be another moment of fear. I want this to be a moment of
rejoicing in myself and letting you in to that joy. I am who I am and I have
come to terms with it. I’m not expecting you to do so immediately because God
knows it took me most of my life to deal with it, but it would be nice to know
that you’re going to try. Nothing has changed about me since yesterday; I’m
just letting you over to my side of the door.
As I said at the
beginning, I can’t pinpoint the moment when I realized the veil existed over my
life. I can’t tell you when “little girls like little boys” became the truth,
and I can’t tell you when I knew it didn’t apply to me anymore. I can tell you
that I loved my best friend in 6th grade and thought that I had
finally found my own truth, only to shake it off and tell everyone it was a
joke and a phase and test run. I know that I have lived with the shadow of
double consciousness for literally as long as I can remember, knowing both my
own feelings about my life and the feelings of those around me should they ever
find out. I know that I think I am finally moving past the need to define
myself for me and for everyone else. I know that my life is my own and my self
is my own and my love is my own and no one has to share it or understand it but
me. That said, I want to believe that there are people in my life that will be
open to understanding me for me, and not for themselves and not for their
friends. I want to believe that you will welcome this revelation because it
lets you into my head and my life and my heart just a little closer. I hope you
understand what a step this is for me, and what vulnerability I feel taking
that step. Above all, though, I hope this step was worth it and I hope that
maybe I can just stop making it.
I’m not sure that
the social and political climate we live in right now will ever let me forget
the presence of the closet in my life, and my impression of otherness will
never let me stop looking at myself through the eyes of everyone else, but
maybe it will stop being part of my self-definition. I am here, I am me, and
for now, I am out and in and around a closet that was never my choice. Thank
you for taking the time to learn more about me and listen to my coming out
history and future.
Dallas Dickey
19, Woman, Queer
