Burning Passion, Everlasting Fear and Unapologetically Pride (4) — Expressing Queer Identity
As a person who is different from society’s expectations, it’s very difficult to live like yourself. But Pasha told me that the university campus is always a relatively safe place, and I agree. For us, apart from the difference in thinking patterns, gender identity is also a difficulty. Especially for him, growing up in Russia was very traumatic and depressing. But it was also in the course of this discussion that I realized that I hadn’t accepted myself as much as I had said I would. I was still anxious. And I hate self-expression, I don’t like to look different, but always want to be invisible in the crowd, with only my words and discourses speaking for me.
One day he met up with another queer friend of ours and came back with light red and pink nail polish. He was so happy and I was happy to see him smile. He told me that it was a reminder to himself that he could express himself and not have to follow the expectations of masculinity.
And as I look at his nails, I suddenly understand that I keep saying I’m doing fine, but my low profile is also a form of self-protection. I know that I’ll never look like a boy, or anything unisex, for the rest of my life, as long as I don’t have flat chest surgery, so I’m kind of in a state of semi-giving-up rather than accepting myself for who I am.
But is it really impossible? Every time I see his nails, I think. Even if it doesn’t seem to fit in socially, what does it matter? Later, when Sharon and I went to a thrift store in Lublin, I bought a bunch of boys’ sweaters, hooded T-shirts, and sweatpants and went back to Warsaw, I felt that I was finally expressing myself. To many people, it’s just a lazy, boring outfit, but I felt that this is who I am, not just an ego that I want to hide. It’s how I imagine myself to be.
Even if people know I’m a girl when I talk, so what? I’m starting to like the way I look in the mirror, even if most of the time it’s an oversized hoodie or a classic shirt and sweater. But that’s who I am.
We spend a lot of time talking about gender identity. We all think we don’t hate our bodies, but we hate the way society interprets and expects us to be. Maybe we’re just hard to categorize. But so what? I think that sometimes the liberation I get from theories has to be achieved through some kind of action to tell myself that I really can, that this is a safe society, that people who love me will accept me, and that I can really try to find my own preferred self-expression (tbc).
Read other Chapters
1. Queer Autistic Friendship
2.Memories like avalanches
3. Autistic Communication
4.Expressing Queer Identity
5. Queer and Nationality
6. Healing IS Possible
