A Love Note to the Bisexual Teen in Me
And an ode to the queer I am now + repro justice/health resources
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I spend a lot of time thinking about nourishment – about the people who have demonstrated nourishment to me, how I wasn’t nourished as a child, and the ways I have learned to nourish myself now. When I think about the queer in me, I wonder how my life could have been different if my queerness was nourished from early on in life.
bell hooks said:
“Queer not as being about who you’re having sex with (that can be a dimension of it); but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”
I spent a large amount of my adolescence feeling at odds with the world around me. There were so many places in my life I had to improvise, even with all the privileges afforded to me thanks to my whiteness and thinness.
I often think of and admire people in marginalized communities who are always improvising and how they have to invent a world around them where they can survive and thrive because the one that exists is systemically violent towards them. My heart breaks for the queers, especially the trans femmes, who aren’t here because of the world that is terrified of people who were themselves. My heart also swells for every queer who invented new ways to live, to thrive, to survive.
Ocean Vuong said:
Often we see queerness as a deprivation, but when I look at my life, I saw that queerness demanded an alternative innovation from me, I had to make alternative routes. It made me curious, it made me ask this is not enough for me because there's nothing here for me.
I came out as non-binary in July 2019. It continues to be the scariest thing I ever did (and continue to do), but it was the route that honored my multitudes. I never really “came out” as bisexual in the same way I did non-binary. It just became a thing I started talking about, one of my multitudes I wanted to nourish. When I think about the bisexual teen in me, I am drawn to a few memories:
It is 2004 and I am watching television. A Girls Gone Wild commercial comes on and I do not look away. The next night, I stay up hoping there are reruns.
In high school, I am at a sleepover. Me and the girls laugh and giggle about how we would “totally kiss” but “never go down on” someone with a vagina (we said girls at the time because the concept of deconstructing the binary wasn’t even in my lexicon yet). We ended the night kissing each other.
A friend and I are at a First Aid Kit concert in our mid-twenties. She sees me eyeing Johanna and Klara Söderberg and says, “You are the gayest straight person I know.” I stay quiet.
When I think about queer nourishment, I think about the socially distance picnic I had with my new friend (now best friend) in Austin. They are the first queer person I feel comfortable talking to about my own queerness. I do not fear that they will tell me I am not queer enough. I tell them I want to start using they/them pronouns. They do not laugh. They do not question, they validate.
A few months later, I write a poem and my best friend comes out as non-binary. We continue to nourish each other. We nourish the ‘yes, and’ that lives inside us.
I want to tell the teen in me nourishment is waiting for you.
Alok says, “When we see people living freely, saying ‘I don’t care what society’s norms, I don’t care about gender norms,’ people are threatened by that.” They speak with a hope I wish I could have heard when I was in my teens. There is a teen in me who is in awe at our survival. There is a teen in me in that is blasting My Chemical Romance and Avril Lavigne and daydreaming of Gerard and Avril all the same. There is a teen in me who is still shaking in terror during her first threesome. There is a teen in me who watched Heartstopper and felt seen.
There is a teen in me who is so proud that we found langugae that honors who we were and who I am now. There is a teen in me who sits in awe and admires the improvisation and innovation around them. We admire those who go against the status quo because it is there we have seen the most healing happen.
The queer in me now sees that in my own life. It was when I began to name my queerness and my gender exploration I felt a shift. My life was no longer punctuated by what could have been, but by what is possible. My life is now punctuated by possibilities.
Cody said it best in their newsletter:
If you read this newsletter I imagine you have access to every single infographic that is rapidly circulating in your tiny phone you can’t put down.
I won’t be sharing any specific resources but I will share the formula I work with in these moments.
I spend a lot of time checking in directly with people I love, specifically friends with bodies that could get pregnant. In the midst of hyperactive sharing of public resources it is really easy for me to forget what connections are right in front of me.
If you are living in a state where your access to abortion has been swiftly taken away, I love you. If you are scared, I love you. If you are numb, I love you. If you can’t stop crying, I love you.
I look to those who have been doing the work. For decades, forever, who have been leading the way far before this fall. Look to your neighbors, your local organizations, specifically Black and Brown led orgs that serve communities who are perhaps not accessing the same infographics you are - rural spaces, lower class neighborhoods, historically Black neighborhoods, etc
What are those orgs asking for (not - what do I think they need) Money? Volunteers? Sharing of resources?
Are you close to a neighboring state who doesn’t have access to abortions in this moment? What do our neighboring states need?
There are many questions we can ask ourselves - and in order to do that we must also be well resourced in our own bodies and breath. May you go for your little walks and do your morning pages and tend to the things you want to run from. These keep us steady. May we stay steady for the long haul.
It is easy and normal to freeze in these times, especially if you grew up in a home that required freezing to survive. Be gentle with yourself as you sift through what your role in the ecosystem is. You don’t have to save the world, but we do get to take care of each other. And this, what a wild gift.”
However, I will be sharing some resources that I found helpful.
I know you may not think it matters, but gender inclusive language really does matter. There are trans and non-binary humans who are feeling endlessly erased in these conversations, and it takes minimal effort to just say “people” instead of “women.” And please, just don’t use “womxn.” That’s the most TERF-y term there ever was. Cool? Love you! Thanks!
Also, here’s an article I wrote about how to support LGBTQIA+ mental health.
I’m taking a small break from Curiosity Container. I will return to it in August. You can still submit questions and I will resume in a couple of months!
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Love,
Oh, my heart. I wish I could print this out and mail it to my younger self. Thank you for sharing your story. I have never read that quote from bell hooks, but they were the words I needed to hear to understand the complexity of my queer identity.