Realizing you're queer is one moment every queer has and it comes with all sorts of emotions and reactions, each one different based on each person. When I first realized I was queer, it was a weight off my shoulders. However, I wish I was given advice on how to explore my queerness and explain certain parts of the queer community, such as labels.These are 10 pieces of advice I wish I had.
1. Remember that labels aren’t everything.
From twinks to lipstick lesbians, the queer community is with filled with endless labels based on body type, expression, hair, height, weight, and so on. These labels are OK as long as they don’t run a person's life.
In my own experience, gay men see 'bear' first and then ignore or fetishize me simply cause of the label they put on me, whether or not I identify with the label. From the receiver's standpoint, this can be damaging. This type of flash judgement people make of me is an assessment on my worth based on superficial traits. Those types judgments take power away for the individual to cultivate who they are and how they want to be seen. Labels are not meant for people to tag on each other -- they need to be left up to the individual. Furthermore, they shouldn’t be used to separate the queer community. Judging a person's worth as a friend based on the labels they have limits people's ability to grow and learn.
2. Be yourself.
Don’t be afraid of stereotypes. If you fit into a stereotype -- like you're gay and happen to like fashion -- don’t let the fear of being a stereotype pull you away from what you love. However, on the other side of the coin, don’t feel the need to be “queer enough.” Joy Young’s poem "The Queer Hokey-Pokey" illustrates this point perfectly. The poem talks about the author's fem friend finally getting a “queer haircut” and how not only straight people, but also queer people validated her as lesbian. She had to look the part or she wasn’t truly a lesbian. Queerness looks different to everyone.
3. Find community.
Everyone has a need to connect, and if you are just accepting your queerness, a community can be a major source of support, whether it's coming out or exploring what it means for you to be queer. A community can be anything from an on-campus queer club to a group of queers you met at freshman orientation. Having people around to validate your queer experience and having people to talk to can help you work through coming out or negative experiences, but can also help explore new thoughts, ideas, and identities. A community can also help you access resources.
4. Go to queer resources.
If a community is hard to find, your campus queer resource center or local queer advocacy groups can be a big help. These places hold events to help you meet other people. Furthermore, these places can help give you resources such as where to get tested, get hormones, or get counseling.
5. Educate yourself.
Picture of Bayard Rustin, a driving force behind the Congress of Racial Equality and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and organizer of the March on Washington.
One way to educate yourself is to research gender and sexuality beyond what you identify with. Gender and sexuality are infinitely complex, and when it comes to figuring out where you fall on both spectrums, you need to educate yourself on what both of those mean. Furthermore, exposing yourself to different viewpoints and identities will enrich your own life and complicate what queer means to you.
It’s also important to learn queer history and how it has shaped the world today. There are struggles that queers today don’t have to deal with that Stonewall Era queers were trying to fight for, such as simply being able to have sex with who you want to or go to a queer bar that police won’t raid. Without the background of where the queer movement came from, we allow others to hijack the narrative of queer people and give them the potential to reshape the queer community. The best present-day example of this is the movie "Stonewall," which white-washed the first pride.
6. Check your privilege.
Just because you are queer doesn’t mean that you have no privilege. First off, when queer people are seen in media, they are predominantly white and predominantly straight-passing, cis-gendered males. Representation is a major part of the queer fight, and now that there are A-list queer actors, people think the fight is over. It isn’t.
From my own perspective, I come from a place of privilege being male-presenting, white and in college. I can only write about the experience I have as a low-income queer Armenian-American male-presenting student. It is the responsibility of those people with privilege in the queer community to fight for those who don’t have the same privilege. This means fighting till there are queer A-list actors of color in realistic non-offensive roles. This also means recognizing the sexism within the community and the white-washing of queer history. Checking your privilege isn’t to say you’re not oppressed for being queer, but realizing what privileges you do have and where you need to help out.
7. Ask for help.
It’s hard to ask for help when you have pain in your background. However, there are resources to get help and you need to find them and ask. Needing a counselor isn’t a sign of weakness, and if you need one, there are resources out there (see No. 4). Other forms of assistance can come from peers in the form of make-up tutorials, how to size a bra, how-to binding help, and so on. Having a community and a resource center are great, but they are useless if you don’t ask for the help you need.
8. Let people adjust.
Things change after you come out to family and friends; sometimes there's a period of being bigoted and them adjusting. The line is different for each person. However, these two are mutually exclusive; people can adjust in a bigoted manner and come out less bigoted or more bigoted on the other end. Letting someone adjust is only necessary if their way of adjusting is abusive to you. Some people may never adjust and it's up to you to decide if they are worth staying in your life.
9. Know that you don’t have to come out.
People talk about coming out as if it is a necessary part of the queer experience, but it isn’t. Coming out is a personal choice. If you don’t feel safe or comfortable coming out, you don’t have to. If it isn’t safe, don’t come out. This also means you shouldn't out people if they aren’t ready to be out. Outing someone is abusive and takes control of their narrative.
10. Don’t invalidate others' experiences or identities that aren’t your own.
Bisexuality, asexuality, pan-sexuality, transgender, gender-queer, and so on are valid. People express their identities in several ways that you may not understand. If you don’t understand, research what you have questions about and ask a person holding those identities if you still are confused after exhaustive research. if you do not understand someone's identity, even after attempts to learn, you can still support them. Our community was born out of a need for acceptance and social change, and we must not turn on each other.
This is not the end-all list of advice. Queerness is infinitely complex and what people need in their "oh crap, I'm queer" moment is different for everyone. However, there is one thing that every list should have, and it's love yourself unconditionally, and love others.
