Adolescence is a difficult enough time without the added pressures of heteronormativity weighing you down. An obscene amount of young people are unfortunate enough to grow up in environments that promote explicit heterosexuality and strict gender norms. This is a highly damaging atmosphere to grow up in, and this leads to feelings of confusion and shame regarding one’s sexual and/or gender identities.
Thankfully, we now live in a time where such ideals are becoming less mainstream. Granted, they are still prevalent in a lot of families and societies, but they are growing few and far between. Sexuality is something that media used to shy away from, but in recent times is beginning to focus on. Of late, young female celebrities have been speaking out about their sexualities, and it is quite inspiring.
Amandla Stenberg, the 17-year-old actress who is famous for her role as Rue in “The Hunger Games,” recently announced that she is bisexual.
“It’s a really really hard thing to be silenced and it’s deeply bruising to fight against your identity and to mold yourself into shapes that you just shouldn’t be in,” she said. “As someone who identifies as a black, bisexual woman I’ve been through it, and it hurts, and it’s awkward and it’s uncomfortable.”
As a bisexual woman myself, I have experienced, firsthand, the pain of forced heteronormativity, biphobia, and bisexual erasure in society. It is so difficult to come to terms with who you are when everyone around you is telling you that you do not exist. Hearing someone as influential and confident as Amandla Stenberg speak out and affirm herself and her identity makes me so proud.
In addition to Amandla, 14-year-old “Girl Meets World” star, Rowan Blanchard, has stated that although she has only experienced attraction to males, she does identify as a queer individual.
"Yes, open to liking any gender in future is why I identify as queer," she wrote on Twitter.
The word “queer” has been used as a derogatory term for LGBT+ individuals in the past, but of late it has been reclaimed by some LGBT+ people and used as an umbrella term for anyone “who feels somehow outside of the societal norms in regards to gender or sexuality.”
In a more explicit definition, being queer is described as:
“The person who highly values queer theory concepts and would rather not identify with any particular label, the gender fluid bisexual, the gender fluid heterosexual, the questioning LGBT person, and the person who just doesn't feel like they quite fit in to societal norms and wants to bond with a community over that.
“It is a fluid label as opposed to a solid label, one that only requires us to acknowledge that we're different without specifying how or in what context. It is also a concise word that people may use if they do not feel like shifting their language along with their ever-evolving gender, politics and/or sexuality. It may also be an easier and more concise identity for some people to use if and when people ask, because they do.”
It is important to note that while many individuals, myself included, have reclaimed the term to describe themselves, this is not an open invitation for straight, cis people to use it, too. (You guys get everything, so let us have this one, alright?)
Rowan Blanchard’s admission has fueled a demand for more queer characters on the Disney Channel, and on “Girl Meets World” specifically. If this does happen, and I have a good feeling that it will, a greater volume of young questioning girls will have an opportunity to be exposed to a healthy discussion on sexuality and gender identities. This will help them to come to terms with their own identities and save them from the unnecessary heartache of suppressing their true selves.
Young girls now are so lucky to have these types of role models on their screens. I wish that I would have had positive, outspoken figures like Ms. Stenberg and Ms. Blanchard to look up to when I was growing up, spending years questioning and denying my own sexuality. Knowing that these women are here to serve as role models for a new generation gives me so much hope for the future of young queer and questioning girls everywhere.
