Queer Visibility is Hard (Aka. Here’s all my secrets)
By: Emily Unwin
“No one is possible until everyone is.
On this one truth, never compromise.”
A long-ass prelude to the Queer visibility stuff
TW: mentions of childhood abuse
Updated on August 1, 2020
As a kid, I learned that in order to survive, I needed to stay small. I needed to be forgotten. That’s how I stayed alive, that’s how I made it, for the first five years of my life. I can’t remember much about that time, which I guess is relatively normal for those years (newborn → kindergarten). But I remember, and all that I know now, is that I was in a dangerous environment with people who were consciously hurting me. Luckily, the military re-stationed my dad, and we moved to Texas when I turned five. I was safe with my family and away from the people who were supposed to be taking care of me when my parents were away finishing their degrees.
A couple months later, I started kindergarten. On the first day, I remember sitting in our gold minivan with my mom, afraid to go inside. I remember the way the van smelled, what the outside of the school looked like. Where the van sat in the turnaround lane.
I was panicking. But my mom and I had read this book together called The Kissing Hand for Chester Raccoon, where the momma raccoon kissed the baby raccoon’s hand and it left an imprint. So, when the baby raccoon went off into the forest (I think that’s where raccoons go?), he’d never really be alone. He could always look at his hand and know he was loved. I was crying, but my mom kissed my hand, and I felt ready. I felt like I’d be okay.
I remember the layout of the kindergarten room: on the left was a big area for playing, on the right was a bunch of round tables where everyone was sitting. I remember walking into the room and feeling the shift. I’d never been around that many kids. But spending the first five years of my life in an unsafe environment had taught me how to morph myself to get small, shift to fit in, and read people to predict their actions with precision. It didn’t matter that I was safe now. I was in a room full of kids that had 6,000 mood swings a day, and I was sensitive to each of them. Like deep empathy, but warped: I felt like it was my job to control and mitigate everyone’s hard feelings. And: I felt--in a deep, self-preservation, kinda way--that being myself would put me in emotional, and physical, danger.
Social anxiety combined with my empathetic “skill” followed me through life. And it fucking sucked. I loved acting, dancing, singing, fashion shows, drawing, all of it. But my identity, my sense of self-worth… Non-existent. That small voice I learned to listen to as a child told me to stay small. Stay invisible. So, I quit acting camps. I stopped singing at church. I danced, but never let myself really lean into the skill that I could’ve developed. I stopped drawing and playing music. Being good at making myself invisible, while longing to be in the spotlight, felt like it consistently bumped up against my big childhood dreams.
Fast forward 24 years: I’ve managed to wrangle “it.” Now, empathy and anxiety feels less like a wide net cast on everyone. I still feel uncomfortable with knowing my place within groups. It still feels like my system is bombarded with, X is uncomfortable, Y wanted to leave twenty minutes ago, J is being weird about T being here, L is self-conscious about his shirt color. If I stand in a crowd and take the time to look around, I can sense the energetic dynamics pretty quickly. One-on-one, I can typically understand what that person has experienced, why they do what they do, and what likely got this emotional place within a few minutes of meeting. But because I can easily empathize, I have a hard time separating connection with someone from someone I need in my life. Someone who deserves my time, my love, my care, etc.
For example, I had a deep connection and ability to understand and empathize with my ex. So, all of the gaslighting, all of the name-calling, all of the shame... I could “understand” why he did it. So, childhood brain--which thinks fear and toxicity can exist within love (it cannot)--writes off the problematic behavior as “understandable.”
These protection mechanisms stopped serving me the day I turned five, really. But a slew of other traumatic events (& societyyyyy) reinforced the idea that: invisible = surviving, keeping quiet = surviving, hiding in shame = surviving. Staying in a toxic, unfulfilling relationship = normal, hiding my queerness = expected, letting people push me around and letting the pain slide = adulthood.
Because “connection,” being small, and being perfect were more important than self-worth, love, respect, empowerment, and authenticity.
Queer visibility (queer folx prioritizing identity, self-worth, & authenticity over safety) pushed me past this way of thinking.
Now, I recognize how my childhood self-preservation tools of hiding, “connection,” and fixing myself to prevent harm no longer serve me.
That “skill” has run its course.
I believed the abuse I experienced made me unlovable.
That if someone knew it all, they wouldn’t want to be with me anymore.
I’m unlearning.
If you’ve made it all this way, YeeHaw! Here’s the gay part! :-*
All of this is to say: I didn’t want to be “visible” about being queer. Visibility within the context of being queer meant people knowing something about me that feels (to my childhood self) deeply unsettling to share. Cause that means I’m different, I have to stand out, I have to put my safety and security behind the need for people to see that gay folx exist and deserve to take up space.
I felt like QUEERNESS was just another thing that would make me unloveable in someone else’s eyes. And I couldn’t afford to take that risk. I couldn’t allow all the parts of myself to take up space. I couldn’t handle what it meant to be all of me, let alone love all of me.
I felt a shift in the past month by recognizing that this--this “connection” and “empathy” as a way to replace being truly seen--is not what I need. Searching for someone else to see me because I don’t want to see myself is not what I need.
I don’t want to be someone who gets pushed over, someone who is invisible. I don’t want to stand out, per say, but I don’t want to hide who I am. I don’t want to feel like the world can only handle part of me.
I don’t want to feel like I can be broken into digestible bits.
I want to be whole. I want to live into the cute-fire mix of all my identities, passions, angers, and interests. I want to live into the daily work. I want to be visible as a member of the LGBTQ+ community, because I want others like me to come out, too. (Even if that means I’m the only gay you got, baby! Call me any time!)
A message for my gays, closeted and otherwise, and all the rest of y’all
Full disclosure: I had a fine coming out. Mind, I’d prepared for the worst. But my parents, sister, and friends were supportive. And it wasn’t pretty. Coming out meant my partner at the time (now ex-partner) telling me, “If you go public, I’ll leave you,” and, “This is a liberal thing. You’re doing it to fit in. Or for attention.” It meant people telling me, “You don’t look queer.” It meant people asking me, “But have you actually been with a woman?” It meant people calling me confused (I’m not), a unicorn (?), a phase (??). It will mean, if/when my other family members read this, a conversation about me burning in hell: You’re a sinner, You’re wrong, “We’ll pray for you.” Which, again, is small compared to what a lot of queer folks, especially those living in the Deep South, go through. I “pass,” I’m a part of a healthy, queer community, & my family supports me. So, it feels important to clarify: For you, for someone you love, coming out may be/feel very unsafe. It may mean losing family, losing partners, losing dignity, losing purpose, losing security, losing safety, losing worth. But, in my opinion, coming out is a win for authenticity. For real love. I won’t say for connection, because that word has lost meaning for me.
I will say:
Visibility means I, you, we, can finally be seen.
visibility means finding the people who are our forever folx. Which, i promise, is worth it.
hope within queer visibility
I can’t expect people to love all of me until I’m willing to be all of me.
Queer visibility means confronting all my fears. Not sure why, exactly. But it feels like cheating to talk about visibility and not share it all. Queer visibility meant asking myself before I shared this post publicly: What would my life be like if everyone saw it all? How will X, Y, Z respond? What will future partners think if they knew I’m only just now learning new patterns, setting boundaries, saying no, speaking my mind? If they knew I’m just now learning that I can put voice to the thoughts quietly screaming in my mind’s periphery?
So, here we go. The “takeaway.”
Sharing what I think makes me “unlovable” creates self-confidence and reclaims power from the people who hurt me.
Sharing what I think makes me “unlovable” is not connection. It’s Visibility. Of me, of you, of each other.
Sharing what I think makes me “unlovable” makes me realize that it doesn’t make me unlovable at all.
Sharing what I think makes me “unlovable” clears the ground for love to set up camp.
Because together, we can finally see: We’re not alone.
Xx