I’ve come out twice before in my life.
Decades ago, before I ever came to New York, before I knew much about myself, I came out quietly as queer. Then, a couple of years ago, I came out as trans — louder than the first time, but still slowly, quietly, and to a select few. Now, I’m coming out a third time, and this is, at the end of the day, the only coming out that truly matters.
Today, I’m coming out as myself.
Yes, yes... Believe me, I know exactly how twee that sounds…but hear me out.
If there were no rules, no expectations, no employee handbook…what would you be? Would you be exactly what you are now? Or would you be something different?
There has been a broadening discourse over the past couple of decades the constant pressures people in a capitalist-driven society feel to conform. Beauty and fashion are always the first to be named when these conversations come around, and rightly so. Lately, though — and not a moment too soon, truly — the conversation has opened to discuss the expectations that form around gender, sex and race.
While that’s a good chunk of the iceberg, there’s still a great deal of ice hidden under the surface. We’re surrounded by silent and not-so-silent expectations: from our families, of our religion (if we practice, and sometimes, even if we don’t!), of our social class, our ethnic background, and, if we get right down to it, our career.
Of course, when it comes to our career, expectations are usually couched in the language of “professionalism.” How many things have we been told aren’t “professional?” Particularly if you are female-presenting or a person of color, the “unprofessional” list is deep and nigh unending: hair style, clothing fit, clothing color, makeup, makeup color, your voice (and believe me, I’ll be coming back to that one a lot in the future!), your body language… the list goes on and on.
The underpinnings of what “professional” means in different industries and different parts of the world is a deep, complex topic that has its roots in a lot of -isms, but suffice it to say, for the purposes of this article, in most industries, adhering to “professional standards” is absolutely stifling.
Over the years, I’ve worked in a variety of industries and experienced many of these rule-sets of “professionalism” and “appropriateness.” Professionalism should be a simple concept: striving to the best you can at what you do, being timely and thoughtful, and demonstrating respect for the people around you, whether they’re co-workers, colleagues or customers. But professionalism has a history of high-minded principles being boiled down to legalistic codes of appearance. Rules and regulations that, at the end of the day, are naught but sound and fury, signifying nothing.
Some days, they aren’t even sound and fury… merely a fatalistic sigh, rising from a grey cubicle farm.
As an artist and someone who is highly individualistic, I always found this stifling — depressing at best, and existentially deadly at other times. The bills must be paid, you have to eat, and, when you’re a singer, there are head-shots to be paid for, audition outfits to buy and music books — astonishingly expensive things — to acquire. So I sucked it up, put on my suit and got business-acceptable blonde highlights and worked on my acting skills as I tried to pretend, on a daily basis, that I wasn’t dead inside.
I bided my time, kept my head down, and slowly worked my way up in the world, waiting for the moment when I could be more myself.
I certainly couldn’t be myself in the world of business. And I couldn’t be myself in the world of classical music where I was supposed to be an artist, yet somehow (at least in the early 2000s) there were more rules about “appropriateness” than even the investment banking industry had…which, let’s be clear here: that’s saying something.
Over time, I came to realize that I wanted to teach more than I wanted to perform, so I headed off to graduate school, where I found research…and more rules. More regulations. Even more silent expectations.
I thought, at first, I’d found a place where I could be free of all the expectations that kept me small, kept me quiet — silent rules that kept me drab and grey. How could academia be worse than banking? But to my chagrin, I found that the world of academia isn’t any different. It is, in some ways, perhaps even worse than many other industries.
Why is it worse? In part, because of what academia sets itself up to be: left-leaning, open-minded, tolerant, diverse, open to free-thinkers and self-expression. The academy has positioned itself to be the refuge of the queer (in all senses of the word), the intellectual, the odd ducks who are creative and thoughtful and unique. In my mind, academia should have been a place where self-expression and embracing of personal identity is welcomed, celebrated even.
The irony of being a music educator, of course, is that you’re somehow supposed to be artistic and expressive and colorful…while at the same time, adhering to the grayness of professionalism. And, lest anyone misunderstand me, there are many people who ride this line and succeed beautifully. I envy those people.
I am not one of them.
I tried to be, though. Heaven knows I tried. As a musician, my core belief is that practicing will make you better at anything, if you do it enough…and so I practiced. I watched other people. I imitated. I planned. I did everything right. And yet, it never seemed to pay off. I watched again and again as others succeeded and I, though my abilities and talents were always praised, never seemed to get anywhere.
I became more and more frustrated, as time passed. I was finally making my living through music, and yet, I was more unhappy than ever. And why?
Because I was trying to be something I wasn’t.
Trying to live up to everyone else’s expectations resulted in losing myself, my happiness, and, in the end, losing out on opportunities because people around me could sense that it wasn’t genuine, that it wasn’t real. That I, as I presented myself, wasn’t real.
And this brings me back around to where I started: coming out as myself. Embracing my true self, rather than trying to be all the things my professional life says I should be.
In other words, embracing authenticity.
Each time I came out before, it was a step closer to myself, certainly. And, just to be clear, for many people, coming out as LGBTQ+ is coming out as themselves. That’s important, and I can’t overstate that. For me, though, my orientation and gender identity were only pieces of a puzzle. Important pieces, yes, but not the whole picture.
And what is the real me? Who am I, when I’m not bound up in the Employee Handbook?
I don’t know the extent of that, yet; I’m still exploring. But I do know that I’m not grey. I’m not small. I’m not quiet. I’m not good at conforming, and — perhaps more importantly — I don’t care to conform. Becoming yourself isn’t something that happens overnight, and I expect that answering that question, who is the real me?, will be the work of a lifetime.
I want to put that question to you, though: if you were to come out as your truest self, what would you be? Who would you be?
If there were no rules, no expectations, no employee handbook…what would you be? Would you be exactly what you are now? Or would you be something different?
Would you be something brighter?
Something more colorful?
Something less contained?
This is the first entry in a series that I am cheekily tagging as #peacockpedagogy. Through this series, I’ll be exploring identity, the socio-cultural values around voice, and — trust me, we’ll be getting there — singing.
