Little Gay Stories: My Brother’s Superman Undies

Let me tell you …

Let me tell you how I took my brother’s superman underwear from his drawer and wore only that to swim in the pool and was laughed at by my family. Let me tell you how I asked to have my hair cut short and I got a bowl cut and it wasn’t what I wanted but it was close. I asked a friend to play “boys” with me. She didn’t want to be a boy, but she played that she was “Toni” with an “i” and I was “Tony” with a “y” and we compromised. She asked me what I did as a boy, but all I did was swing on the swings and eat crackers and cheese as a boy.

I knew who I was.

I went to the county fair and entered my dog in the pet show as “most colorful.” The announcer put his big white hand on the shoulder of the young man who had won, and my mother yelled from the audience, “She’s a girl.” I didn’t understand why my mom did that. I think back and wonder what was challenging, if anything, to an audience at the fair, in Orange County, VA in the mid-eighties, when a little girl was a little boy, and he was handed a ribbon.

He was a winner.

Let me tell you about being yelled at in a bathroom in Union Station in Washington DC, when I was on my way to meet a friend for a concert, and I was in a rush. I popped into the ladies’ and heard a voice shout, “You can’t be in here.” I was twenty, skinny, cropped hair, jeans and a tee shirt. Chucks. I was sure there was something wrong with the bathroom. Maybe a pipe had exploded. Maybe someone was sick. Maybe someone really needed a private moment. When I turned around, all I saw was a thin older woman, with cropped gray hair, and a look of surprise on her face. Maybe I had morphed from male to female, or maybe she couldn’t remember any longer why I couldn’t be in there. I couldn’t think what to say to her, and because I had nothing to say, I walked into a stall to pee.

It took me years before I thought back and felt afraid.

Let me tell you about Fourth of July, when I was lying on a blanket with my college roommate (and sure, I was somewhat in love with her, in a steady way where being friends with her was more important to me than making any kind of move, and we stayed like that for all of college, and weathered the awkward day when I made a move, and she turned me down, but she never made me feel ashamed). That Fourth, we were in a crowd in a small-town celebration by the James River. The fireworks ended, but she wanted to linger. She was a songwriter and a poet and noticed things like stars on a warm clear night, when out of the dark came three grown white men, shouting.

“You lesbians?” would seem like a straightforward question, except that it was weaponized, thrown at us like stones, and I had no plan for what to do. I rose to my feet and stepped forward. I understand now that stories like this don’t often end well, and get told my somebody else about the survivors, if there are any, but we got to walk away that night, and I don’t know why. I walked toward them, because it was me between them and her, and at least they were not going to touch her if there was anything I could do about it, and I knew there wasn’t much I could do about it. They surrounded me and I stood still. I can still see the edge of the middle one’s buffalo check in the headlights of cars. “You need to leave,” is all I said, on repeat, until I was shouting it, and maybe there were enough people around or enough cars or maybe there was something in my voice that said I wasn’t going down easy although I knew it would probably go badly, and they disappeared into the slick dark.

Let me tell you that I knew I was thoroughly queer when I married a man, but the approval my family expressed was something I hadn’t felt from them before, and I wanted it to last, but I couldn’t hold off the corrosion happening inside me and I had to perform a self-rescue.

I never expected to be a single queer mom of a non-binary kid, but a thing happens and then another and the day he went to school as a boy he came home as a girl. She said to me, “Being a boy is harder than I thought.” I was startled by the sadness I saw in my child, and I took her to the comic shop and to get tea where were we could sit on cushions one story up and look down at people walking, who didn’t know we saw them. Next, I was in the principal’s office and we both raised our voices at each other. Next, I spoke at the School Board meeting, shaking and reading my prepared statement over Zoom. I learned I should never stop speaking out.

Let me tell you that my non-binary kid is my guiding light, and ze shows me how to experience pride in a way I could never have described to myself. Ze is curious and creative, loving and a good friend to friends. Ze takes all of my stuff, like my hairbrush and my tee shirts and lone socks and string, and ze is always making things: a hairstyle, a look, a little outfit for a stuffed rabbit, inspired by 80’s iconic fashion. My child asked me where ze was in the story books and in history, and I realized I hadn’t looked hard enough to find the kind of books ze was looking for, and then I discovered they weren’t that hard to find. One day I took ze to the ASPCA, which was a mistake, because we came home with a cat. The pet was a fuzzy monster. My child loved it and I learned that I could put up with any number of unexpected turns to see zer be happy. (I like the cat too, most of the time.)

Let me tell you that the joy I have found in embracing my inner queer is something that will never be undone, put back, or taken from me. I feel it everywhere, in my early morning and drifting into dreams, and even when I have nightmares, there’s a bravery I have accumulated, and a love for myself, knowing that I’m the very thing I was born to be, and the air I breathe is mine, and the sun shines and I get to feel it, even when I burn. I queer the world as I walk through it. Everything I touch becomes a thing inside my worldview, and I am okay. I even tried stand-up twice. One night my opening line was, “It’s not gay open-mic night, but I came out,” and I got a some laughs and wide-eyed stares and it was funny. I have looked for queer community and found queer friends, however they identify, and I have sought gay love for myself and found it, however imperfect or impermanent. Love is ours when we have it. I have given as much of myself as I know how to give to love, and I’m still learning.

Let me tell you that just when you think you have to dig in and work harder just to stay in one place, sometimes you get unexpectedly rewarded. The woman I met recently is someone I want to be around for a really long time, like maybe all of the time, whatever time there is. Sometimes when you lift up all the pieces of yourself that have hurt and show them off, even when it’s the last thing you want to do, you find someone who sees past them, and you shine out in a way you have always wanted to but have never practiced before.

Let me tell you that people will be assholes to you sometimes, but you don’t deserve that. This world has sunshine a lot of the time, and we, dear queers, are lovely in its light.