Somewhere Under the Rainbow 🌈
Wait, is this a coming out post? 🏳️🌈
What if we didn’t assume people were straight? 🏳️🌈
Imagine standing in front of your parents or peers and “coming out” as straight. You spent months collecting evidence and crafting a tightly woven narrative. Maybe you even prepare to explain what exactly straightness is.
That sounds ridiculous doesn’t it?
But we still expect queer and genderqueer people to do this.
What if we didn’t assume hetero presenting couples were straight?
What if we didn’t assume our kids were straight?
What if we didn’t assume we ourselves were straight?
What if straight and cis were not the cultural default?
Whoooo are yooooou? 🐛🍄
Imagine space to discover for yourself who you are…
What self expression feels aligned?
Who do you feel a connection to?
What type of relationships would you like to nurture in your life?
I’m queer and genderqueer.
To be more specific: I’m ace and nonbinary.
And, you know what?
I’m not taking questions today.
I’m still reflecting on how my nonbinary identity intersects with neurodivergence and motherhood (yes, I do still identify as a mother.)
Down the road I’ll be writing more about that, but for today I am just saying…
I am.
This isn’t something new.
It is new language for an old thing.
I’ve spent a year trying to craft a narrative to hold your hand through this. I wanted to be understood. I wanted to change the hearts of anyone who felt hateful or judgmental. I wanted to say all the right things the right way in one tidy post.
But then I realized… that’s not my job.
I’m not suddenly your queer educator.
I’m new to this community. I’m still learning myself.
If you are confused or curious and want to learn more about gender I recommend this brilliant podcast with Alok Vaid-Menon. You can also follow them on Instagram.
We need visibility now more than ever.
I’m doing this for every queer and trans kid who doesn’t feel safe to do so.
I know sharing this is going to run some people off. I’ve noticed that people have a tendency to assume my values align with theirs. For what it’s worth, our family is Episcopal which is LGBTQ+ affirming. We have been for 5 years.
When I first wrote this post I had paragraphs and paragraphs dedicated to the people who would disapprove.
I deleted it all and decided to post this clip instead. 😂1
Setting Boundaries
I am not inviting debate, disagreement, or criticism today.
You are free to leave without announcing yourself.
I am not your queer educator. If you are confused please listen to the podcast episode linked above.
If you can’t say something kind don’t say anything at all.
Whatever your faith or values I hope we can agree that humans should be treated with kindness and respect.
To say that I’m a rainbow 🌈
I’m not sure I got the tone quite right, but any other tone would be inauthentic. I’m convicted to share this, but if I’m also feeling nervous.
If you have the time I’d love for you to listen to this wistful, hopeful song by queer and genderqueer artist Dodie Clark. I find it resonates on so many levels including how I experience the world as an autistic person.
.
I was brought up in a line
But I seem to walk in circles
It's getting hard to navigate
When every map was never made for me
And I thought it would feel good
To understand why I was different
But my title just talks over me
I never even asked to be this way
But to say that I'm a rainbow
To tell me that I'm bright
When I'm so used to feeling wrong
Well, it makes me feel alright
Rainbow by Dodie
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I welcome celebration and love in comments.
I’m feeling nervous so if you’re supportive please leave comment or a shower of emojis. ✨🌈💫
My pronouns are they/she.
That means you can use she/her or they/them. I really appreciate the effort to use they/them. It makes me feel seen.
It may feel awkward at first, but you probably use a singular they without even thinking about it.
Imagine you saw a car run a red light, but you didn’t know who was driving. You would say, “They just ran a red light!”
If you don’t know any other genderqueer people please practice using they/them with me.
It’s low stakes because you can’t really mess up. 😘
I would also ask that you not refer to me as woman, lady, girl, miss, or ma’am.
If you slip up the best practice is the same thing you would do if you called your child by the wrong name. Correct it and move on. You don’t have to make a big deal about it. Just restate what you meant to say and keep going. It’s really okay. Everyone mixes up language sometimes. We appreciate the effort.
If you are questioning or closeted my inbox is always open. 🏳️🌈
I don’t have all the answers, but I’m happy to hold space and be a safe person for you now or in the future. ❤️
I deleted everything I wrote about growing up as an evangelical preacher’s kid and decided to post this clip instead. 😂
I just love this ❤️🌈 you’re amazing. I am also queer but in a heterosexual relationship so it does feel weird for me to claim to be part of the queer community... I am always learning from you 🥰
I’ve been thinking about the intersection of queerness and neurodivergence a lot too...
I think some of it is sensory - I know my eldest is trans but a lot of that is just feeling more comfortable in clothes that are culturally meant for the opposite gender to them. And I understand that visceral feeling of wrongness in your body when you’re wearing something that doesn’t feel right - you know? And actually my identity as a woman feels very rooted in that too - I love the feeling of make up on my face (I know you hate this so sorry if the thought made you cringe 😆) and I love the feeling of tightness on my legs with certain clothes. But I hate waistbands so wear a lot of dresses. I feel wrong if I don’t have these things. But I was assigned female at birth so that’s always been fine for people 🙃. I know I would experience dysphoria if I was expected to wear trousers and a belt every day.
But then another part of it, for me, is that black and white thinking and the fact that we feel everything so much all of the time - so when you do feel something for someone else or within yourself, regardless of gender, you can’t ignore that and nor does it feel wrong. I don’t know if I can explain it very well. And I can’t speak for NT people but it just feels a bit like how they can ignore the sound of the motorway when I can’t - like maybe they can ignore those smaller feelings or modulate them so it’s easier for them to be hetero and cis and nothing else... whereas when you can’t do that, and you feel all the things, it’s actually pretty impossible
🌈🥳Congratulations, and thank you for trusting us with this part of you! To anybody that tries to challenge any parts of how you identify (ie nonbinary but also as a mother) – the way my (cis) brain sees it is that this is YOUR identity and therefore YOU get to define what that means for you.
I hope that those who are important to you are loving and supportive, and that those who are not important to you are either loving and supportive or have the decency keep their mouths shut about something that does not affect them. ♥