In the future I'm hoping to break them down by overarching theme so that each essay on say isolation, fandom, and digital third spaces will be tagged with "isolation" "fandom" and "digital third spaces" and each tab would correspond to a page of the tabs name where all other essays with a shared theme/tag would be listed. For now I'm feeding you with three somewhat personal essays I've written in the last 3 months shown below. Also the tags on them don't work yet. Also I need to make them collapsible.
On Queer Elders and Multigenerational Connections
Date: 03.26.2025
Tags: Queer Community, Lost Relationships, Mentorship
I'm a pretty introspective guy. Like many other introverts, I often spend time cocooning myself in deep thought or trying to get inspiration from whatever I feel like looking at. Most of those thoughts are muted when I'm out actually living my life. But there are a few that for whatever reason still break through the immersion of life. One of those is a desire for queer mentorship. I really want and perhaps need a queer elder in my life.
To be clear, my goal in this isn't to go over the reasons why there are so few queer elders. For that I would suggest looking at the video, "We Need To Talk About The 'Queer Elder' Crisis" by Rowan Ellis on the topic. Instead I'll be taking a more personal approach in this discussion.
This desire for a queer mentor isn't the same as merely feeling isolated from people like me. I mean shoot I often have this thought when I'm with some of my queer friends. I've been surrounded by other queer folks for years now. Younger elmm had the foresight to realize that my queerness would be important to me. So by the time my egg finally cracked, I was already working at my college's queer centers as a student worker. It has been years since then.
Yet I still feel like there's just so much I'm missing from not being close to someone 10+ years older than me. It almost feels too nebulous to depict. What I have been able to pinpoint are primarily Reassurance and Guidance
Reassurance In Self and In Safety:
I don't intend to be deceptive; there is a lot of overlap between the needs of someone fresh out of the closet and the reassurance I am trying to portray here. In fact, I think those baby gay needs are encompassed and fully met by having queer elders. Coming out is scary and confusing. Realizing I was trans brought a whole new level of confusion I never really experienced before. Of course this is the nature of de- and re-construction that defines many people's transness. It was almost just as terrifying as it was confusing. I knew it would radically change some of my closest relationships, especially those with my family and my then partner. It also made me much more vulnerable to all sorts of different institutions including but not limited to political and medical. I was one of the luckier ones having already made some strong queer support networks before I was able to open myself up to the realization I was trans. Not many queer people have that when they come out.
I have always had trouble crying. I can't when I want to most of the time. Even less so when I'm with others. So it is very telling that I began to cry when I told my supervisor at my college's queer center that I realized I was trans. Even for months after I was uncharacteristically timid. The need for reassurance wasn't just to feel that I am who I am, but also that I, like so many before me, have the strength to see past these changes and advocate for myself.
And yet I'm still here years later still wanting some sort of assurance after I have achieved my ends of knowing and advocating for myself. I still want a multigenerational queer relationship to reassure me something more. I want to feel safe. It's not something I have been able to grasp from being gendered correctly and knowing that there are legal protections on the books. Instead, I've been most convinced of safety to see others lead full lives.
I remember during my supervisors last day, we had a bit of a celebration; a sort of send off party. I remember the other trans student coworker had given a speech that eclipsed all others. In it, she had said how much seeing her live their authentic life, and one that was full of joy publicly expressed, had meant to her. She stated that before working there she had never known a trans adult to look up to and see a future self in.
Even though I live in a very queer city, and most of the people I interact with on a day to day basis have never known me before myself, there's so much dread. It lingers in an air choking us with its tension. I am of course talking about the current political climate. I was fortunate enough to come out during the Biden administration and frankly didn't think Trump would have another term. Now we are in the midst of project 2025.
It's one of the reasons why this wish pops in my head while I'm out. While I pass my doctor's office I wonder will I be able to stay on testosterone for the next 4 years? While I'm out at a gay bar, I wonder, will someone be so embolden as to come and shoot up the place? While talking with others about the future, I wonder will I be able to leave if I chose to with inconsistent names and sexes on my documentation?
I want to feel once again that if they were able to survive and pull us towards the past's better future, that I too can survive the hardships of today.
Guidance Towards Queer Leadership:
If it wasn't already clear, much of my thoughts on this topic come from my experiences having a queer mentor. While she wasn't old enough to be an 'elder' per say. Nor have they been out for a particularly long period of time, I think around 6 as of writing, and 3 when I first met her. She certainly took on the role of an older role model. They have had such an incredible impact on myself and my direction in life. It is because of them that I was able to see myself through her, to see a future as a trans person.
I'd like to think that she saw herself in me, especially in all the ways they saw me grow over the course of our time knowing each other. And frankly a lot of how I was able to grow was through her guidance. But her support wasn't just limited to queerness, though it was the largest influence as she knew me the year leading up to my transition and months after. They also supported me in figuring out what I wanted in life, and frankly I came to realize I wanted to become like her. She's at least half the reason why I decided to work in higher education.
I also think of the times they encouraged me to become a leader, often before I really knew it. I remember instances where she would call upon me to share my experiences as expertise, often when I felt I was too inexperienced to have good insight. One instance that comes to mind was a time where she had asked me to share how I had come to realize I was trans when a questioning freshman had approached. This was maybe 2 months after I came out.
Another instance of my mentor encouraging me to lead was during one of the weekly meetings we held. One of the freshman working there had wanted me to look over their draft of a brochure. I was a bit taken aback feeling as though I wasn't knowledged or experienced enough to appropriately look over someone's work. She overheard and disagreed, implying I was a role model for them. After all, I had become the most senior worker there after her.
Not long after that, she had moved on to a different opportunity. I am convinced that part of why she said this to me then was as a hope that I would fill in part of her shoes while the department found a replacement.
Two weeks after she left, I was confronted by my parents for starting testosterone behind their backs and was forced to come out. The rest of that year was similarly hectic. I had first taken on too much work as I stretched myself out to reach graduation, only to be followed by an odd summer and a season of unemployment. Eventually it lead me to moving to a new city and starting a new job; two things that made me feel similarly isolated and lost.
I know that that chaos and confusion define your early twenties, but that was all the more reason why I really missed them in my life. I especially wished to again hear their assurance that I could do this work as I received rejection letter after rejection letter after rejection letter. I never overcame the doubt that I could be a leader and role model for queer kids like me.
One of the ways that they had encouraged me was on a queer archives project. It had the goal of detailing the queer history on my campus. I wasn't able to finish it of course, or even really come up with a strategy to pass it on to the new hire and set of student workers. But it still speaks to a truth of myself: I really value queer history. As I worked on that project I had felt empowered by hearing of specific people build the momentum to create the space I worked at. Even beyond the small community of that liberal arts college, I look at the specific struggles folks have gone through and how they were able to bring us the liberties we express now. I want to understand how people were able to get us out of hiding and into public celebration of our queerness. And while I could read books, I can't get the same nuances and emotional relatability as I could hearing from a queer elder directly.
More than ever we need our queer elders. We need to learn from their collective action strategies. We need to understand how they were able to cope, and which coping methods left the least harm. We need to know how they were able to create reliable support systems of mutual aid. We need to know what did and what didn't work when gaining public support and later legal protections and rights. It is life or death. And Silence = Death.
Barriers to Intergenerational Stewardship:
Before college, I never had a mentor in the same way that I have come to realize. I remember of the times where a few of my friends would share their feelings towards their own role models. Yet most, like me, didn't have someone like that. I'm all but certain this is also a result of the separation of different age groups within the way our society is structured. This target of segregation is often over looked when compared to those against other categories like on race, on gender, on class, and on ability. There is of course the overlap between age and ability resulting in inaccessible spaces prohibiting both the disabled and the elderly. But it isn't just this. If it were the case I should have friends that are in their 40s, 50s, and some in their 60s. These decades are awarded the status of 'elder' within the queer community given all of the hardships in our not to distant past that so many didn't survive.
While I don't entirely agree that there aren't enough third spaces; there certainly aren't enough regularly occurring public meets/activities that are appealing to people of all age groups. The pinnacle of a queer social setting has long been the bar, which isn't appealing to those more introverted, those wanting to limit alcohol intake, and those who are a bit older. (But maybe that's much of the reason why queer people tend to continue clubbing much further into their adulthood than their straight cis counterparts.) This sort of separation affects those much younger as well. Besides the obvious age limit on alcohol, think of all the times and spaces in which children in an adult settings are treated as an obnoxious inconvenience to be tolerated rather than a member of the community or society with different needs than most adults.
In my personal life: I've never hung out with any non-relative more than 7 years older than me. And I think that's a shame. Yet I feel wrong encouraging folks to reach out to whatever queer person of a different generation they come across. To put it plainly: grooming does happen. (I mean didn't most Minecraft Youtubers teach us that.) I don't know of a good way to prevent this. I would however feel much more comfortable if there was some sort of club where folks could freely attend providing a setting to mingle. A setting where over time people could gradually get to know each other without allowing the same secrecy needed for one to be groomed.
One of the social settings where this all crossed my mind was actually at a yarn works club I attend whenever I can. One of the other regulars there is actually a gay man in presumably his late 50s. We're the only two regular members that prefer crocheting over any other fiber art. I know it'll take time to get to know him, like is true for the other regular yarners but it's nice to have a chance to get to know a queer elder.
In all of this, I fear I've missed one point on the matter of why it is important to get to know your queer elders. Everyone ages. And with that age comes a lot of rapid changes. I can't say I blame them for holding on to the habits and rituals they have become familiar with as all of these changes come. But most of these changes are a loss, and much of that loss is a loss of agency. Elderly folks rely on others in their community. Historically this has meant a reliance on family, but this is a non-option for queer folks when natural families become estranged and when chosen member's didn't survive the decades. Within a society as individualistic as ours is, it means neglecting them in favor of our own freedom. Besides the intensive work of eldercare, most of the time they're just damn lonely. We ought to support them until their final rest, even if that just means having regular chats over coffee.
I hope to have my wish become realized. I'm building up the courage to reach out to my favorite queer bar to see if they'd be willing to hold a setting to for queer folks from different generations to get to know each other. Maybe by having a shared activity like bingo or board games or just a drag performance. This bar in particular already has a weekly meetup for those 35+ so it could be fairly easy to add on an event just after that.
I encourage you, my reader, to reach out and do the same.
Get to know your queer elders.
The Impossibility of a Complete Transition
Date: 02.13.2025
Tags: Trans, Dysphoria, Grief, Afterlife
Something I don't see anyone really talking about is a certain feeling I feel often. I mean sure folks talk about the grief of dysphoria, but mostly as though it is entirely "curable" through social transition, gendered expression, and medical transition. I never hear of some of the things that can't really be fixed. More than just a lost childhood or lost time, thought, and resources that goes into investing in transition. But It also includes a certain loss that happens when you do internalize that you are whatever gender you are and don't meet some expectation of what that gender embodies. (This might be a very binary trans thought I can't tell).
For me, this is primarily centered in the body.
Sure there are times when I feel particularly dysphoric about my chest, but I have comfort in the fact that millions of transmasculine people have successful top surgeries. Same goes with a lot of the extra fat on my thighs with fat redistribution from hrt and liposuctions. But there are some things that post-puberty transition can't fix. The most distressing for me is my height. I'm 5' nothing. While I can and do remind myself of all of the cis men I know that are 5 and under (including those I personally know without dwarfism) I still feel it; loss. Loss of a me who looks more like me. A me who's more comfortable wearing a more androgynous style and doesn't have to worry about not passing or antagonized by the double standard of being man enough as a trans man. A me who doesn't worry about straight women and gay men not being into me for having features that are too feminine. Sometimes I see myself in people who don't really look like me, and I wonder what my life would've been like had I been more like them. I also feel so much envy for the trans men I feel like pass to everyone, for example Arthur Rockwell. I could be logical here too and realize that he doesn't always feel that way about himself and that it took a lot of time to get to where he is now whereas I'm not far along in my transition to see all of the changes. Besides the mental labor that goes into that reframing, I'm also an imaginative person. A part of my yearns to see a future self. But I'm also painfully reminded of the differences of an ideal self and who I am as my imagination conflates my hopeful future with an imagine one. Maybe this is all just internalized transphobia. There are parts of a cisgender Elmm that I think are frankly shitty. Like I can't imagine that if I were cisgender, white, and came from the same background that I wouldn't be at least a bit entitled and oblivious, based on other cis white now men I grew up around. But it still kinda sucks. And as my internalized transphobia alarms are flaring, it does feel like an intrinsic aspect of being trans (though not one all trans people experience) is that pain from being in a body that isn't quite right and will never fully be right. I am not a religious or spiritual person but I find consolation in an afterlife where my body is 'right'. I could once again internalize the fact that gender is a social construct and the only reason why I only feel this way is because of how I was socialized, but I'm exhausted from trying to logic myself out of these emotions. It never alleviates them. I just feel like a bad trans person for having those feelings.
01.17.2025
Tags: Trump Administration, Trans, Isolation
Today I went grocery shopping.
I was supposed to work today but I had no one to work for. So I got up and decided to work for myself.
I walked west. First I walked through a park that was previously too snow ridden to peruse through; windowshopping the decorative trees and shrubs like I usually do. I noticed the lack of hostile architecture I have become unfortunately familiar with.
The park was cute but small; and I continued on my self guided tour.
I walked south. The streets were busy with people for all sorts of reasons. Some going shopping in the fast fashion chains littered all over the country, others getting out of their uncomfortable jobs with comfortable salaries. Some seemed to be like me, out since there was nothing better to do.
Yet as I continued on my descent, I noticed the streets grew more hostile with each passing block. On H St, it was a lone cop directing traffic. Then New York Ave had a small drift of them blocking vehicle traffic. Finally on G St, pedestrian traffic was walled out with temporary barricades.
Each street was paired with a better view of the monument. Between buildings of opaque glass; I first saw a manicured yard, then a balcony, then the east wing.
I walked east. With all of the restrictive preparations for the weekend I decided I didn't need to be any closer. I tried not to think about it too much but it was hard. The streets remained sloppy and inefficient. I was sure it was a combination of 3 things; the daily commute home was starting, many streets were closed, and the higher than average visitors checking into the Hilton, Four Season, and Viceroy. The ladder were particularly disruptive as the valet and welcoming staff took up much street and sidewalk space as they unloaded black cadillac escapades.
I couldn't help but feel contempt towards these visitors as they reminded me of what I didn't want to think about.
Closer to my end point I passed a church with a trans flag on display inside one of their windows. It struck me with my own fatigue. A part of me wanted to cry yet I don't think I could've even if the surveillance and crowds of strangers weren't present. It's a grief that used to be overwhelming to me. I remember two years ago hearing of the bombardment of legislation agaisnt a community I did not yet realize I was a part of. And all of the dread it painted me.
Even though the edge has been dulled over time, I am still weighed down.
I have been gearing up for this weekend and on for sometime now. I entered a field that is more welcoming than most to my demographic. I have gravitated towards more conventional apperances. I revised a few of my legal documents. But I don't know if it's enough. I still haven't gotten my passport updated. And I don't know how or when things will change.
I walked north. Eventually I reached my destination, I acquired the remaining supplies I needed to bunker down for the next few days. I hope I did enough.
Today I went grocery shopping.