👀🏳️‍⚧️ in Talk Radio

Several years ago I told a coworker I am non-binary; The one I ended up rooming with briefly. When I first discussed it with him it wasn’t a casual fact about myself. I only talked about with people who speak genderqueer & already know what non-binary is.

When I did this I didn’t expect he’d out me. It didn’t happen in a bad way, but I took for granted he’d know not to talk to someone else about this without asking. I don’t regret what happened to me but don’t do this.

I didn’t argue with what happened because he thought I could help them. He kept outing me to teenage hires who were starting to think of themselves as non-binary or gender fluid. He thought I’d have good answers and explanations for them. I did my best but I don’t like the idea of potentially mentoring young people.

I only did it because it seems as though they had no better option. I didn’t have any queer mentors at their age; I just looked it up on the internet. I still don’t understand why they needed me. Supposedly not everyone can rely on the internet for their education.

I didn’t ask for this. It’s a risk for me to do it. If their parents turned out to be phobes and decided I am a groomer, I could’ve had some deep shit on my hands. Thankfully that didn’t happen. I’m glad I’m not around as many teenagers any more. (this is why I need better than a retail job. if you don’t want queers around your kid at their first job, give us a promotion!!)

Around that time I read a tumblr post about the 80s plague of AIDS. I can’t find the post now, but it painted a specific picture of how many died. It contained this photo from 1993 of the SanFrancisco Gay Man’s Chorus. In this photo the surviving men of the original chorus are in white, the rest in black replace original members lost to AIDS.

The point of that post was was, the unrepressed gay boomers are mostly dead. So people my age have to become queer elders before our time.

For this reason, being outed and reading the post, I decided to be more visible. I styled ‘more queer’. I talk about being non-binary more often. I changed my going name from the feminine form my mother gave me to a monosyllable gender-neutral derivative.

I never decided to be visible for myself. It’s not fun. I like my new name, but that’s about it. And I’m not that offensive to phobes. It’s quite possible I avoided shit because phobes don’t take me seriously. Although a few of them, not knowing, have tried to use my gender ambiguity as an insult. It’s a hassle. But relatively speaking, I have it good.

Trans visibility without protection makes us a target.