The Question?

So it’s Christmas time/ holiday season and for many, it means family, the one you’re born into and not the one you choose. I’ve always found the idea of family funny, a hodge-podge selection of people who just because you were born into it and you’re tied by blood doesn’t automatically mean you have to share the same values/ views and that family doesn’t have to mean much and they don’t have to mean much to you. 

I’m not saying that’s the case with my own but I am saying my relationship isn’t a cookie-cutter, cereal box one. I was fostered from birth till 8 with my sister living with a nanny in Somerset,  while my elder brothers stayed with my mother in London. We saw them often but it still caused a rift. One that didn’t heal and so at 15 I finally decided to leave my mothers house and find myself. I ended up in a stonewall gay hostel, a place that saved me and allowed me to learn how to live in the light and shaped my gay/queer identity and where I found my first family away from my own that embraced me fully. 

It’s simple my family doesn’t understand me and that’s why I’ve had to break away and take extended breaks from them, as they trigger me and bring me back to a self I wasn’t comfortable with. In the summer I ended up running away last minute to Brussels (for pride) when I was staying at my mother's house as the place just had too many bad memories that haunted me so fiercely as I remained under her roof. 

For so long I saw family as a burden, yes these are heavy and hard words to say and not easy to admit, but it’s my truth or at least one I led myself to believe in order to ease the distance I needed to create. Space I had to have that has allowed me to heal, process, undo, unlearn and become someone who I could understand, tolerate and most importantly respect and love. To say I don’t love them would be a lie and it’s true I need to try harder with those I lived with first, to help them understand who I am and what it means. Not everyone knows what queer is and the multilayered levels of my/ our identity. 

My family know I’m gay but right now I don’t think that they can fully accept my queer identity? The issue is so often in their presence they ask questions, ‘Why are you wearing platforms (my Fenty x Puma creepers) ‘why are you wearing pearls’ etc. Because I choose to express myself and wear jewellery/ clothing so often attached to women, they’re asking me why I’m stepping outside of the gender norms and asking me to conform, they still don't understand that one simple question from them is forcing me to confront shame and is dripping with hate. 

They simply don’t understand that my looks provoke them, little things are too loud for the silent sameness they have chosen to live in and that they are policing my queerness and protesting against my differences. These questions are triggering for me personally as when I didn’t have a full sense of self things like ‘why are you standing like that’ ‘why do you talk like that’ ‘are you a boy or a girl’ made me shrink and made me hate who I am/ was becoming, these words said,  made me run, made me want to undo who I was and made me not want to be. 

My family doesn’t know that it’s dangerous still to be who I am, that I still get taunted and looked at, that I’ve been beaten up and for now it seems will always have to question the surroundings I enter not just due to race but also because of my sexuality and because of this I live in fear but refuse to live in shame, (as I see no shame in my desires). They don’t know that we’re not only being beat up but also killed. 

But still, we exist, we have names, we have lives, we have feelings, we are human! That small questions and looks from those we love or are supposed to love and accept us can break us. We’re being broken down by so many so when we choose to come together with our family and they do the same it’s so hurtful. I’m just shocked that those so close to me, blood of my blood, know so little about the wonderful world I inhabit and in turn so little about me. When questioned about my question they say 'how are we supposed to know' I sigh but understand that some worlds and in many cases many worlds are smaller than others and interactions only happen with people just like them as admittedly my family members admitted to never having interacted with anyone trans or not knowing anyone bi or having fleeting conversations with gays. So I wonder if then as a member of their family and also of the queer community is it my job to represent and to educate and hopefully enlighten?

I’m happy to have found friends and a community, and live in a world with trans, gays, queers, bisexuals, non-binary individuals, people who have chosen to embrace their truth as why should we live a lie to make the wider world feel at ease? We live to do our thing and we live our lives and we’re not hurting anybody, all we want is a chance, the opportunity to live, work and love just like others, in many cases we put colour into this world with our designs, the way we turn a look, our words, we’re different and that difference is what gives to culture adding vibrancy to this cold, cruel, straight world. 

Our existence is a constant question one not asked but imposed upon us by the majority, being with my family has shown me why writing, creating and being is so important. I live to live in a day where ’why’ isn't asked of us and we are accepted, acknowledged and loved for who we are.