Every person I meet, I have to assess. Is it safe to out myself? Will they get judgey? Will they get violent? Should I lie?
Do I really want to come out to my Uber driver?
If mention my fiancee, in casual conversation, what pronouns do I use? Most cishets wonāt read ātheyā as queer, and she doesnāt mind me using it to keep myself safe. She has a gender neutral name. Iām lucky she has a gender neutral name. Cishets hear her name and think Iām engaged to a Christopher.
(Iām safer if they think my wife is to be my husband. I wish that I could give her the same gift, the same cloak of plausible deniability, and I hate myself for it. We are both bisexual; we would both be āgold star lesbiansā if not for that inconvenient fact.)
My grandmother, who had for 22 years called me her soul-sister, proclaimed us kindred spirits, disowned me for not being straight enough. My father has not spoken me since he found out Iām marrying a woman.
I live in Chicago. I live in a queer neighborhood and work in a queer industry and visit a queer practice for my medical needs. I can clock other queers like a goddamn rainbow swatch. I eat breakfast at a queer cafe and I feel absolutely aglow when I see a cis-looking beardy dude wearing a he/him/his pin so the man Iād misread as a woman can wear that same pin himself and feel normal doing it.
When I was younger, I made a big deal about how my sexuality didnāt DEFINE me. (Because Iāll find a nice man and settle down and be safe and no one will know. Then it might go away.)
But as Iāve grown older Iāve come to understand that who we love and how we love are fucking important.
Itās not a privilege to be read as straight, itās an insult.
This isnāt passing. Itās hiding.
And I desperately long for the day I donāt have to do it anymore.