The Mortifying Ordeal of Being Visible

Every queer person has their own story about being stared at. I was a fat masculine dyke before I was a fat dude, so my experience as an unwilling zoo exhibit for jerkoffs significantly predates my gender transition. When I lived in Ohio, oblivious family and friends would drag my extremely gay ass to rural areas for cheap cabins and drippy roadside buffets while collectively ignoring the way the hostile locals would lazer me with their eyes like they were scanning my brainpan for sodomy. 

The most baffling incident happened at a restaurant in a faux-trendy Appalachian town, where a waitress pointedly ignored me while chatting with my friends, taking their orders and bringing water to the rest of the table. When one of my dining companions spoke up on my behalf, the waitress refused to make eye contact with me and spilled water directly on my hand instead of pouring it in my glass. We left shortly thereafter, but I will never forget the frustration of trying to get my (cute! normative!) friends to understand that their fat hairy dyke buddy was maybe getting treated weirdly at their favorite cute little bistro. 

It made me feel a little crazy for a while. I constantly experienced a background hum of unsettling bullshit, but cishet people never noticed or would make flimsy excuses for the weird things that happened in an attempt to paper them over and move on.

I often wondered if what I was perceiving was real, or if I was just being paranoid. And then I went on T and sprouted some stubble, and my theory that I was making people uncomfortable by being myself became an undeniable fact. People stopped pretending they weren’t staring, and started looking like they were ready to do something about it. I was made to feel like a killjoy when I told people about my fear of being hate-crimed by the brunch rush at a Cracker Barrel, so I stopped bringing it up. Now I just don’t go home anymore. Oh well!

One of the strangest aspects of queer life is the ability to be utterly unique in some situations, and a complete cliche in others. In Ohio, I feel like an errant and unwelcome pride parade float. I prefer to live in Chicago because I am unremarkable here. Yes, I am a fat transmasculine pervert. I am also one of the dozens of people who fit that description in my neighborhood alone. The ability to be slightly invisible is wildly satisfying after being stared at for so long.

I am so ordinary in this space that my life is currently a series of inane Twitter jokes, the kind that greasy neocon podcast dorks make when they're angry at weird people who fuck harder than they do. I hang out at the gay beach in my neighborhood so i can listen to EDM remixes of TikTok songs and sun my furry titties without anybody giving me grief. I go to BDSM classes on Saturday afternoons and flirt with catgirls over their favorite collars. I help my partner make a vegan salad option for a polycule potluck, and then we huddle on a nice back apartment deck and smoke weed while talking about how proud we would be if we finally had enough kinky trans pervert sex to destroy the American family for good. 

It would all be kinda funny if it wasn’t true. Being true actually makes it fucking hilarious.

If I seem flippant to you, congratulations on your excellent observational skills. I know I should take life more seriously, write more carefully and kindly perhaps. But it’s hard to take anything seriously when you’re constantly scared of being murdered by people who hate you. 

I could maybe deal with it gracefully if it was just me. I'm the kind of jackass who welcomes the chance to swing back on a bigot. I'm also not the person that I am worried about when it comes to street harassment. My life is finally full of chosen family, trans and queer people I love with everything in me, and my skin is a raw expanse that gets rubbed with salt when I see the world get hostile with them. 

It is also getting worse. Yes, even here in Chicago. I feel safe at home, but leaving my neighborhood these days is a near-guaranteed exposure to some weird strain of queerphobia. It rarely goes past an odd comment, because most dipshit cowards will not follow through if a dude like me indicates he might bash back. I’m lucky in that respect, but most of my loved ones have dealt with worse. Nearly every day, I hear about something scary happening to someone who carries a piece of my heart.

Even if I make it home unscathed, I have to worry about the folks who might not. I cannot protect my loved ones from the world that wants us dead, any more than I can actually protect myself beyond the bluff of my puffed-up chest. All I can do is laugh at anybody who looks at us cock-eyed and hope they can't perceive my hammering pulse.

In those moments, I will do literally anything for a laugh. It’s not fatalism. It's a greedy suckling of any bright feeling I can summon to blot out the kind of nihilism that makes you give up on a good life for yourself. Sometimes we even pinky promise each other not to get murdered by the creepy dead-eyed bros who laugh slurs at us as we walk past the bus stop. Sometimes you have to be a flippant little bitch just to survive.

Anyways. I am still shaky and tired, but i have missed this too much.  I am ready to be seen by you again. Either as an oddity or a cliche: look upon me with love, if you can.