Pride
SAMUEL SHENOVA
When I was coming of age, being gay was about what I was drawn to sexually. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to see that being gay is also a way of being in the world. I live with a constant awareness that people’s genders aren’t fixed, that there is no actual way to define what a man is and what a woman is. Try it. I bet you can’t do it. I bet everything you think makes a man is also present in a woman and vice versa. In fact, I think gender division is the root of all segregation amongst people. It’s the first label and the hardest to unstick.
I live with this awareness because from a very young age, everything about me that wasn’t typically male was brought to my attention and often it hurt. When gay people tell you, “I always knew I was different,” what they mean is “Something about me didn’t match up with what people expected of my gender.” For me, the result was that I felt obligated to suspend what I believed about a person’s gender because I knew firsthand how hurtful it was when someone judged me for mine. That meant I had to listen closer to their words and look closer at their actions. I had to pause whatever story I was creating in my head based on their clothing, their hair, their voice, and search for the thing beneath all that.
The more I did that, the more more I realized that whatever made them male or female, masculine or feminine had no actual substance. It’s not that those things don’t exist or that they don’t have inherent beauties. They simply aren’t as solid as we think they are, and are truly such a small part of what makes someone shine. It’s not always easy to hold this mindset because identities are so cozy to our chaotic minds. But I consider it my responsibility to continue to see what’s underneath, to witness what’s truly free, and hope that others might also suspend their beliefs every now and then for something that might be truer, kinder, and more beautiful.