From awkward internet searches to true love. - Skylar Hooley
While avoiding the critical eye of heterosexuality is fairly easy as a small child, I started running out of ways to hide my identity by the time I could type on a computer screen. Internet access was my safety, but shame would set in when being gay on the computer turned into being gay in real life.
I remember clearly when the internet failed me for the first time. I had borrowed a friend’s iPod Touch to do a bit of queer discovery on my own (read: looking up inappropriate pictures online) and her parents had disabled “Clear Search History,” the only feature that held my secret queer life just out of reach from others. I was absolutely shocked, and the anxiety quickly set in. Confessing this internet search to my parents was just one of the many times my secret queer life and my real-life facade would crash, collapsing on each other in the wake of my self-discovery.
As I got a bit older, I learned more and more how to hide my identity, which only further deepened the scope of my queer life online. Like most other gay people, I spent hours and hours online watching Connor Franta, Troye Sivan, and others on YouTube coming out. While it feels so obvious in retrospect, I could not come to terms with the feelings that these YouTube videos evoked. However, what felt less obvious to grasp were the other ways I was affirming myself in the comfort and secrecy of my own room. Looking back, I remember wrapping my chest in an ACE bandage (do not ever do this!) or pressing down on my chest in the mirror so that I could see myself how I really wanted to look. I didn’t yet have the words to describe the lack, the yearning to be someone else.
Up until about the first year of high school, I had come to a sort of understanding of my identity, leaning into the confusion I was feeling and getting comfortable with it. However, after getting outed at 15 and at a new school, I decided it was time to try being someone else – being me wasn’t working. I found a boyfriend, walked back my coming out as a lesbian to now saying bisexual, and started playing fem dress-up. For years, the impact of being outed would keep me teetering the line between who I was pretending to be and who I really was. I continued to date girls, but always felt I had to be someone else, presenting as feminine gave me a sick feeling in my stomach that I couldn’t pin down. I was still “looking” for a man, or so I said as I tried to keep up with my straight friends. Everything felt wrong – the clothes I wore, the way I connected with others, the lies I told about my romantic interests and the way I displayed myself to the world.
It wasn’t until about a year and a half ago that the queer, candid, and cringe came to a culminating point. When Hunter Schafer came to speak at my school, her story of transness as beauty and self-discovery resonated so deeply with me that I knew it was time for something to change. I booked a haircut for 9 am the next day, and I, accompanied by my girlfriend, went to start a new chapter in my life. Now happily nonbinary and gay, I feel a sense of peace knowing that the queer, candid, and cringe was worth it.
I only wish I could go back, even just a few years ago, to tell myself that I would find the person I love, wear the clothes that make me feel good, and be honest with myself and the world.
Written by Skylar Hooley
