On Being Queer

“‘Queer’ not as being about who you’re having sex with (that can be a dimension of it); but ‘queer’ as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and that has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.” — bell hooks

It’s been a while since I’ve had to “come out” as something. Three years ago, I came out publicly as bisexual, and while that was partly a cathartic experience, it didn’t stop the anxieties I had around my identity. Instead, I found new things to be anxious about, rooted in societal pressures and personal insecurities I’ve spent years unpacking.

I’ve since stopped identifying as bisexual, which isn’t to say I haven’t been attracted to people of different gender identities, but rather I wanted to adopt something that felt less encumbered by specific notions of how I am supposed to act and gave me more room to explore.

I started asking close friends of mine to refer to me as “queer.” It felt better and opened the door to not have my queerness stop at who I was attracted to. I began to refocus my self-inquiries on how I was attracted to them, and I discovered I am demisexual, meaning it requires a great deal of trust and emotional connection for me to feel sexually attracted to someone.

With that, I thought I’d cracked my own queer code. I had figured out who I was, and I could stop feeling anxious. Of course, that never happened. The pressures and insecurities were all still there; I felt inadequate and started to doubt I had any claim to queerness at all.

Last June, I visited New York for my birthday and couch-surfed for a week, staying with different friends from college and family members who live there. While getting drinks with my friend Annie at the Times Square Hard Rock Cafe (don’t judge), we reflected on our college friend group, which was predominantly boys, and I expressed to her that I never really identified with the “boy-ness” of it all and sometimes felt alienated around them (which was by no means the fault of the friend group; they’re a lovely bunch of boys who always included me and are still dear friends).

I didn’t think much of it at that moment. It was a feeling I’d felt before or I wouldn’t have brought it up, but it wasn’t something I’d ever said out loud. I thought about that sentiment a lot when I returned to Chicago, and about all the other times I’d felt alienated in groups of men, which I realized was almost all of the time. I never connected with men in the same way I assume men feel a shared identity with each other.

Whether it was being in a fraternity in college, breaking out into gendered small groups at church in high school, or hanging out with boys in my neighborhood as a child, I always felt different. It wasn’t until last summer I started to connect the dots that maybe it was because I’m not a boy like them.

This whole time, I’ve been nonbinary.

I’d never even heard the term “nonbinary” until halfway through college when a classmate of mine reached out because I was the vice president of the fraternity they were interested in joining. They told me they were nonbinary and had concerns about whether they’d be allowed to rush. Long, unfortunate story short: people higher up in the organization said they couldn’t join (joke’s on them because this nonbinary person has been among their ranks the whole time).

Fast forward to September 2019 when I moved to Chicago and, after an emotionally taxing lockdown, became a part of the local DIY music scene, which is full of nonbinary people, my friend and bandmate Logan being one of them. They were the first close friend of mine who came out to me as nonbinary, and getting to watch them throughout their gender journey has been one of the biggest blessings of my life. From them, I learned so much about what it means to live authentically as oneself, and they continue to inspire me every day.

They gave me the courage to explore my own gender identity, which it turns out was a missing piece in the questions I had been asking myself about my identity. I was so focused on sexuality that I forgot it wasn’t all that queerness encompasses, and I finally began to feel like I had a place in the queer community.

That’s not to say I didn’t have a place before (my queer friends consistently and graciously reminded me of my seat at the table), but for the first time, I felt confident enough to claim it, even though I hadn’t come out to many people as nonbinary. There was still an internal shift, and I felt like I understood myself in a way I never had.

Then 2025 came, and a few weeks in, Donald Trump was inaugurated as president of the United States. On day one, he said my identity wasn’t valid in the eyes of the country I’ve always called home. bell hooks’ words about queerness being about the self that is at odds with everything around it suddenly took on a new meaning.

But I’ve also reflected on how I don’t have to be at odds on my own because of the incredible community of queer people I’ve found myself surrounded and embraced by, who have co-invented a place to speak and to thrive and to live alongside me. Even as I often find myself feeling like things are hopeless these days, I have something to cherish in this community that accepts me for the queer person I am.

I won’t deny I’m scared, but I’m also not alone, and as I continue to explore who I am and dig deeper, I know that won’t change.

I want to close this by thanking every queer person and ally in my life for their support.

We aren’t alone.