I feel seven again. In the cafeteria of my elementary school, I’m flanked by second grade girls on all sides. Their constant questioning—“Who do you like?!” “Who’s your crush??!” “What’s his name?”—erodes the flimsy dam blocking my emotions. Slowly, the impending deluge leaks, until a harsh “Shut up!” escapes my throat. They don’t listen. My face continues to burn, knowing even then that the sapphic feelings I held would be met with condemnation, so I blurt out the name of a random male classmate. “It’s Andrew! It’s Andrew! It’s Andrew!” I lie again and again, hoping they'd leave me alone.
The memory passes and I’m suddenly twelve, caught in the whirlwinds of puberty. In my middle school’s maze of rusted gym lockers, I feel lost. All around me, I see the streamlined, but curvaceous silhouettes of other adolescent girls, and I hate it. Those reminders of my gender haunt me, so I begin showering in the dark, hoping to never catch glimpses of my own body in the bathroom mirror. I fear that I am becoming my own stranger.

Suddenly, a chair’s shriek brings me back to the present—recently turned 17. I find myself sitting on the cold tiles of the kitchen floor, hysterically crying. My mother sits a few feet away, but when she speaks, the coldness of her voice makes everything seem so inconsolably distant. She stares at me and I see her anger—the slight furrow of her brow, the crimson of her flushed cheeks, and the slight shine of trapped tears.

Her lips part slowly, as if fighting against the pressure of entire oceans, and she repeats: “No.”

“But I really like bio…”, voice barely louder than a whisper.

Another “No.” And then she says it—“woman brain ‘snot supposed to be for science.” Her words hurt and they sound like her many other critiques of who I am—“woman ‘snot supposed to like other women” and “woman ‘snot supposed to look like man.” Harder and harder, the tears fall. Salted streaks down my face.

My mother shifts, and her chair grinds across the ceramic floor; it shrieks again and I feel like I must escape.

So I do just that, and I retreat to the confines of my bedroom. Within those quiet walls, I reflect and realize that while issues surrounding gender and sexuality have defined my life, the process of overcoming has been equally impactful.

I open my laptop and find consolidation in that world completely divorced from my mother's controlling grasp.

Opening my laptop to find consolidation, I might use the Discord app to call my friend William, who is also gay. We’ve known each other for 6 years and there has always been this sense of mutual understanding between us despite our many differences. For us, our rejection of gender expectations led to a realization of our queer identities. Joy is merely the vanquishing of worry and in our weekly calls, the aura of unconditional love always manages to supersede anxiety. As we converse for hours, his support turns reality into a distant ordeal. I forget my daily struggles as a gay person—the hurtful comments on my mannerisms; they all become figments of a past life, completely unrelated to my current person. As two individuals who are both passionate about social change, our appreciation of queer entertainment takes on new meaning as we aim to turn the online realm into a safe space for LGBTQ people all over the world. So, through penpalling programs, we send private links and summaries of queer novels and TV shows to LGBTQ individuals who live in extremely queerphobic societies like Russia or the UAE.

I am no longer the seven or twelve year-old that fell victim to the scrutiny of those around me. While I still struggle with certain aspects of my gender and sexuality, I have given new meaning to my socially subversive identity, knowing now that my femininity and “gayness” can be utilized to improve others’ lives.