Manhattan visits Kentucky, reflects on southern roots

Queer? To be completely honest, the meaning of the word Queer has been a bit of a conundrum. The definition, personally, changes daily.

When I was initially introduced to the concept of what I think Queer is today, which I think is something quite radical, I didn’t think I was radical enough. What I’ve come to associate queerness with are people who don’t have rigid, black and white definitions of their sexuality and gender.

That’s exactly where I find myself, in a grey area. I prefer humans who identify as men, that’s not to say I’ve never felt attracted to someone who identifies as a woman, sexually. If I have to tick a gender box, I would tick male. However, I don’t subscribe to the stereotypical ideas of what society would consider to masculine. I don’t identify as female, but I certainly am effeminate. For me, this is my queerness.

I would say these are ideas and notions I’ve come to recently. I grew up in Jackson, Mississippi where the culture is very binary. Gay vs Straight – Man, Woman. I’ve lived in New York for ten years, I think this has changed slightly back home.

However, when I was coming of age I didn’t have any references for anything beyond the stereotypes. It was a constant struggle to find where I fit in.

After my recent visit to Kentucky, I’m noticing a change in the south. I think with dawn of social media more people in rural and conservative areas have access to representation and like minded individuals that one may not have known existed. It’s allowed LGBTQIA+ community to form a more global network which is beautiful. Especially for young people – if I had the knowledge that people like me existed in the world when I was coming of age, or examples of people living their life beyond societies definition, everything could have been different.

It’s all so overwhelming, I wish that boxes and definitions and binaries didn’t exist. Can you imagine a world where people just exist freely as they are? No need to create subcultures and sub-subcultures and communities within communities for protection and identification?

I’m not sure I’ll ever see this problem solved as long as we’re human but if we’re aware it’s a start. What’s wild is it’s all just a human attempt to belong but in this attempt to belong we create new communities or scenes that become exclusionary.

The best example that comes to mind is high school, there are kids that don’t identify with the mainstream so they refuse to conform and choose to rebel. In their rebellion they join the goth scene or alt scene, now their rebellion has become about conforming with a new group of like minded individuals that reject a group of people that they feel rejected them.

As it relates to Queers specifically, this behaviour was for protection and safety, mental and physical. I think it’s important and healthy to respect the past, but we have to look towards the future and build on ideas that are actually inclusive.

Gay cis white men have gained a lot and move through the world with much more ease, what’s important now is to use that privilege support and uplift more marginalized members of our collective community.