[Vol. 16] It's Ok to Be Confused
I am, and I'm no longer afraid to say so.
*Disclaimer: As with every one of these newsletters, I speak only on behalf of myself – how I’ve personally experienced queerness – and never for the entirety of the LGBTQ+ community.
When I came out as gay in High School, I was lucky enough to be met with nothing but support – that or benign neglect, either way I was chilling.
At the time I decided to come out, coming out content was on fire. 🔥
You quite literally couldn’t bat an eye without another “My coming out story” video being uploaded to YouTube. It was no accident that my coming out came right on the heels of that heat – watching coming out video after coming out video in bed was a big part of the reason I felt ok to do so myself.
It’s also a big part of the reason I so often say that representation matters.
I’m not the only kid to have benefited from queer creatives publishing their stories online – not by a long shot. The undeniably (but unfortunately) brave act of owning your identity for any stranger on the internet to see is one of the most profound examples of “fuck it, this is who I am” energy you could possibly find on the internet – and that goes for both then and now.
But what if you’re more like, “fuck it, I don’t know who I am”?
For any person that comes out of the closet, you have to realize that that single moment in time, that one act of “coming out”, represents months, possibly even years of existing on the other side of the closet door. And although the common narrative is that these people are just sitting in the closet, fully knowing who they are but not quite ready to risk the leap to greener pastures, the reality is that many queer people don’t experience coming out like that.
It’s not always the fear of who you are that keeps you closeted, but the confusion of who you might be.
In my experience, there’s nothing more emotionally isolating than being a confused queer person. Why? Because no one comes out as confused. You’re expected to know yourself when you come out so that you can use that decisiveness as a weapon against all the questions you’re bound to be berated with.
In this world, as it is now, someone that comes out needs to be able to answer the question, “but are you sure?” with air-tight confidence in order to get people to take them seriously. Moreover, our world is decidedly not ok with experimentation – once you’ve broken a binary, whether that be related to your sexuality or gender, you’re as good as “out”.
That leaves queer people completely alone in the time they need someone –anyone – most: when they’re questioning.
So, today, I’m going to challenge the taboo that tells us we can’t be unsure; that, in order for the world to digest our identity, in order for us to come out “in the right way”, we have to be absolutely sure.
I’m here to tell you that I’m not sure. I’m confused.
No, I’m not about to tell you I have a girlfriend. I’m definitely gay – that much I’m sure of. I’m not talking about my sexuality here.
I’m questioning my gender. In fact, I’ve been questioning my gender ever since I came out in High School – over 6 years ago now.
Every damn day for 6 years.
Yes, I’m confused. Yes, I’m questioning. No, I don’t know when I’ll know – I may never know. Saying that out loud has to be ok.
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Being confused as a queer person is, in my experience, an all-consuming thing. Whether you’re in the process of questioning your sexuality or your gender, once you start seriously doubting your identity, the questions truly never stop.
When I said every damn day for 6 years, I meant every damn day for 6 years.
All of a sudden, being confused is all you can think about.
And you hardly remember what life was like before the thought, “Am I queer?” ever crossed your mind. Honestly, I can’t even imagine all the things I had time to think about before I started questioning. Come to think of it, it might’ve just a lot of empty space at the time. Wouldn’t be surprised.
Unfortunately, when you’re confused, your time isn’t just taken up by questions, but oftentimes by anxiety, depression, and fear … oh my!
Because, after all, these aren’t questions you’re “supposed” to have, and these aren’t thoughts you’re “supposed” to share.
I felt that way when I was grappling with my sexuality, and, after I eventually came out as gay, I felt it again when I started questioning my gender. Tragically for young Till at the time, my gender confusion came right at the heels of my first coming out.
I was devastated.
All I could think was, ‘This isn’t fair. Why me?’
I still remember exactly what had sparked this second wave of questioning – or rather I should say, what unearthed it from within me. I was sitting in U.S. History, bored out of my mind and doodling on a sticky note. I didn’t realize it then, but the moment I picked up my pen and looked down at that fluorescent-orange note to doodle away my boredom was the last time I would ever be blissfully ignorant about my gender.
When I looked up, my eyes focused on a girl across the classroom, sitting with her legs crossed, one over the other, pulling her long hair into a ponytail.
Boom. That was it. It was something I’d seen my girlfriends do a thousand times, and yet this time, for some unknown reason, it exposed some deep, yet-unexplored identity crisis that I now know had been bubbling up inside me for as long as I could remember.
And, if you can believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve ever shared that story with anyone.
Ever since then (and arguably way before then, too) I’ve been questioning.
Although “questioning” makes the whole thing sound somewhat methodical – peaceful almost – I promise you it was far from it.
When I was in the process of mulling over how I would approach writing this article, I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t devote a lot of the word count to explaining the pain that came with my questioning. Why? Because I’ve seen a trend in coming out stories/experiences where queer people are made to feel as though they have to justify their decisions about their own identities with emotional trauma.
Your queer identity does not have to be justified by hardship.
If I came to the realization that I may be genderqueer over yesterday’s morning coffee, with little or no emotional upheaval to speak of, that should be ok. In fact, that’s what an ideal world would look like – one in which queer people don’t have to suffer as they question, just as straight/cisgender people never have to either.
So I’ll just say this: Questioning was, and still is at times, the most profound pain, emotional or physical, I’ve ever felt in my entire life.
It was that same pain that first inspired me to start this newsletter and, now, write this article. After all, queer people – queer kids – should be able to call out when they’re in pain without fear, without judgment, and without the pressure of the expectation for them to “be sure”.
Speaking from personal experience, no one should have to go through that alone.
Part of the reason I think so many people are worried about voicing their confusion and/or questioning is because they don’t want people making assumptions on questions they haven’t gotten the chance to answer yet; parts of their identity they have yet to explore.
How do I know that? I’m going through it right now.
Part of me is so very tempted to write out a string of answers to all the possible questions you might have about my identity after reading everything I just wrote, but I’m not going to let myself do that. Apart from the basics, I’m going to leave everything fairly open.
I understand that, given how personally I just wrote about my own experience, you may have a lot of questions. How do I identify now? Will there be any changes in my appearance/gender presentation? What does “I’ve been questioning my gender” actually mean?
And those are all valid questions – questions I want to answer in more depth than I do here and talk about in later newsletters, both from my own perspective and that of other gender non-conforming people.
But not in this newsletter. This newsletter is about normalizing being confused.
This newsletter is about making the argument that it’s ok to question your identity – your sexuality, gender, or whatever – in broad daylight, without all your answers squared away and ready to go.
Ok. Let me wander off on a quick tangent that hopefully will help explain why I feel that way in a more widely relatable way.
The first article I ever wrote on Medium.com, back in December of 2019 when I finally picked up writing for myself again, was my admission to the world (or, rather, my small corner of it) that I didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do with my life. In the article, To All My Post-Grads Hunting for Passion: You Won’t Find It — Do Things You Like Instead, I wrote about how I was realizing that the idea of finding your “one true passion” was complete bullshit. Instead, I argued that the only way we could all find something we’re happy doing is to forget about that label - passion – and to just explore, make time for, and do the things we already know we like.
Why can’t we afford ourselves the same opportunity and thinking when it comes to queerness and our identities?
What if instead of resigning ourselves to the metaphorical closet, brooding, experimenting, and trying to piece ourselves together in shame, we decided to open our confusion up to the world? What if the world we lived in encouraged us to experiment with who we are attracted to or with what pronouns make us feel most comfortable – all without having any clear answers yet?
How much easier would the process of questioning have been (and continue to be) for me and so many other queer folks if this was our reality? How differently would we learn to view our naturally changing identities if it wasn’t through a lens of shame and secrecy? In a world like that, how many more people would feel ok to come out?
I really have to wonder.
For now, I’ve decided I’m ok with he/him or they/them pronouns – something I’ll mark in all my social media bios as he/they (read a great response I found as to why more and more people are putting pronouns in their bios – coming from a straight/cis guy, no less – on Quora here).
What that means is that I’m totally ok with being referred to by the masculine pronouns he/him, but also ok with trying out gender-neutral pronouns they/them. That’s in part because, for me, the gender-questioning I experience is much more related to social dysphoria than any tangible physical/body dysphoria (see under “body dysphoria vs. social dysphoria”). But we can get into that later.
Mind you, this is extremely new to me and I’m just trying on what might fit.
If you’re wondering why any of this matters to me, especially if masculine pronouns still work just fine, I’ll say this: I’ve felt just about a thousand times more at ease as I’ve let myself discover and explore language I could use to describe my identity better. It may seem simple – unnecessary even – to you, and if you’ve never had to question your gender identity before I don’t blame you for that.
To me, though, to invoke the old but timeless cliché, it’s felt as if a weight has been lifted from my shoulders (something I can shed more light on in later volumes of this newsletter).
Last thoughts: Our identities are not stagnant.
I want to leave you all with the idea that our identities do not have to be as set in stone as most of us like to think. Answering questions that come up as you grow and exploring those answers isn’t going to change you – you’ve already changed, you’re always changing, and it’s ok to move with that change.
I started really thinking about that idea when it came to queerness after hearing a few beautiful words (in my opinion) from Luca Guadagnino, the legendary director of Call Me By Your Name and, my new favorite show, We Are Who We Are.
After just having finished We Are Who We Are Season 1, a show about two kids living on a military base in Italy and growing into their queer identities, I went down a rabbit-hole of “the making of We Are Who We Are” clips on YouTube - something I do if I really, really like a show but have no episodes left to watch.
In this one recap of the final episode of Season 1 (Beware: spoilers in the video, but I won’t include them here 😉 ), Guadagnino says of a character grappling with her gender identity, “I think she probably understands in that moment, that she doesn’t want to be what she thought she wanted to be. But in this sense of defeat that she feels, she also finds something revelatory, something painfully beautiful. In practice, she’s understanding the real need of utopia for the self: to be recognized in the gaze of the other.”
While our identities are malleable, what doesn’t change is our very human need to be recognized, seen, and respected for who we are and who we feel ourselves to be – especially in the eyes of our loved ones. Just because who we are is changing, or unsure, doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to be seen.
Although questioning my gender identity is not, and has never been, a phase, how I choose to identify will most probably change as I learn more about myself. It might change in a month, a year, hell it could even change tomorrow. Because remember, I’m confused, and I’m no longer afraid to say so.
It’s time we destigmatized questioning.
There will be a discussion question for today’s newsletter (forgot last time, hence the “oops” follow-up), but first, let me just fit in a quick disclaimer: it’s ok if you’re not ready to open up about questioning.
I mean, comon’, I wasn’t ok with it for the past 6 years (and arguably before then too). Honestly, I’m still not really over it – this article is a lot tougher for me to write and publish than it might look on your end.
So take your time, and just so you know, my DMs on any social platform are always open. Ask me anything - within reason – and if you send me something you’re not ready to talk about openly yet, trust that it’s between me, you, and the grave 😉
Today’s discussion Q:
Why do you think we feel the need to justify our identities to other people; to “come out” at all?
I have my answer. Let me know yours in the comments below! As always, I’ll be reading/responding to all.
And that was That’s Gay, Volume 16. See you in Volume 17, folks!
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