[Vol. 19] The Existential Questions Cheat Sheet
Pssst ... you wanna compare answers?
Welcome back to That’s Gay, a candidly queer newsletter for a candidly queer world (cheers to that 😉 🥂), written by me, Till Kaeslin.
That’s Gay comes out every Monday and Thursday @ 10:00 A.M. EST.
Have a question, comment, just want to reach out? DM me on Instagram, holler @ me on Twitter, or drop a comment down below. I love to hear from ya 😊
*Oh and follow the That’s Gay Instagram account for shorter, mini-posts as well as the latest updates on the newsletter 💌
Admitting to you all in volume 16 that I’m questioning my gender was a big deal for me.
For six years, it was always the thing I couldn’t say. So, for six years, it was also the thing I wanted to say most. That’s the twisted irony in untold truths – the less you want to tell them, the more they push to be told.
When you have something you can’t say, like I did, it becomes sort of like a wall between you and the rest of the world. It’s a glass wall, built just high enough so you don’t have a prayer at getting over it, but thin enough so you can see through to the world on the other side (and vice versa).
But, as we’ve all learned from the global pandemic, just being able to see someone isn’t enough.
Even if that glass barrier between you changes nothing about how you interact with each other, it’s the fact that it’s there – that you can’t get closer to them even if you tried – that can get to you.
That’s kind of what holding onto my secret truth has felt like for years. At times it was really bad and it felt like I couldn’t even see myself anymore, let alone other people. Other times I barely noticed the wall I’d put up was even there.
But it was always there.
Putting up a wall to protect yourself from your own truth isn’t unique to gender questioning. We all do it, whether you’re questioning your sexuality, your career, your relationships, your mental health, etc. It’s part of being a human being.
Since we all deal with questioning anyway, why not share answers?
To get to where I am today, I had to get through a lot of questions – questions that mostly came from fear and doubt; questions that are about as universal as questioning is itself.
So let’s cheat on this test together like I cheated in my High School Chinese class, shall we? Time to share some answers.
Consider helping to get the word out about That’s Gay! Tell a friend, DM, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook – whichever poison you prefer, word of mouth, a few clicks, and a share are the only way the That’s Gay community is going to grow.
1. What’s the point in telling anyone?
I thought about this one for a long time. Why tell anyone how I felt about my gender? What good would that do? Why did anyone else even need to know?
Why take up space?
Minority groups and women are often taught to take up as little space as possible in this world. For me, that lesson came with coming out.
I remember when I came out as gay for the first time, I was met with a lot of people telling me that who I was was my business and my business alone. “That’s great,” they’d say, “but not everyone needs to know.”
They would tell me that this was just a small part of me; that the world was changing but hadn’t quite changed yet, and that they wouldn’t want me to be judged by something that took up so little of my identity. At the time, I agreed with them.
Now, I say fuck that.
Notice how I say, “fuck that” and not “them”. I don’t blame them, because I would’ve said the same exact thing if someone came out to me at the time. Come to think of it, I said the same thing to myself for years.
But I don’t say it anymore. Why? Because the world needs to make room for queerness.
No, your identity is not anybody’s business, and if you happen to be queer, you don’t owe anyone an explanation of your gender or sexuality just as much as a straight/cis person doesn’t owe one either.
But (and it’s a big but), without visibility there is only invisibility.
I didn’t have a lot of people I could look up to that publicly identified as gender queer. If I and others like me don’t make our business your business, then that just won’t change.
Besides, we’d just be doing what the majority straight/cis world does every day anyway – I can’t count the number of times I’ve seen a man walk down the street in jeans and a t-shirt, or straight people kiss on TV, and I never hear a peep about them living their truths too openly. But I digress …
This doesn’t just have to do with queerness.
The same thinking can apply to anything you’re questioning and navigating – your post-grad life, your career, your relationships etc. You don’t owe anyone an explanation of what you’re going through, but know that you’re also not relegated to keeping it a secret and going it alone. Not only is it fully ok to answer questions out loud, but it will, without a shred of a doubt, help other people answer their own – even if they never tell you so.
2. What if they don’t like who I am?
This one is one of the biggest things you’ll wrestle with when it comes to any untold truth, I think.
In the end of the day, we just want love.
I know, sounds corny, but it’s just the damn truth. No matter who you are or how cold, jaded, and steely you claim your heart to be, we all want to love and be loved.
So when that core desire is in question, when you’re not 100% sure you’re going to get it (or worse, if you’re going to lose it) after you speak your truth, it becomes a pretty damn good reason to keep your mouth shut.
I always felt like admitting that I was questioning my gender would make me somehow undesirable.
I thought that owning that part of me would make me damaged goods, because I always thought of that part of me as inherently damaged (which is an easy thought process to fall into when you treat a truth like it’s a crime scene).
For friends and family, I was afraid they wouldn’t “get” me anymore; that, despite the fact I knew they would be there for me, they would start to keep me at arms length, unsure what to do with me after what I’d admitted.
When it came to guys, I was terrified that I would turn them off. Because I’d been so adamant about hiding away this part of me for so long, I thought for sure that other guys would feel the same way when I told them – that I’d become some kind of sexual castaway.
*Side note: Does “Sexual Castaway” not sound like a sick band name?
Funnily (and painfully ironically) enough, I’ve had the exact opposite experience.
I feel closer to my friends and family than ever before because I’ve cracked that pesky glass wall. If I want to talk about how bad my gender dysphoria was yesterday with my best friend, I can – it’s not off limits anymore. Ironically (again), I’ve come to realize that telling them my truth didn’t put me at an arms distance, it closed that gap.
The same goes for guys. Not only have the ones I’ve told not cared, but it didn’t stop them from seeing me in a desirable way – which, as much as in the 21st century validation from others isn’t something we’re supposed to say we need, it certainly doesn’t hurt.
Beyond that, I’ve felt more confident to get closer.
Because now, for the time being, I’m not holding onto a secret truth – there’s nothing that might slip out if I get too close. If you feel that way for any truth you’re holding onto in your life, I promise you that the confidence you gain from letting it go is probably a lot greater than the kind you think you can maintain by keeping it a secret.
3. What if I’m overreacting?
When it comes to existential questions about who you are, what you want in this life, and why that is, there’s nothing more crippling than doubt.
Like I said in volume 16, what keeps queer people closeted isn’t always the fear of who they know themselves to be, but the fact that they don’t know, or don’t believe, who that person is.
You can’t be brave if you don’t know what you’re being brave for.
If you know close to 100% that you’re gay, coming out is pretty much inevitable (so far that it’s safe to do so where you are). In fact, that’s usually when people do come out – when they’ve reached the point of no longer being able to obscure the truth in doubt.
But when who you think you might be, or what you might want, is muddled with doubt (which is most often the case, I think), it’s a lot harder to face your fears and step out. You can’t push yourself to open up about your truth and stop “living a lie”, as so many people have said, when you’re not sure what side the lie is on.
Doubt makes you wonder, “is my hidden truth really my truth at all?”
If you couldn’t already tell, doubt played a HUGE role in my questioning my gender – mostly, I think, out of fear. Since I feared being different, I learned to interrogate myself with questions that, ironically, could ease my questioning.
“Am I really [this], or am I really just [that]? Is this really [this], or is this really just [that]'“
For me, six years and never-ending questioning have proven that it’s never been “just [that]” – but that’s a truth you have to uncover yourself.
Even though I’m still going through it today, I’ll let you know what’s been helping me anyway
– always a fan of the blind leading the blind. Take a break from asking yourself all these “this or that?” questions and ask yourself this one instead:
"Who do I desire to be, and what do I desire?”
The way I see it, “desire” is different from “want”. Trust me when I say that I didn’t want to be genderqueer. I didn’t want it so much that I was willing to make myself miserable just to get away from it.
But I always desired it. I was always drawn to it. And whenever I listened closely enough, I could feel that desire whispering in my ear (which, yes, is insanely annoying when you’re trying to focus).
I think we all have that whisper in our ear, all the time. Most of the time though, we’re just choosing not to listen to it, whether it’s telling us to take that new job, move to that new country, start that new relationship, or come out as “confused as fuck”.
P.S. I was going to end the article here, but I just wanted to add one more thought.
Just because I’ve “owned” this one hidden truth of mine doesn’t mean there aren’t more hidden truths to come. They might have to do with identity, or maybe they’ll have to do with where I want to move to next after New York City, or maybe even who I’ve fallen in love with but can’t admit it to myself (shoutout to you, mysterious future lover 😉).
We’re constantly picking up hidden truths, but the only way they go is if you devote the time and work up the nerve to move through them – otherwise they tend to pile up in the supply chain, which isn’t pretty.
The process of admitting to them, working through them, and stepping into them is, I think, what life is all about. So no, this isn’t a final chapter; this isn’t “coming out”. It’s just one more truth down, with many more to come.
Today’s discussion Q:
Why do you think we need to open up about our truths? Why is that somehow essential to us as human beings?
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 19. See you in Volume 20, folks!
Want Volume 20? Not signed up yet?
Share this newsletter and help my baby grow!
Speaking truth to power is all well and good, but speaking truth to ourselves is infinitely harder. We live in a busy and complex world, but we also contain secret multitudes within ourselves. When the two realms of our existence come into conflict, when what we are or feel within ourselves doesn't fit into the world at large, it isolates us. Humans are inherently social beings, it is in our nature to want to connect with those around us, especially those we love. When we keep secrets about ourselves from the world, we can so easily become detached from those people. When the world in our head is the only place where our truth exists, then we will naturally spend more time there. Humans will almost always be drawn to the situation, place, or environment in which they can be most comfortable in their own skin. If that place is away from the real world, secreted up in our own minds, then so be it. That is why living our truth is so important, so deeply ingrained in our minds and hearts, because without it it becomes harder and harder to actually live in the world we find ourselves in. In essence, living your truth is vital because anything else isn't really living. That's why people come out, that's why people own their identities even when it might lose them friends or family. If it wasn't fundamental to our very nature, if we didn't need to be truthful to ourselves, why would people put themselves through the difficulties of coming out as queer? In the end, we are drawn to living our truth because everything else would be incomplete.