Proud & Queer: Zach

I am at a point in life where I actually feel as if I have a past. There's a clear delineation between then and now. I can say, "That was 20 years ago," without a second thought. I can get nostalgic about things and I can cringe at things I once said or did. Certain dates even stand out to me and I use them as demarcation lines, places where my thinking or understanding changed. June 26, 2015, is one of those dates.

That date, three days before my 28th birthday, is when the US Supreme Court handed down the decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that ensured same-sex couples the right to marry. I remember crying as I read the news and saw the videos. I was so ebullient in fact that I took to Facebook, started a post with a link to the news story and wrote out, "Now that I can marry anyone I want, I should get going on this whole dating thing," and clicked Post.

My brain suddenly took back over from my heart and read and reread the post multiple times. I had just put down in vague terms what I had never said out loud, but had known in my heart and my head for a very long time. I told all my "friends" I am bisexual.

I immediately texted my closest friend, "I think I just came out as bisexual on Facebook." I was not sure what her response would be or what—if anything—I could do. I was getting Likes in the double digits. I never got Likes in the double digits. This was unprecedented. This was anxiety-producing. This was me contemplating shutting down Facebook all together, not just my page but the whole website, when I got her response, "You know that's OK, right?"

A new wave of tears swept over me. This small, kind, beautiful act of acceptance suddenly made me feel as if being seen and being myself wasn't the worst thing in the world. I began actually saying the word out loud, to other people, to people I care about, and I got comfortable with it. Saying it the first time felt like my throat was some kind of homophobe the way it sometimes, and often still does, close up over the word. 

Yet, a funny thing happened. I got used to it. I got a sudden bounce in my step and even though my life wasn't (and still isn't) perfect. I felt a sense of solidity that I had never felt. Of course then I had to think on many things when it came to dating and living within the truth of who I am. There was something nagging, though. It was something that always felt like a second piece I was denying. So I thought about it, sometimes obsessed about it, then tamped it down. 

Then on February 28, 2020, there was a turning point. I didn't know it at the time, but it was happening. I had just cried my eyes out at a screening of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, I was feeling anxious and weary about the news, and I got a haircut. It turned out to be the last haircut I was going to have for about two and a half years and I felt a sudden jolt of excitement knowing that it was going to be acceptable for me to have long hair. It was what everyone was doing and so no one would notice I was doing it on purpose.

My entire life I had worried about certain effeminate tics of mine. I tend to have expressive hands when I talk, I cross my legs at an odd angle, and when my hair got a little long, I had a habit of delicately tucking it behind my ears. This was the tic that made me the most scared. Somebody would notice this movement and find it strange. They would find it odd and point it out and something that felt good to do on a cellular level (yes, this simple gesture gave me a strange amount of euphoria) would be taken from me. It would be scrutinized, picked apart, and as in a lot of other interactions with my male peers, I would be made to feel less than. So, I never let my hair get too long. I even went through a period of buzz cuts from elementary school to junior high.

I discovered quickly how much having long hair changed my demeanor and how much I leaned into my understanding of myself. I knew my whole life that boy/man/male/masculine was a smaller part of me than my outward appearance would have you believe. Yes, I still have these qualities and embrace the healthier aspects of this side of my personality, but I am learning to embrace and love the girl/woman/female/feminine strength within me. It has created a fluidity within my person that I still cannot concretely categorize.

Zach’s long hair experiment

The Evergreen Echo

There is a picture I have from two years into my long hair experiment. It is a silly selfie I took in my car because I needed to finalize my credentials for the first film festival I was to attend as a journalist. It was a time when even though I had a day job, I felt like my writing career was becoming something more tangible. Something that was blossoming instead of stagnant. It just felt good to be me at that moment.

My hair has become an extension that the notion of bisexuality barely covers who I am. As much as I am into cis men and women, I am also into trans men and women as well as non-binary, genderfluid, and genderqueer folks. I do not have a concrete awareness of what definitive words I have to describe myself, so instead of breaking down pieces of my identity, I just know I am a queer person.

I do not know how to truly fight. I do not know what to do. I do not know what to say. What I know, and what no one will ever take from me, is who I am. I know that if I live my truth out in the world, I will engage with the world as my whole self. I will call out the people in my life who express homophobia or transphobia because they think they are safe to do so because of how I look and how I choose to dress. I will disabuse everyone of the knowledge that they are safe from my disappointment at their shortsighted ignorance. I will let them know I think less of them because of what they said.

It is not world-changing. It is not the earth-shattering rhetoric of the revolutionary. It is what I can do. I can also paint signs, march with others, and push my candidates to vote and believe in issues that are affecting me. Real, lasting change does not come from a flash of effort. It is from the painstaking erosion of the stigmas and the taboos. It is from all of us living our best life out loud and encouraging more people to do the same.

Pride began with a riot and it will continue until our voices are too loud to drown out.