ZOEY
OKLAHOMA | SERIES # 4
In our daily lives, we are surrounded by stimuli; everything we see, hear, touch, smell, and taste is translated into electrical signals which get sent to our brains for processing. Because of this, our brains have to sort everything into established “buckets” because otherwise the rush of information would overwhelm us. For example, if you look at me, you probably put me into the “bucket” of being Asian. However, if you look at my name (a combination derived from Greek and Polish) without seeing my face, you likely would not picture someone who looks like me.
For my entire life, I have thought about which buckets I belong in. From an early age, I knew that I was ethnically Chinese while my entire adoptive family was Caucasian, and I was a tomboy who was a girl but didn’t like stereotypically girly things. I always thought of myself as very mature for my age, and I scoffed at my friends who were “boy crazy” in middle school. I had little interest in boys and dating, and thought I was being very logical and rational by focusing on school and sports.
Then, in ninth grade, I met a girl. Suddenly, all of the emotions my friends had described about their crushes made sense. When I got my driver’s license and started listening to music radio while driving to soccer practice, every cliché pop song about love and longing seemed targeted at me. The girl and I became friends, and I tortuously began overthinking every conversation and interaction between us. But I never told her directly how I felt.
Despite growing up in a liberal area in western Washington, only one kid in my grade was actually out. We had GSAs, but they were either for straight allies or for closeted kids to hang out. I did occasionally attend the GSA, and I participated in awareness campaigns like the annual Day of Silence. I volunteered with multiple community service clubs, and I always positioned myself as someone who cared about numerous causes (social, environmental, etc.).
For multiple reasons, it took me a long time to truly come out to myself. I knew I was attracted to this girl, but I also managed to think up all kinds of reasons why I could not be “sure” or trust those feelings. I had never been in any relationship before, so who knew if what I was feeling was real? Maybe I was attracted to girls, but I could also be attracted to boys. The worst thought that plagued my mind was that my parents would be disappointed or somehow “regret” adopting me, as if I were defective. Even though I knew my parents were liberal-minded and loved me deeply, these irrational thoughts slithered into my brain late at night. I decided that if I came out to them, I had to be 100% confident that I was telling the truth. I loathed the idea that I would come out as lesbian and then have to say, “Hey, just kidding!” a few years later. I worried about the potential emotional stress it would cause others. I also had close friends who regularly attended church, and I wasn’t sure how they would react. I would have been really upset if I lost their friendship, but I understand now that if they had cut me off, it would have been their loss.
Luckily, my friends and parents were nothing but supportive when I finally came out at the end of my senior year of high school. I am so grateful for their continued love and support, and I know not to take them for granted. The last two months of high school were a whirlwind: I started dating another girl, came out to everyone on Facebook, and we went to prom as the only out couple.
At my liberal college, people talked about queer theory at dinner and held protests at the administration buildings. I built a strong, close community of other queer folks and folks of color.
During my senior year, I applied to a teaching program that would eventually place me in Oklahoma City, where I am now. I only had two weeks to make this life-changing decision to uproot my life in my “Pacific Northwest haven” and move to deep-red Oklahoma. My decision period overlapped with the 2016 presidential election. When Donald Trump got elected, I knew that I had to get out of my Washington bubble and experience life in “Middle America.”
Since moving to Oklahoma, I have slowly started building connections with a queer community again, though it has taken over a year and is nothing like what I had in college. This is partially because I am so busy with teaching, but I also think it’s difficult to find open, established queer communities of color. In addition to moving halfway across the country and leaving my established networks of friends and family behind, I also spent the past year and a half slowly coming into my identity as a nonbinary person. We are so immersed in the gender binary in our society that it takes a lot of queer radical thinking to unlearn those lessons. This is why I am always thrilled to hear about so many young kids recognize nonbinary gender and trans identities.
While I am not officially out at my job, I helped start a new GSA at my school, and I have been so amazed and inspired by the students who come and share that space with me. While all of them have faced a lot of hardships in their lives due to a mix of poverty, queerphobic religious upbringings, and more, they are fighting every day for the right to express themselves as they are. As I continue to live and work in Oklahoma, I am determined to continue supporting queer youth and other queer educators, so that we can all feel safe to be who we are.
To any queer kids out there reading this, your identity is valid, and you are loved by people whom you have never even met.
