A Little History About Quin
Just as an FYI this will reference homophobia and queer struggle,. I have tried to keep it fairly surface, but it is there.
I was blessed with very cool parents. Having parents who lived in proximity to the art niche of Sheridan College in Oakville is going to land you with more accepting individuals.
Having a mom who hung out with your favourite sci-fi author will help.
Having a Dad who despite his generation always looks forward and listens to younger voices will help.
I crushed on EVERYONE when I was a child. I would come home and tell them I liked whichever classmate, and to their credit, they never blinked. I knew I was pan before I knew pan was a word. I just knew if I liked someone I liked them, and nothing else mattered.
I grew up in a church that said that wasn’t okay. I learned shame well away from my own home. We like to try to pin these things on parenting. In my case it was the world around me that told me it was wrong. Granted my parents were guilty of using the “oh it’s cool because that’s what your friends are doing” which can feel invalidating; however they never invalidated my feelings.
So how do you come out when you don’t have to? Well, you do and you don’t. I lost my best friend because I had seen her homophobic family and opted not to tell her. When I finally did because she was away from home she read it as betrayal and our relationship was never the same. I had another friend who said it was fine to be gay or straight but you couldn’t be both, that wasn’t real. That ended that friendship.
What I learned very quickly was that loving was going to cost me people at every turn.
That’s never changed no matter how old I get. People will excuse themselves from my life on the basis of what I do in the privacy of my own home. More still will discard me because I vehemently stand on the fact that it is of no consequence to anyone. Love is love. Colonized North America is made on very puritanical roots that doesn’t allow for any deviation from cis-gendered heterosexual monogamous “normativity”. When really it is not the norm of the land, it isn’t the norm of the people. It is an imposed structure. People who do not adhere to it are not “bad”. They may be awful people in general, anyone can be harmful, but to declare people harmful purely on the basis of their gender expression or relationship interest is a fool’s errand. Humans cannot be grouped and lumped in such a form.
So, how do you endlessly broach this subject? Well, you do things like this.
You talk about it.
I am writing this purely as a space occupying point. I’ve been blessed to not come against a lot of opposition about my attractions (my own gender is another matter for another blog) but I am lucky because I have been able to fairly freely explore.
Does this mean I’ve escaped unscathed from queer trauma?
Oh no, really no. The casual homophobia and heteronormative structure written into our society is pretty hard to avoid. Some people are unintentionally cruel, some are very intentionally cruel. I am not going to sit here and relive it and write it all down, that isn’t good for me to do publicly, though in small conversation I am often willing if the circumstances call for it. Suffice to say from authority figures, to relationships, to family and friends, I have experienced it everywhere.
Entering into 2021 you do need to have your head under a rock not to know what’s going on or to have an idea of what the queer community is. My tolerance at this point in my life as an adult has been reduced to net null when it comes to these things. Child me however just had to grin and bear it as many are still doing these days. There’s a blessing in aging that isn’t available while one is in school and I have managed to dodge some more living where I do and being out of the workforce, for that I am indeed lucky.
I am more than happy to offer an ear and support when I have it available to those who may not have the same liberties I do. I want you to know you are valid and you matter. You can contact both myself and Shawn through the contact page on the website, or through Facebook or Instagram.