Today I read that Pete Buttigieg had been nominated to lead the Department of Transportation, news that warmed my heart. Since meeting him in 2019 at a campaign fundraiser in DC, I have known that the competence and warmth the former South Bend mayor conveys on the screen is tangible in person, as well. It reminded me, though, of earlier times when I cringed at media enthusiasm over gay 'firsts'.
In the past I hesitated to acknowledge the accomplishments of gay people who broke barriers - and not because I resented their accomplishments. It was more that the fanfare struck me as condescending. Cheering for the first lesbian to serve as CEO of a mega corp or gay man to play in the NFL was like happily accepting table scraps. Of course we can do everything you can do, law-maker, status-setter, patriarch, oppressor. I would not be singing along when the same society that made these accomplishments so hard to come by penned a new verse to Kumbaya.
Now I'm beginning to understand how that old reflex got its start.
Looking back at my childhood, it is not hard to imagine how I became such a defensive, protective, and angry man. That last word has come as a surprise to me of late. I never thought of myself as angry before now. I immersed myself in problem-solving, trying always to trust the fruits of reason. I saw plenty of examples of impotent rage and bitterness growing up, so I thought as long as I avoided those traps, anger would not be a part of my emotional landscape. Instead, that anger has flourished just out of sight. Along with fear and sadness, it has formed a tangled wood - and as the tail end of the Trump presidency is showing me, it has risen to twist in the sun.
Up until now, I believed that so much of the tumult of my youth was the result of being gay, or more pointedly, being judged for it. Yet it has deeper roots than that. I believe it began with not believing I was loved. Let me be explicit: whenever she was disappointed by, frustrated with, or lonely for my father, my mother would begin a tirade with these five words, each as sharp as a boxcutter: "If your father loved us..."
I wonder how that satisfied her or if, instead, it cut her to the quick, a pain she may have felt she deserved or that she at least knew. Perhaps it was just senseless theater. I don't have the bandwidth to delve into her personal anguish, beyond recognizing that, through it, she implanted in me harmful notions that would define my self-worth and resilience long after the outrage she felt toward her husband had faded.
With such a lack of confidence, I entered into public school in a rural community that had well-defined suspicions and factions. Most who would be ostracized already knew or quickly found their place. The Black kids had each other, or so it seemed from the outside. The poor White kids made up the largest, loudest, and most unruly group, while the rich White kids were largely absent, their place evidently being in private school. Even the fat kids and the nerds often sat together at lunch: fat with fat, nerd with nerd. It occurs to me now that I could have taken my place at either of those tables, being both an avid reader and eater.
Honestly, I really knew nothing about the ecosystem of the lunchroom; I spent junior high either avoiding school altogether or hiding in bathrooms and empty classrooms to avoid being heckled at mealtime. That meant that for three years, I went without food every school day. It also meant I went that long without learning how to make friends.
There was no lunch table for the gay kids. If anything, we stayed conspicuously apart, likely fearing that forming alliances would only prove the allegations constantly lobbed at us: you are a pervert, you are different, you are not welcome. Beneath that lurked the other barb: you are not lovable. I could not have processed that at such a young age, but reasonably speaking, it computed with the message I was getting at home, those five razor-sharp words.
When I recall my early adulthood, I remember that there was some anger that I carried out in the open. It took the form of snide humor and sarcastic asides. It was all pretty typical camp venom, filtered through a moody, grunge-era style fashioned after the comedians of the day. I wish I could remember their names. Mostly, I wanted to make up for lost time. I wanted loads of laughter and friendship. Bong hits made it seem attainable.
Eventually I lucked into meeting a great life partner, back when gay marriage was still one ask too many for this country. This would be a permission we would wait another twenty years to have granted. Law-makers, status-setters, patriarchs, oppressors. While we were waiting, we each started our own small businesses. Through them we made ecosystems where we felt safe, writing the rules so that no voice went unheard. No bullies allowed.
In the wake of the campaign season, I have been gripped with anxiety and depression. The anxiety is an old acquaintance - a condition that has plagued me with varying intensity throughout my life. After my father died in 2012, I was visited with depression. I saw a therapist and worked through that. Now I'm back in her chair, except that it is really my chair, and we're talking through our computer screens.
It took me by surprise, this anguish, given that all the work I was part of since 2019 had brought Joe Biden and Kamala Harris a win. Over the years, I have learned that the things that are bothering me do not present themselves until the danger is passed. It is the result of that inclination to problem-solve in real time, not to get mired in emotion. Let's get the car safely off the road first. We can worry about what made the motor stop running later. The sharpest tool in this trauma sufferer's toolbox is compartmentalization.
Now I am coming to terms with the Trump presidency's impact on my mental health. All those years of my adult life when I felt like I had personal control to create safe harbor at home and work were challenged by the discovery that the same cruelty and dysfunction that animated the bullies of a middle school lunchroom could animate a citizenry to blind themselves to the suffering of others or, worse still, to find a bitter joy in dismissing that pain altogether. I wonder how well history will record the yard signs that read 'fuck your feelings'. What was implicit was the target of that message: Fuck your feelings, faggot. Coon. Wetback. Tranny. Bitch.
For four years I let the front part of my brain take the lead. Comprehend the dangers, but do not feel them. Stay busy at work, hunker down, wait for it to pass. When kids were put in cages at the border, I intellectually understood that it was horrific: a stain on our nation and a human rights violation. But to fully let myself feel their pain would require peeling back too many layers on my own. The same can be said for the Muslim ban and the attacks on trans people anxious to serve in the military.
During the primary season I donated to the Buttigieg campaign, then pivoted to Elizabeth Warren when I felt her policies were a better fit. I took volunteer coordination training, knocked on doors, attended events. When Pete stepped aside for Joe, starting a domino effect of Democrats getting in line, I reorganized my perspective and got on board, too. In the aftermath of the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and in the midst of the flowering hell of the pandemic, I focused more intently on the work I was doing to help with the election. As I had with the kids at the border, I understood more than felt the atrocity.
I soldiered on, creating content for my local Democratic committee's social media, first renovating and then volunteering at their office. Like so many other Americans, I sent countless small donations to help elect Democrats all over the country. When a radical harpy for the GOP parked himself outside of the registrar's office to seed misinformation to early voters, I joined the ranks who kept a vigil there to help balance the optics and answer questions.
That experience was surreal, because the same junior high where I used to skip lunches and dodge bullies had become a suite of local town offices. I was standing in view of the same football track where I was laughed at for running like a girl. Those windows at my back now were where I used to look pensively outward, daydreaming to separate myself from a reality that was always confirming that early message: you are not loved. An added piece of irony came in the form of the local registrar herself, who had served as secretary to my junior high principal when I was twelve.
On Election Day, I was a poll observer, for fourteen hours bearing witness as an army of stiff-lipped, angry-eyed conservatives swarmed the line with the determination of murder hornets. I watched three hard-looking men march their equally exhausted-looking wives in to vote, hovering over them despite the law, to make sure they voted the right way.
While my mind was telling me to keep marching, my reserves were taking a hit and now, more than a month later, I am struggling to get a full night's sleep and trying to come to grips with what has been lost during this grim era. For me and so many others, our faith in our democracy was put to a brutal test. What came into sharp focus was the fact that we didn't leave the bullies behind in the lunchroom and on the football field. They grew older, just as we did. Time might have softened them, perhaps shamed some of their worst ideas and impulses into the shadows, but Trump and his cronies rang a bell and called them forth. It is not that everyone who was hateful in junior high thirty years ago is a Republican now, although, frankly, I'd love to see the numbers on that.
I had papered over the trauma of childhood, but the same root issues that made me so vulnerable to the taunts of my childhood bullies had yet to be recognized. It is that trauma that delivered me a misleading notion: that I should indict the oppressor more loudly than I applaud the groundbreaker. This raw anger has its place, invigorating public defenders and animating activists. It fuels an appetite for justice that toils ceaselessly to make sure all oppressors eventually meet their Nuremberg. It is harmful, though, when it prevents one from allowing other, equally important emotions, such as joy and awe, to stir the conscious and uplift the soul.
I may have got on board and learned to cheer for my fellow LGBTQ 'firsts' a while ago, but I have other traumas to work though. So, yes, I will be working on myself under a Biden administration. There is a joke about how liberals put themselves to sleep under Obama by focusing only on themselves and not broader issues, ignoring the signs of risk just outside their comfortable cocoon. There is a lot to do and I plan to use what I've learned over this past election year to stay activated and involved, but the truth is I have some advocacy work to do much closer to home.
Some people seek to defend themselves with guns. Others live lives of painful isolation, protecting themselves with physical distance or a chilly demeanor. I will find my greatest strength by working on the very thing that alluded me in childhood: love.
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