Queerness isn’t something that people tell you you’re allowed to feel. Many discover it through other queer people, and their own life experience. I discovered it through books my mom brought home for me. Melissa (George, when I read it) by Alex Gino and Can’t Take That Away by Stephen Salvatore showed me people who felt just like me; not quite right in their bodies. The more I learned about queer people, the more I explored boxes and labels until I found one that was just right: non-binary. Not quite a boy, not quite a girl. Finding the freedom in being non-binary was difficult at first. I tried to look androgynous, then like a boy, before settling into who I truly am. Being misgendered is something I have to accept and roll with. Every correction from “she” to “they” is an opportunity for someone to learn, and for them to ask questions without being afraid. However, being a young person and secure in this identity was not always that easy. I dealt with bullying just like everyone else, but, worse than that, I dealt with bad friends. Transphobic trans people and homophobic gay people were everywhere I turned, because they embraced their own identities but didn’t want to be too ‘woke’. They hated other transgender people for how they looked, or approached being transgender. It was like a war between the two types of being queer: what they deemed acceptable, and what they didn’t. I didn’t know how to fit in. So I stopped trying. If those books taught me anything, it was that there is always a new friend who will accept you just around the corner. I was able to avoid painful life lessons because the characters I related to experienced them first. Now at the end of high school, I am both the proud President of our Gender/Sexuality Alliance, and Sr. Co-Editor-in-Chief of our literary magazine. I am able to explore my passion for writing alongside my pride for my identity, and every year I see a greater overlap in the clubs. So, when it came time to pick a college major, I didn’t hesitate; I knew I wanted to write. I want to make the same impact on others that other queer authors have made on me. Whether I am creating safe spaces through stories, or through the communities that emerge from them, I will feel successful. My queer identity is no longer a hindrance to me, it is a beautiful addition. It is just another story I am able to tell. It was always natural for me to pursue a creative career, and I am grateful to have found my home in creative writing. It is my greatest hope that I can use my position as a non-binary bisexual to encourage others to never fit it, or limit themselves to one box. Standing out, loud and proud, is the best way to experience everything life has to offer. I want to offer my stories as spaces of comfort and community to other kids just like me, and help them find themselves with as much self-love as possible.

I often credit my pop-pop with my creativity. During every summer I spent with him, he provided me with a steady flow of blank paper, pencils, crayons, and sheets to color in that he found online. I thought that I would be able to show him my art forever, but now all I am left with is the collection I am making in his honor. When I began freshman year, I believed that the most difficult part would be adjusting to high school classes, and joining clubs. But, all of the sudden, on a random Saturday in December, my pop-pop passed away. Not even in the second semester, I had to rediscover life without him in addition to the regular trials of being fifteen. By the time sophomore year rolled around, I hoped that I would have a fresh chance at high school. Then, just a few days after the one year anniversary of my pop-pop’s death, my three-year-old dog suddenly died. I wondered if every year would be like this, another thing to worry about, another person to mourn. I struggled with carrying the memory of them both with me through junior year. I walked through my house and looked at empty dog beds, and struggled to look at my pop-pop’s lounge chair during the holidays. I saw red when my uncle sat in his chair during Christmas dinner, but bit my tongue. I felt like I was drowning in grief that everyone else had seemed to move past. Senior year finally brought relief. I decided to take the AP Drawing class my school offers, which allows me to pick my own topic to create a collection of art based off of for the entire year. I posed the question: “How do I show the internal feeling of grief externally?” Since September, I have made three paintings with my pop-pop in them, and four others about how it felt to simply experience loss. A part of me feels better, being able to share and express all of my heaviest feelings. But a greater part of me just wishes he was still around to see how much I have accomplished. Every moment that has made me feel like I am backsliding has been immortalized on paper or canvas, and will soon be shared with my entire school. Grief feels isolating, like no one else can understand how you feel, even when they are going through the same thing. I hope to show that there is always comfort to be found, even in our darkest moments. Every time I get up on stage to do a show with my theater club, I see his face in the audience, and every time I draw or paint I feel him watching over me, guiding me to create. I don’t know if he would be impressed or proud, or if he would show it even if he was, but I do know that I owe everything to him. As I finish my collection, I realize that I have memorized his face, and brought up memories I thought were long forgotten. I have created an exercise in love and memory through grieving one of the most important people I have ever known. I am so lucky to have discovered ways to channel the creativity he saw in me into a degree, and will start this upcoming freshman year with strength I didn’t have last time, and him by my side, in spirit.

While some people do not consider being nonbinary a part of the transgender community, I do. I personally prefer being called transgender than nonbinary. I find that it fits me more. I live in the limbo and difficulty of explaining they/them pronouns but I don’t feel like picking a box just yet. I’m lucky, I know, to go to school in a district where I have had endless opportunities to grow as a queer person. I’m also very lucky to be accepted by my teachers, even while not all of my peers do. One of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with is understanding that my classmates will not respect my pronouns as long as I dress and seem feminine. It is hard for people to comprehend that I don’t identify how I look. It is much harder to get used to a singular ‘they’ than ‘he’ or ‘she’ because it is unconventional. This used to be isolating, but as I went through school, I became members of the Pride Alliance Club at my middle school, and Gay Straight Alliance at my high school, of which I am now president. It has been so important to me to be able to create these spaces where students can find safety and friends. I work constantly to maintain these spaces despite dipping attendance and shame around these organizations, because they have always been there for me in my time of need. When we don’t know where we belong, representation in the media is of the utmost importance. I learned that from the moment I read ‘Melissa’ (previously George) by Alex Gino. It opened up the floodgates of queer literature, which my librarian mother readily and constantly provided. I not only learned about the black and white of being transgender, but also the pink, blue, purple, green, and every other color of the rainbow. It moved me in ways that I didn’t know I could be moved, and I realized how much literature could teach children. It isn’t actually all that hard to explain what society deems difficult, especially when you are able to see it from the eyes of someone it affects. Reading ‘Melissa’, among other books about gender in any way shape and form, has encouraged me to pursue writing. I want to create the stories and spaces that I enjoy so much, and use them to teach others. It is difficult to find the truth in the turmoil of today, but when you read, you have the confidence that the piece you are consuming has gone through years of edits and alterations to ensure that it is as true as it can be. However, as I’ve spent the past year and a half searching for a degree that will give me an incredible education with opportunities for jobs and my future so I can reach my far out goals, I come up with what seems to be over $100,00 in debt for four years of college no matter where I look. This is not a debt that I can afford. With the aid I will hopefully receive from each school, I can only hope to pay off my loans by the time I’m well into my sixties. For this, I have pushed myself relentlessly into my academics and extracurriculars. I am in more clubs and honors societies than I can count on both hands and push myself to earn above a 4.0 every single marking period. These will not save me. I look into my future and I see soul crushing monthly payments, and the fear that I will not earn an education that will allow me to be successful enough in my field so much so that I cannot even afford to pay off that education that gave me nothing. College is the end goal. It is my last chance for the foreseeable future to be able to learn and depend somewhat on a system to provide for me. However, the cost is steep and I often find myself lying awake at night wondering what will happen to me. How will I be the change I want to see in the world? How will I give myself a reputable platform to stand on? How will I be able to be someone that I will be proud of? How will I make it out scot free? How will I be a role model? Create safe havens and worlds in which people can see themselves in a place that they are accepted with open arms? I have the opportunity to be the face of some and the voice of many, and it is not an opportunity that I am willing to waste.