A Yellow Crewneck Sweatshirt, a Green Stocking Cap, and Pronouns (Also: Life in the Middle)

It’s just a golden-yellow crewneck sweatshirt. A typical Gilden brand crewneck with frames from the closing credits of Jujutsu Kaisen, one of the many anime shows I started watching during quarantine/pandemic. I ordered it from an Etsy store that, for some reason, stopped existing almost immediately after it was delivered. It’s just a golden-yellow crewneck.

It’s just a green stocking cap. A green knit stocking cap with a green puff ball at the top that is meant to look like Michael Nesmith of the Monkees’. I’ve had it since college. I’ve worn it for years. It’s just a green knit stocking-cap.

The outfit was simple: leggings, a t-shirt, the golden-yellow Jujutsu Kaisen sweatshirt, the green cap, and a red mask that my step-mom made. I was feeling myself, so I decided to take a selfie. And as I looked at myself in the front-facing camera, I realized something.

I didn’t really feel female.
Not that I felt male.
But I didn’t feel female.

And, I realized, this was not the first time I’d felt this way.

I was at Summer camp, going to my first “dance,” when I decided I wanted to look like a boy. My friends wore their prettiest outfits because it was one of the only times that the girls camp and the boys camp met up, and I wore the most ‘boyish’ thing I could find. I wore my camouflage pants, camp t-shirt, and backwards baseball hat. If it seemed too boyish, I didn’t care. I almost wanted someone to think I was a boy.

But not all the time.

Sometimes I like getting dressed up. I like wearing skirts and cute ‘girly’ things. Especially when it’s really hot outside. Don’t need camo pants in 90 degrees.

But even then…I don’t always necessarily feel like a girl.

I’m…in the middle, I would say.

And, believe it or not, it’s not the first time I’d felt that way either.

I was always told that bisexuality didn’t exist. That it wasn’t real. It was only what people said if they didn’t know whether they were actually gay or straight. A phase, if you will.
So when I realized that I sometimes felt for girls the way I felt for boys I’d crushed on, I was completely, totally, and utterly confused. I wasn’t lesbian, because I still sometimes crushed on boys. I had boyfriends. But…I still liked girls.

Once again…I was in the middle.

So here’s where I stood. I liked boys, and I liked girls. Some days I felt feminine, some days I didn’t. But I couldn’t put a word to any of it. Because as far as I knew, bisexuality didn’t really exist, and gender-fluidity wasn’t something I had very much knowledge of at all.

It was junior year in college when I finally decided that it was time to start telling people I wasn’t straight. I started with a few friends, and then a few family members. No one questioned the validity of bisexuality. Someone asked how I knew, but no one questioned whether it was just a phase. At least, not to my face.
So I became a little more emboldened. I decided to go big or go home. My church was having a memorial service for the victims of the Pulse night club tragedy, and although I was out of town, I wrote something for my brother to read. I wrote a poem called “The Letter B,” and essentially came out to my entire church and anyone who may have been watching the live stream. I went to Pride, wearing my Bi Pride shirt and my purple, blue, and pink beads.

I was out.
But I wasn’t Out Out.

I knew, deep in my heart, that I wasn’t exactly living my most authentic self. But I wasn’t sure who my most authentic self even was. I started to feel fake. I told everyone I was Bi, but why didn’t it feel right?

I just started saying that I was queer. Because I knew I wasn’t straight, but that’s about all I knew. I didn’t always feel like a girl, but I wasn’t a boy. I started to feel fake. Like everything that I’d heard people say when I was younger was true—I wasn’t bisexual, I just couldn’t make up my mind about what I was.

I was just…in the middle. Unsure.

Fast forward six years. Over these six years, I learned more and more about gender and sexuality. Gender isn’t binary. Sexuality isn’t all black and white. More and more I was seeing people with different pronouns, different descriptions of who they were and how they loved. And it was so cool.

And then, wearing my yellow crewneck sweatshirt and green beanie, I realized I wasn’t in the middle of anything. I was right where I was supposed to be. Because right where I was, was my authentic self.

In another ‘go big or go home’ move, I posted on Facebook and Instagram that I am now using they/them pronouns. And maybe I’m bisexual. Maybe I’m pansexual. I’m probably asexual.

Please ignore the mess in the back, and focus on the great shirt I got from Etsy!

But, at the end of the day, I am Laura. I am queer, and I am me. I’m right where I’m supposed to be. (Rhyme not intended, but pretty fun.)

Peace.