In this op-ed, Amaris Ramey explores how anti-LGBTQ bills can make queer and trans people feel like they need to live a double life.
The first time my gender identity was ever acknowledged in public was in the frozen section of Trader Joe’s.
I had reached my hand into the pool of mochi ice cream, fishing for the delicacy that I would eat during the 15 minute break in my three hour lecture class, when I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder. I turned to find a teenager with ginger hair and a full face of freckles staring up at me.
“I watch your content,” they said with bright eyes.“It inspired me to one day come out to my family.”
I froze. A part of me wanted to scream in the middle of the aisle, For your own safety, please don’t come out. Not here in Georgia, not now! Instead, I silenced the voice ringing in my ears and handed the person standing in front of me the last box of strawberry ice cream, promising them that it was the best kind.
“Whatever you decide, just take your time,” I said before walking toward the seafood section.
I was supposed to feel happy. A young queer person had watched the TikTok video that I created weeks prior describing society’s inability to grasp they/them pronouns. In the nine second clip, I explained that many people have yet to deconstruct their idea of the rigid gender binary.
Despite being out as nonbinary and advocating online, in person I’m often confronted with the reality that trans and nonbinary people face more than just misunderstanding by society, but also discrimination and violence. As states across the country introduce and pass anti-trans laws and limit young queer kids’ ability to discuss gender in school, many LGBTQ people like me might experience a split in identity — a difference in who we understand we are, and who we present to the outside world.
It’s hard remembering your pronouns, when we’ve known you as something else for years, was the most common response that I heard after I discussed my gender identity. It seemed that being nonbinary set off an alarm in some people who loved me. Those alarms weren’t always hate-filled tangents and blatant disapproval. Sometimes, it was an expression of the genuine fear that if I was changing, that my love for them might change too. As time passed, I often found myself challenging this fear. While I could be sympathetic with those who felt as if they lost the person they knew, I was experiencing a loss as well. I entered spaces in a body that didn’t feel as though it belonged to me.
As an activist, my video on TikTok made an impact. As a friend, I created a space for accountability and reflection. But as a queer person living in the South and working in the advocacy field, I almost felt like a fraud. Online, I was outwardly queer, but in real life, I oftentimes had to hide my queerness for safety.
Three years ago, I took a class in African-American Studies and discussed the concept of double consciousness, a term coined by W.E.B. DuBois. In his text, he described the internal struggle of being Black and forced to assimilate into American culture. While he was both Black and American, there was a twoness in his existence. As a Southerner, there is a twoness in my nonbinary identity: I am a nonbinary person who outwardly presents feminine. But my identity can be at odds with how society perceives me — they might see a girl, even though that’s not who I am.
My local Trader Joe's is in Atlanta is just half a mile away from the oldest lesbian bar in the South, and a block away from the rainbow painted concrete in Midtown. Although there is progress in my city, there are policies and lawmakers seemingly searching for ways to eradicate any record of our existence. In February, the Georgia Senate passed a bill that would ban transgender girls from playing on teams that align with their gender identity. And, weeks ago, a bill was introduced in the Georgia Senate similar to the Florida Don’t Say Gay Bill, seeing to prevent certain discussions about gender identity and sexual orientation in the classroom.
As harmful legislation is being passed in the South and elsewhere, I’ve begun to water down my queerness in public in an attempt to protect myself. I’ve left pride events, wiping off the rainbow on my face that I painted with lipstick in case someone on the train would have a problem with it. I’ve peeled off my queer bumper stickers, fearing that I would pass confederate flags driving to the beach. I have always had to find an off button that I could press, in case who I was wasn’t well received. But as more states introduce and pass anti-LGBTQ bills, the double consciousness I’ve always felt becomes more clear than ever. At times, I even want to crawl back into the closet and hold my younger self tight — the younger self who would eat lunch in the bathroom, the one in the basement with no mirrors, in an attempt to rid myself of gender dysphoria. The one who went to the Baptist church that I grew up in for Vacation Bible School every summer, while simultaneously begging God to make me normal every night before I went to bed.
I didn’t understand my queerness and transness in elementary school. All I understood was that my identity felt unwarranted. In many ways, there was a certain death involved in not knowing who I was. I have mourned both the real and made-up versions of myself. But my community brought back to life that part of me that I didn’t even know existed as a kid.
In Trader Joe’s that day, I think that I saw a part of myself in the kid with bright eyes and freckles. I wanted to tell them not to come out because, every day, there are people and groups trying to find ways to limit our gender expression and further marginalize our safety. But, as more young people come out as LGBTQ, it’s more clear than ever that no amount of legislation can erase us.
The truth is, my feelings of twoness won’t go away overnight, and a nine second TikTok won’t change how society sees queer and trans people. But, as students across the country organize protests and rallies fighting for our rights to exist in school spaces, I feel a sliver of hope. Maybe hope is a good enough start.
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