queer

Scarleteen volunteer Sam reflects on the significance of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and how it relates to sexuality, identity, and her middle school experience.

My family is supportive of my life, as long as they get to ignore the queer part. I know they can’t handle it so I don’t talk about it with them. As for my community of colour, the only one I’ve ever really been a part of is my mom’s church family, and I know they wouldn’t be able to handle it either.

Being queer and South Asian isn’t easy; being queer and mixed is harder, because any community can put it down to the OTHER identity group. That said, my Indian grandmother has been incredibly supportive, and no one has written me hate mail or disowned me. I’m very grateful for the internet, and for the time I’ve spent in larger cities. Both give me a sense that there’s someplace I might sort of fit in.

What’s it mean to be questioning, why would you or someone else identify that way, how do you deal in the process and how might you answer the question?

My experience with sex-negativity and ignorance in the medical world. Adventures in having an ovarian cyst, coming out in the ER, enduring bad gynecological exams, healing my relationship with my anus and finally finding a good doctor.

There are a couple of common reasons why someone might hate being a girl: you might hate it for one of them, or you might hate it for all of them. Regardless, you get to feel however you feel and there’s nothing patently abnormal or wrong about being uncomfortable with your own sex or your gender…

The same way anyone else does. Which is to say, any vast number of different ways. Sex isn’t just vaginal intercourse. Sex is any number of combinations of things people of all stripes do together to seek mutual sexual pleasure, and what those things or that combination are varies for everyone, even…

Have you just come out of the closet, or are you peeking through the keyhole thinking about it? Is life on the outside starting to look inviting, shiny and new? (Yes, even you back there, hiding behind that box of moth balls and Aunt Ethel’s spectator pumps.)

Many teens have a lot of questions when it comes to homosexuality and bisexuality. In a culture that is often so damning of orientation and sexual identity outside heterosexuality, many teens become nervous when they feel attracted to those of the same sex, worried that they might be gay. Others suspect (or are even very sure) that they are homosexual or bisexual, but are afraid to say so either because they aren’t completely sure and feel they will be branded in some way, or simply because they fear being rejected, outcast or scolded by their friends, family or community. While at least 8 million people in the United States are homosexual, about 70 million people still think it is an “illness” or “perversion.”