The Trail Is Blazed By Someone

The latest post of A Year After A Year After Surviving is here to show how your social-minority status does not dictate your success.

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“I’m watching the Nick Offerman special and realizing that I could have had it so much easier if I’d been allowed to just be a somewhat overweight, hairy, acerbic, sarcastic, witty, and adored man.

Not that I’m saying I’d be Nick Offerman in that hypothetical. That man has access to a genius that I’ll never reach in that same way…but, c’mon y’all, what would people have done if this saucy and dirty mind wasn’t wrapped up in fighting for justice for myself and those I relate to? What would directors have created if they could have seen past their own homophobia that they saw in me in audition rooms? What would have been made of the business owner who’s connected to multimillionaires when he’s just able to move about the world without first being perceived as the screaming queen that I am? Who all would want to read the book of the person who’s not this traumatized queer, just an author insightfully telling about fascism from the perspective of the marginalized people that totalitarianism bowls over?

These are the thoughts that fill my mind nearly every single day.

I am inundated with this concept of “who would I be if I could divorce myself from my queerness; from my trauma; from my- apparently- debilitating weirdness? How far would I be able to go if I could just be a normie with a few quirks, instead of this neuroatypical weirdo who happens to also be a part of the most vilified community in the global zeitgeist for the third decade running (at least, as far as I’ve been alive)?

Wouldn’t life and success be so much easier if I could just be a “normal” person- fitting into the predominant societies of the world with only my hyper-deconstructing brain separating me from others- instead of having to constantly fight this idea that “hey, people look at you and will always see how different and other you are?”

But, I had this conversation with my friend and trusted mentor recently. He’d shared the perspective of this cishet, white, male christian (which, no shade, he’s one of those, too, and he’s also one of the most insightful and courageous and wise and strong leaders I’ve ever met), and I asked him why people don’t want to talk about this socio-economic stumbling block that social minorities seem to encounter: why don’t people want to address how being different in certain ways makes people hold you at arm’s length?

After he acknowledged his privilege and also acknowledged that we don’t share all of the same privileges (which, please, let’s normalize that!), he pointed out two things:

A) Many people don’t want to engage with the topic of privilege because they’re too busy defending themselves instead of actually engaging.
B) Most people don’t want to talk about how socio-economic elements play into success, because they don’t want people to feed into the belief that success is contingent upon who you are, and not what you do…”