Dear Queer Youth,
Even if you haven't been following the run-up to this year’s midterm elections, you've probably heard people talking about you as though you were a problem to be solved or, in some extreme cases, a situation to be eliminated. But something you should know is that the business of bad-mouthing young people (queer and otherwise) is nothing new.
In the 1970s, when I came of age, my generation was often called the "Me Generation.” We were characterized as intensely focused on self-fulfillment and consumerism, and as suffering from an unhealthy disregard for shared values. My own experience of myself and my friends didn't match this assessment. Moving on. Young people in the 1980s and ‘90s were called slackers, lazy, cynical and disaffected. Millennials are often stereotyped as entitled, narcissistic, and overly sensitive "snowflakes" who demand constant praise and struggle with reality. Gen Z young people are seen as having a poor work ethic, lacking commitment, and expecting quick rewards or promotions without "paying their dues". Gen Alpha, those of you born after 2010 are considered.... Well, you’re old enough to know that the things people are saying about you aren't all that helpful.
Meanwhile, what everyone seems to forget is that the job of every young person is to question the culture, to use their curiosity and chutzpah to assess the situation, and then reflect back to us with unflinching honesty what is and what is not working.
So if you sometimes feel weird or unpopular for challenging the status quo, for asking questions all the time – like, why aren’t we doing more about the current climate crisis? And why is nuclear proliferation still a thing? And why should anyone even care about another person's gender? And what’s the deal with AI? And whatever happened to the idea that all people are created equal? And when will we just believe people when they tell us who they are? If you’ve been asking these sorts of questions, know this: It’s what you were born to do. The scientific truth is that your brain at this age is wired to seek out the new and test the limits, to shake shit up. That’s how our species keeps evolving.
Of course, by now you’ve probably discovered that most of the world would rather you just behave yourself, keep your head down, sit tight, and focus on becoming someone who's already been, someone tried and true, someone not so new.
But trust me, it's way more fun to do the brave, audacious, messy and revolutionary work of becoming yourself, which, by the way, is something bound to make history. And this is especially true for us queers.
This generation of LGBTQ+ youth (i.e., you) has been championing authenticity by challenging long-standing social norms. It's what you do simply by being yourself. And of course there will always be those people (see: politicians) who are not thrilled about you insisting on the primacy of your unique brand of is-ness. That's because your open rejection of rigid expectations encourages your non-LGBTQ+ peers to question restrictive traditions too, which in turn allows all of us to live in a healthier, more emotionally expressive society. And everybody knows that a healthier, more emotionally expressive society is harder to keep in check.
When I was 15, nobody talked about being queer, and if anyone did, it was to remind us that being gay was a crime, a mental disease, and a sin. That was the backdrop of my life throughout my school years. Even before I knew what to call it, I knew that I was gay. And by fifth grade, the signs and signals were everywhere, telling me that who I was was not OK. So I learned to keep my mouth shut and my desires closeted. If I had a crush on a boy, I cared for him in private, never daring to declare my love – not even to myself. Long before I could speak the truth about myself out loud, I understood that the world was opposed to the person I was at heart.
And yet, for some reason, I never quite believed what people said about being queer. That’s not to say I escaped the harm that comes from growing up with rejecting parents. But around the time I turned 13, after my first fumbled attempt at suicide, I managed to take hold of a deep inner resolve to be myself no matter what. It became my personal battle cry: To mine own self be true.
While the world around me was telling me that I was damned or doomed or nuts, I refused to believe them. Nothing in the world — not my parents, not the government, not the taunts of bullies, not even the church with its threat of eternal damnation — could convince me that I was wrong about the way I was inclined to love. I wasn’t a criminal or a sinner or crazy.
I was simply someone living in a future that hadn’t yet arrived.
These days, as I look around, I see many of you living in a future that hasn't yet arrived. And no, this is not a cute, encoded way of saying that some of you might be queer. It's to remind you that as a young person, you are sometimes going to feel out of sync with what’s going on around you, and you're going to feel frustrated by a world that wasn't made with you in mind. Just know that bumping up against ideas and people and situations that seem out of whack with what you know to be true is how you know you are alive and living up to your potential.
When I was a teenager, the only thing that made sense to me, other than love, was art. In fact, art that saved my life.
That could explain why I've spent so much of my adult life not only making art, but also making sure that young people have access to it. At a pivotal moment in my young life, I discovered that by simply picking up a paintbrush or a lump of clay, stepping onto a stage, writing in my journal, or opening my mouth to sing, I had the power to create beauty and meaning out of thin air. It didn't matter if my early artistic efforts failed to find an audience. What mattered was that by expressing myself, I was able to reveal myself to myself, even when no one was watching. It was like the most amazing magic trick. During the early days of my apprenticeship, when I knew next to nothing about craft, making art became a convenient form of enchantment and the one sure thing I knew how to do, the thing that allowed me to transform my ordinary suburban existence into something close to fabulous, the means by which I turned my insides out.
At this moment, when mighty forces are once again trying to convince us queers that we are criminals, crazy, or just plain wrong about the way we see the world, making art might be the greatest way of fighting back. And it very well might be what saves the world. It has already saved more of us than anyone has bothered to count.
I'm not here to convince you to be an artist or to save the world (though I wouldn't stop you if that's what you truly wanted to do). I'm here to encourage you to make your life a work of art. And one way to do that is by letting your curiosity lead you to the one sure thing about yourself. Y’know, there's always that secret thing that's there for you like your best friend, that thing that can remind you of who you truly are. Maybe it's making art, or maybe it's your friends, or maybe it's that still queer voice inside yourself that never lets you down. Maybe it's as simple as the smell of the earth, or a favorite tree, or the sight of the night sky. Maybe it's the fact that, deep down, you know yourself to be a lesbian, or gay, or bi, or trans, nonbinary, questioning, queer, intersex, asexual, pansexual, hetero or just some undeclared freelance superhero on the fly.
Whatever it is, find the thing about yourself that the poet Walt Whitman once described as, "sure as the most certain sure.” The thing worth living for. Take hold of it and then, to the best of your ability, live.
Celeste Lecesne (he/they) is cofounder and artistic director of The Future Perfect Project, a national nonprofit that gives LGBTQ+ young people free access to songwriting, podcasting, creative writing and residencies. An award-winning playwright, actor, and filmmaker, Lecesne wrote and starred in the Oscar-winning short film Trevor, which led them to cofound The Trevor Project in 1998.
Opinion is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit Out.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. We welcome your thoughts and feedback on any of our stories. Email us at voices@equalpride.com. Views expressed in Opinion stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of Out or our parent company, equalpride.
