Grieving Queer Possibilities
By Anonymous
When I moved to America, I was stunned by the abundance.
I swiped feverishly through dating apps (Her, Tinder, Bumble, Lex, Feeld) feeling equal parts shock and joy when the carousel of potential romantic and sexual partners never ended. What do you mean there are so many of us? What do you mean it’s more than 30 out lesbians? What do you mean almost no one is “curious” or “just exploring”?
I did not understand the science of it: the precise combination of socialization, of relationality, and whatnot, that made my queerness instantly realized. For the last decade in India, I struggled, slowly and laboriously, trying to actualize my queerness and failing. I tentatively identified as bisexual, finding myself fearing queer encounters and sitting dully through straight ones. Within a month of arriving in Minneapolis, I bound my chest. I eschewed my tentative bisexuality, settling firmly on lesbian. It felt like coming home, easy and without confusion.
The first time I had queer sex I returned to the dilapidated co-op I called home in this new country and sobbed. The sex had felt like honey, viscous, never-ending, soft, languid. Her skin was soft, her hair smelled nice, her eyes so beautiful, her touch so gentle, yet demanding. I wanted to do things to her. I wanted her to do things to me. I wanted to buy her fresh flowers from Trader Joe’s and understand her queerness, and kiss her in public. For the first time in years, I wanted to be an active participant in a relationship and in sex.
The early feeling of abundance gradually gave way to heavier feelings. As I began to build a life here, I began to spot murky, helpless grief. Grief for the life of queerness I had lost out on, grief for the present that I was building on a shaky, threateningly temporary student visa, and worse yet: grief for a future that would be denied me if I had to leave this country. To see such abundance and then have to return to such scarcity felt terrible. Whether fair or not, whether real or not, my home country had begun to feel like arid land, with limited queer futures and scattered, threadbare queer communities. I distinctly remember celebrating the day Section 377, a law criminalizing same-sex relationships, was repealed. It was 2018 and my friends and I went to a queer nightclub in Delhi, excited. The excitement did not last long: I found myself surrounded only by queer men and drag queens. There was nobody like me in that densely packed neon room. The only lesbian I knew disappeared into a corner… kissing a man.
Last summer, when Minneapolis’ winter gave way to its euphoric summer, I had my first queer sleepover with a romantic partner and a friend. We spent the evening at queer mutual-aid cumbia night and then skinny-dipped in a lake under the moonlight. My partner and I kissed in the black waters, our chests glistening and proud. Later, we slept side by side, all huddled up, in desire and in friendship. Equal parts gentle and silly. I cried alone later: I had never spent the night in what we called dyke-community. A friendship where no part of me was hidden, not from me or my friends. It was beautiful to be in community with others like me. When we lay in bed that night, grinning, we weren’t in our late twenties. We were the tiniest versions of us, childish, laughing, stupidly joyous.
As I grapple with my uncertain future in this America, I begin to imagine different worlds back home. My Taiwanese friend and I sometimes talk about the dates we would like to go on when we go back to our countries. They would like to take their partner to a night market, eat stinky tofu and noodle soup, and bike around. I would like to spend a week by the beach, kiss my yet-unknown girlfriend in the waves and eat a delicious fish thali after. Perhaps, years later, I would like to show up at a Holi party with my queer family. My partner and I would be dressed in white cotton, we’d wipe riotous color off our baby’s fat cheeks. We’d meet each other’s parents, and my ma would love her. Some evenings, we’d have sleepovers with our closest friends. We’d find coconut water and drink it fresh. We’d have so many queer friends; elders and youngsters.
In her wonderful book, Be Not Afraid of Love, Mimi Zhu wonders how different her Chinese family’s life would have been if they “had been surrounded by neighbors who shared food, meals, language, and culture with us. [I] wondered how different it would have been if we could have heard music outside our windows, people chattering in their dialects, and a coming together of cultures and stories.”
I yearn for this community: and while I have it here, it does not always feel possible to have it back home. I do now know why, despite being semi-legal, it feels so inaccessible; why my Google searches yield no results when I try to learn about Indian lesbian families. Over and over, I wonder who I would have been if I had come upon such abundance sooner. What I would have worn, what first love would have felt like, how differently my friends and I would have moved through our worlds.
The author is an immigrant writer, screen-printer and comic-book artist who wishes to remain anonymous.
Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this blog post are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions or views of Immigrantly.