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• 07 Dec, 2025 *

I was really excited for my friend Xaya’s carnival because it’s an event where I would air out my young queer experience and also get to hear that of others. As someone who is still partially closeted offline, my way of experiencing reflecting on gender and sexuality takes place when I depart this world into the world of fantasy. It’s never one piece of art alone that helps me do that. Usually, a few “band” together to help me weave a narrative of some sort, one in which I’m not an outcast, but someone like any other. All the thinking has gotten me nowhere when it comes to my gender. I’m just me and that’s that. My sexuality is fluid and so is my attraction to others. I’m not sure what my label would be, although I tend to prefer the same over the opposite sex.

What has freed me from worrying about labels was watching the TV show Pose. Seeing individuals like me whose parents thought abandoning them was easier than learning to live with their truth get together to give their life meaning and help out the less fortunate in their community, while focusing on living their identity (because it’s all they could afford to do anyway) rather than constantly grouping and regrouping themselves with endless labeling1 helped me realize that it doesn’t matter whether I’m a polyamorous pansexual genderfluid unicorn or just a regular f*gg*t: a slur applies to me nonetheless and that’s all the ammo I need to stand in solidarity with those who share (at least parts of) my experience. We are all discriminated against, one way or another—some less than others—but that’s our strength! Those more fortunate have a duty to help out their comrades that are suffering the most. I may not be trans, but that doesn’t factor into whether I’m jumping a transphobe or not.

Another formative project that has left an undeniable mark on me was RENAISSANCE by Beyoncé which in my eyes translates the ballroom spirit of Pose perfectly into an auditive experience. Listening to the fierce femininity and celebration of blackness in the face of many -isms and -phobias on this record over and over again has helped me immensely in finding my place in the world. This album is one of my most listened to of all time which is funny considering how I hated it on the first two listens. Pose really made it click for me when I began to understand the meaning of all those references. Its vocabulary gave my experience a meaning, like I suddenly had a voice to describe what I felt.

In addition to the previous two, I’m taking the lyrics of Defying Gravity from Wicked and holding space with that. The moment when Elphaba sings to G(a)linda about how she’s freeing herself from the shackles of society’s expectation was unironically2 so powerful. It’s powerful how an outcast is finally appreciated by the two people who love her and she loves most. She fights and resists after years of hopelessly trying to conform. What really makes Elphaba sensitive to injustice wasn’t her predicament, but that of those around her who she cared about the most (the animals), something I relate to a lot. She wanted to help them (and Glinda to become “good”) because she considered her case to be hopeless, but their’s not. It’s the perfect movie for our times with the message that you don’t need to be affected by an ill to fight it in solidarity.

Thanks again, Xaya, for this lovely theme you picked! I enjoyed reflecting on the queer media that shaped me to be who I am.

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I must say that labels have their purpose and provide clarity for a lot of people. I, for myself, don’t think it’s something I need to be thinking about. I’d rather spend my energy asserting who I am regardless of micro-label than discussing with others which label fits me best and which one allows me to say one slur or the other.↩ 1.

One journalist’s comments about that song’s reception became a viral meme which is why I felt it important to quote it as it is my favorite meme of this year. [interview], [reflection]↩