I always knew that I was different from other kids growing up, and finding answers was hard when the resources were obscured due to living in a religious household. It wasn’t until I hit high school that I learned you could be attracted to the same sex/gender person. I went through the common "bi-curious" phase because there still wasn’t much knowledge available aside from the words of my queer friends. I constantly struggled with my sexual identity because of my background in the church - I still remember when friends at church said, "the LGBT is sinful." Such a small sentence made me crawl further into the closet.
Cut to my first experience in post-secondary, I was able to explore what being gay meant to me and how I identified with that. I started to come out gradually. It helped that I went to an art school; there's something to do with the stereotype of queer people flocking to the arts. I had my first genuine interactions with more queer people. I could see our shared struggle with being seen, heard, and represented. This journey of self-discovery continued as I slowly came out to small groups of people, I felt comfortable with.
Let’s jump forward again to 2020, lockdown. For months, I struggled with this overwhelming sensation that I could no longer connect to how I saw myself in the world. I grew up around many people telling me how to "be a man," and I always thought it was reductive to how I felt I interacted with the world around me. Lo and behold, it was because I couldn’t identify with that gender. Again, I knew I was different from when I was growing up; I started to look back at my life, and I kept finding these points - they were these characters from various cartoons - they were like arrows all pointing outside the binary of gender. Discovering that I am non-binary was like I broke through a veil.
I’m still not done, but I’m thankful for my queer journey. I wouldn’t be who I am without the struggles I had to go through. I still have to come out to certain people - but I’m more out than I was 15 years ago. I do wish I had the resources and the knowledge earlier on - it would have saved me years of confusion and self-resentment. It may have taken years for me to figure out my current state of queer metamorphosis, but it is a transformation well taken.
I want kids growing up queer to have the resources and representation that I didn’t have. It’s important to be seen, especially in the media. As a filmmaker, I want to continue this wave of representation. I want to tell stories of my experiences and discoveries - the same ones that other queer people go through. I want to tell the nuance of being a queer person of color and all the differences that come with being othered. Ultimately, I want to give the entire queer community their time in the spotlight, not just one facet made to be palatable to status quo society.