Wearing My True Colors

By Divine Strickland

When I was young, I preferred playing with my sister’s Barbie dolls rather than my Hot Wheels cars. “Your older brother never played with Barbies,” my father said to me. But I didn’t care; I was having fun. I never understood why other people had a problem with it.

As I got older, more people started to raise their eyebrows at my idea of fun. When I played double dutch with the girls instead of basketball with the boys, some of the boys would look at me like I was doing something wrong. But I never paid them any mind. That is, until around the age of 13, when things suddenly got worse.

When I was in 6th grade, I realized that I was attracted to a few boys at school. I knew then that I was gay, and I also knew I had to hide it. I didn’t want to get myself into any drama. But even though I didn’t tell anyone about my sexual orientation, it started to show.

Lying to Everyone

I wore tight-fitting jeans and hung out with a group of girls. The way they carried themselves began to rub off on me. I had a switch in my walk and not much bass in my voice.

That’s when the name-calling began. I got called every name in the book, like “homo” and “faggot.” Even my family would make jokes about my feminine ways. They never intended to hurt me, but they did. I was depressed and confused about how people were treating me. It made me think that being gay was never accepted.

When I was about 14, my family started asking, “Are you gay?” I thought to myself, “Are they going to treat me differently if I tell them?” So I answered the one question everyone was asking with a lie. I said no.

But people still teased me because of how I dressed and behaved. Sometimes I would have to make my way around a group of guys to prevent them from saying something or even harming me. Other times, I defended myself and fought. By the time I got to high school, I was tired of avoiding people and fighting them. Something had to change.

Coming Out

In freshman year of high school, I had a few gay friends who were seniors and I confided in them about my sexual orientation. One of them told me, “Trust me, once you come out of the closet, you’re going to feel so much better about yourself.” I decided I was ready to tell the people closest to me, even though I was scared about how they might react.

When I came out to my family and friends, I was shocked at their responses. “I been knew,” is what they all said. Later they explained that it showed in the way I acted. I was glad that my family accepted my sexuality and still loved me no matter what.

But not everyone accepted me. Even though I felt happier and more confident now that I was out of the closet, it still upset me whenever I got harassed for how I looked and dressed.

‘Not a Man’

One day, I was sitting on the subway with my friend Vera when suddenly, a woman started yelling about how none of the men on the train were giving up their seats for another lady who was standing with a child. Any other time I would have given up my seat for the child, but on this particular day my feet were killing me.

I looked at Vera and we both laughed at the crazy woman screaming on the train. It wasn’t until she stood directly in front of me and yelled, “What kind of man are you?” that I realized she was talking to me, despite the fact that none of the other men on the train had given up their seats, either.

“Excuse me, who are you talking to?” I said.

“Men don’t wear tight jeans and argue with women, so it’s obvious that you are not a man,” she said.

I stood up to get in her face and she took her hand and pushed me in my face. Before I could do anything else, a man on the train grabbed me and said, “Chill, she still a female yo.”

I yelled at the lady, “I swear if I was wearing a du-rag and had my pants hanging off my butt, you never would’ve said anything to me, let alone put your hands on me.”

Toning It Down

I was embarrassed and angry. I felt like she took advantage of me because she had an idea that I was gay and thought I wouldn’t fight back. I was tired of getting bad vibes from people just because of how I looked. Eventually, I even started getting criticized by someone I never thought would judge me: my own boyfriend.

I met Eric (not his real name) when I was 16 and he was 18. He didn’t look like the type of guy who would go out with boys. We met in McDonald’s, where he approached me in a strange way. He made it seem like he knew me already and wanted to get with one of my female friends. Later I realized he did this because he didn’t want anyone to know he was gay, or, as he said, bisexual.

Eric became my first boyfriend and my first love. I never imagined that someone in the world would love me other than my family. I loved him, too. Even my family loved him. The only problem was that he wasn’t out about his sexuality to anyone besides my family and me. It made me feel like our relationship was a secret.

Then one day, out of nowhere, he told me I was too feminine. He thought my tight, bright clothes were too much. Because I loved him so much, I was willing to change for him. I was getting tired of the comments from strangers anyway, and I figured maybe it was time to tone down my look. I stopped getting my eyebrows done and began to wear darker-colored clothes and looser jeans.

But I felt weird about changing who I was just to satisfy others. I didn’t feel like myself when I wore baggy jeans. And I soon found out that changing my clothes wouldn’t change how people saw me or treated me anyway.

Running for Our Lives

One night Eric and I went to a community center party in our neighborhood. When the community center staff turned away some disrespectful guys at the door, the guys made a threat. “Any faggot that comes out is getting beat the hell out of,” one of them said.

When the party was over, the only people left were all the gay guys and the staff. “It’s time for you all to leave. We have to close the center,” one of the staff members said. I could see the large group of boys waiting outside. I was nervous, but all that was left to do was leave. I walked outside with Eric right behind me.

“Hit them faggots!” the guys began to yell. Three shadows ran up behind me and when I turned around, one of the boys tried to punch me in the face. I jumped back and began fighting. I was nervous because one of my biggest fears was to get jumped by a group of boys. But I fought so hard that I barely got hit by any of them.

I looked around for Eric and I saw him fighting in the middle of the street. He was fighting five or six boys and none of them could even reach his face to hit him because Eric is 6’2” and they all were too short.

They Still Knew

“Y’all getting killed by two faggots,” people shouted as they watched the fight. I guess the boys’ pride was beginning to hurt because in a quick second, they pulled out two guns and pointed them at Eric and me. I was so scared, I couldn’t move.

“Divine, run!” Eric shouted. We ran. They chased us briefly but quickly gave up. I was in total shock that my life was almost over so fast just because someone was homophobic. That’s when I realized that it didn’t matter if I changed how I dressed or acted. I was wearing a pair of baggy True Religion jeans and an eight-ball leather jacket, and they still knew. People were still going to treat me the same way because I could never completely hide who I was. And I didn’t want to.

I decided that instead of changing my appearance to make my boyfriend and a bunch of strangers happy, I needed to do what was going to make me happy. I went back to being myself, with my bright clothes and a switch in my walk. (Eric and I eventually went our separate ways, but remained friends.)

No Type of Style

To this day, people continue to make rude comments toward me, and I know I’ll keep encountering that. But there’s something new about me now: I don’t care.

About a year ago, a man shouted at me, “God did not make Adam and Steve, he made Adam and Eve” as I was walking to work one afternoon. People on the street looked at me, fearful about how I was going to react. Although I was embarrassed at first, I just giggled and proceeded on my way. I choose not to answer people like this back because I figure a person can’t have a fight with himself.

When people say negative things to me, chances are I’ve already heard it, so I just laugh it off. In my head I think they have no type of style. Besides, my clothes get me a lot of compliments, too. Now I love when people stare at me because of what I have on. I even made up my very own saying based on people staring at me: “Don’t laugh at me because I’m different; laugh because you’re the same.”

Glad To Be Different

I know that some people who want me to change my look are doing it out of love. My mother worries that many people will want to harm me for being gay. She says that me wearing tight, bright clothes is like wearing a sign that says, “I’m gay!”

I 100% understand and respect how she feels. She is a parent and parents are going to be concerned about their children’s safety. But it has taken me too long to get where I am now to move back 10 spaces like I am playing Monopoly. I can’t go through my whole life trying to make others happy.

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