Can I still tell my coworkers I'm queer now?
It's 2:43 AM on a Sunday morning, but, for simplicity, let's just call it Saturday night right now. Shortly before sitting down to write this, I was standing at the kitchen counter, using a shiny and very sharp knife to cut a bell pepper into smaller pieces. First I pierced the sweet-ish yellow flesh nearby the stem, and then I cut in a rough circle until I could pull the stem and some of the core out, very similar to how you might prepare a pumpkin to carve a Jack-o-Lantern, if you've ever had the fun of doing that.
After shaking out some of the loose white little seeds into the trash, I cut the pepper in half vertically, and then cut each half into strips, and then collectively cut each of the strips in half.
Along with some of an onion I had diced and refrigerated earlier in the day, I threw the cut vegetables into a frying pan, added in a bit of vegetable oil to help them cook, and then while that was popping and sizzling next to me, I took a can opener out of the silverware drawer and started opening a can of vegan refried beans. I scooped some of the beans out into a little bowl, put that in the microwave, and while that and the onions and peppers were going, I also got out a bag of shredded cheese I had bought earlier this evening: Carolina Reaper Blend, "LIMITED EDITION" from Great Value, Walmart's "off brand."
With some beeping coming from the microwave, and a small flow of smoke rising up from the frying pan, everything was prepared for dinner. I threw one tortilla onto a plate to start and loaded it up, first the refried beans, then the new kind of spicy cheese, then the sautéed vegetables. I gave it a bit of time for the cheese to melt and for everything to cool off a little from sizzling to warm, and then I bit in.
All told, I had two really filling and flavorful burritos for dinner. The cheese had some spicy kick to it, but didn't completely overshadow everything else like some ghost pepper salsas I've had in the past. The pepper and onion were cooked just right, some good crisp black burn on the edges, but still juicy and full of the bell pepper's little sweetness and the onion's sort of tangy flavor, if that's how you can describe onions, other than just saying "very oniony."
I can still smell the cooked onions from the kitchen adjacent to me, as I sit now on my couch and write this.
It's Saturday night. I'll go to sleep soon. Tomorrow, Sunday night, I have to go in to work. I don't have any sick days to spare, currently. If I want to keep my benefits, my income, my ability to pay rent and afford food, then tomorrow at a specific time, I have to enter my credentials into a punch-clock, and stay in a warehouse until morning, being part of a team of about fifty that gets products ready to ship out in cardboard boxes by sunrise when the truck drivers arrive.
Tomorrow, could I tell my coworkers I'm a zoosexual?
I would spare them the details, about the fun times I felt a furry tail slap against me in a dark bedroom. But, while the boss is talking about how she and her husband went for a walk in a state park, could I nod, and talk about the fun that me and my boyfriend, Yellow Lab, have had when doing the same? And then not back down from meaning what I said: Could I openly and fully tell my coworkers that I'm a zoosexual, actually use the word to describe myself, "Zoosexual."
For most people reading, who are also zoos, who have worked in jobs like mine, be it warehouse clerk or fast food jerk, I think a lot of us know what the answer is: No. Or at least, I shouldn't. If I'm clocking in tomorrow with the goal of keeping my job (and access to any health care, a place to live with a roof over my head, income for food and utilities and et cetera,) then No, I cannot tell everyone at work tomorrow that I'm a zoosexual, and feel safe and confident that nothing bad will happen. I don't even truly think that most people care, person-to-person, and I think I deserve to feel safe and secure, but I also know that nobody would stick their neck out to save me on it. The social pressures surrounding zoophilia, currently, are a scale that only ratchets in one direction when my career or someone else's is on the line. There is a very real possibility that I would be fired, and not have a snowball's chance in Hell of appealing that through any legal recourse.
Tomorrow, could I tell my coworkers that I'm trans?
From the start of this job, I was always only introduced to people with my legal name that I put on the application, and the pronouns that people assumed without ever once asking. None of them know me as Frank. Could I start correcting coworkers tomorrow? Actually let them know what my preferred pronouns are, and what name my friends outside of work call me?
For most people reading, who are also trans, who are also American, this is a terrifying time to be asking that question. Since the presidential election this last week, won decisively by a rapist whose campaign promises are based on xenophobia and dogma, I have seen a number of very hopeful, very happy trans friends change their tone to being frightened for one another. I live in a red state. Friends who once, very recently, would have told me "Yeah fuck it do it!" to coming out at work, are now telling me to be safe, and hide. They see a roadmap unfolding in front of this country, that, in a matter of months, they think, could see direct and severe harm come to trans people, immigrants, and women. In place of rights and opportunities, we see a world drooling with anticipation as it locks its eyes on supremacy through being cruel.
Tomorrow, could I tell my coworkers that I'm bi?
Yes. Tomorrow, yes, if I leave my own gender out of it, and leave some species details out of the anecdotes, then sure, I could tell my coworkers, vaguely, that I've been around with guys and with ladies. People will laugh, but most of them will then comment that that's cool, maybe try to make conversation about it, ask how long I've known, ask who else working here is the hottest. Some of them, especially the younger coworkers from very conservative Christian upbringings, will probably counter and say that that's not cool.
But, being bi, that one at least is very safe, relative to being trans right now, relative to being zoo.
Then again, it was only a week ago that trans felt safe-ish.
Tomorrow, could I tell my coworkers that I'm a furry?
Tomorrow, could I tell my coworkers that I'm an atheist?
Tomorrow, could I tell my coworkers that I don't support the president-elect?
A friend recently said it all: "I just wonder why no one realizes that this is gonna bite them in the ass. Like, fascists aren't that easy to de-elect, once they are in power. And they will come for everyone, eventually. There is no group of people who is pure enough for them, the perfect average person does not exist."
Another friend: "It was illegal to have GAY SEX in the United States more recently than when the first iPod came out! People WHEN THE IPOD WAS OUT were still GETTING BUSTED for gay stuff! We're not THAT far removed from all of this shit!"
But, I'll put it another way too: In only these recent few years, look how far we've progressed. Within my lifetime gay sex was illegal and being punished, and now being openly bi feels utterly safe. Look at the deeply conservative Christian culture two or three generations back, and look at the vast rainbow of diversity and expression that we can see publicly today.
People fought power to gain this progress. Black Liberation. The AIDS Epidemic. Winning gay marriage, abortion rights, the powers that be did not want to do the right thing on any of these, and we rubbed their nose in their wrongs for the world to see until they were compelled to do better.
And I think we'll keep doing that. In only a couple of days' time, I've seen that a lot of us are very, very motivated to action right now.
Stay defiant.
Whatever the upcoming years will bring, we get to be the good guys.
Article written by Franklin Jaguar Disco Superbass (November 2024)
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