Growing up, I remember learning that being gay made me lesser.
I remember ironing my voice into straightness, my wrists into rigidity, my mannerisms into masculinity. I remember switching out the pronouns to the love songs in my head. I remember acting straight—turning self-deception into a piece of performance art. I remember feeling alone.
I remember the silence. I remember the sound of complicit hush meeting homophobic slurs in the middle school locker room, the high school hallway, the campus plaza. The quiet deflection of personal questions at the family dinner table. The breaks in my speech after wondering if that last word sounded a little too gay.
I remember the pressure. I remember believing that my sexual orientation left no additional room for imperfections or mistakes or being merely average. If my gayness makes me less than, what do I have to do to be enough?
I remember the day I realized that my love is political. That honesty is radical. That pride is not an isolated embrace of my identity, but rather an everyday battle against the shame that taught me to hide the colors that make me whole.
I have no desire to forget—only to unlearn these lessons of insecurity. I’m working on reclaiming those wrinkles of authenticity that I once tried to straighten-out. On rewriting the lyrics to the songs in my head. On being all of myself, all of the time. On breaking the silence.
This semester, this column is my way of breaking that silence. It’s my way of contributing another voice to the growing chorus working to penetrate a deep, historied silencing of queer identities.
But it’s something more than that, too. I am constantly reminded at Duke of the power of radical authenticity, of courage, of vulnerability to light a spark—a spark that inspires the kind of growth I hoped I would encounter during my four short years on campus. This column is about finding that spark.
For me, I remember such sparks originating from uncomfortable and unchartered discussions with friends who look, talk and think differently than I do. And, yes, sometimes these sparks originate from articles in the opinion section. What they all share is a commitment to radical openness and a faith that others will also embrace the difficulty and beauty of getting real with each other.
On their own, these sparks burn out. For me, kindling support mattered: upperclassmen mentors taking the extra time, the unconditional love of family, the seemingly exogenous growth of a nation that was ready for LGBTQ progress right when I needed it most.
In some ways, the fact that I’m writing this column seems like an accident, like the product of a series of fortunate events that the freshman version of myself would have considered beyond conceivable possibility.
With the tagline “not straight talk,” my bi-weekly column will touch on how queerness intersects with life inside and beyond Duke. It’s a space to reflect and analyze religious life, social spaces, national and state politics, and what it means to navigate Duke as a queer student. I’ll do my best to create sparks— but that isn’t enough.
Sparks are not created or sustained in a vacuum, and moments of growth don’t happen on their own. They require work. But what kind of work is that, exactly?
It is the work of vulnerability and empathy, but for all our strengths, emotional fluency regularly falls out of practice.
To the class of 2020, a lesson that many students before you have learned is that everyone’s Duke is not the same. We all bring talent, intellect and the ability to engage deeply and critically. But we also bring stories, identity markers, experiences and beliefs that make us hugely, fantastically different.
Our Duke is at its best when we do more than offer talent, intellect, or dispassionate analysis. We’re already good at those things.
Our Duke is best when vulnerability is reciprocated, and when we meet each other with radical affirmation. Our Duke is best when we offer our own stories, our own challenges and our own perspectives even when it’s difficult. Our Duke is best when people of difference work to confront areas of mutual blindness with humility and empathy. Our Duke is best when we help each other through the growing pains, supporting without expectations, because when you step on campus this August, these people will become your Duke family.
In our insecurities, our faiths, our doubts, our anxieties and our passions, it can take a long time to figure out that we’re not alone. But it doesn’t always have to. We are not born with a fixed quantity of empathy or a maximum capacity for growth, so don’t save them for later.
We’re good at being smart. Let’s get better at being real.
Tanner Lockhead is a Trinity senior.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.