Editor’s note: Reflections is a feature that encourages student journalists to explore how they have learned and grown from the stories they have written for The 9th Street Journal. It is funded by a grant from The Purpose Project.
June was my first Pride Month since I came out as queer.
In the year after I shared my secret with my parents on a futon in a Columbus, Ohio Airbnb, I had tried my best to fully embrace my new identity. I’m talking a homemade flag, a rainbow Apple Watch band, and some funky laptop stickers (I’m really into the branding, I guess).
While I had celebrated Pride Month before, somehow being “out” gave this June more meaning. I was feeling, well, proud. So while writing for The 9th Street Journal this summer, I went to my editor and proposed a Pride Month story.
My editor, Bill Adair, suggested profiling Durham District Attorney Satana Deberry, a black queer woman who was elected in 2018 on a platform of criminal justice reform. She was “out” as a queer woman, but in the many profiles written about her she had not publically discussed her sexuality in any detail. We decided to ask if she would do an interview.
To our surprise, she agreed.
All of a sudden, we kicked into high gear. I had a story to write. The end of June was fast approaching, and we had to get it done not just for The 9th Street Journal, but also to meet a print deadline for our partner, Indy Week.
As I began my research, I felt some anxiety. I know I may sound all gay and confident, but that’s not entirely true.
I was beginning to feel a bit like a fraud.
A bit of background about me: I’m bisexual. This is something I have known about myself for quite some time, but it is a truth I only began to publicly embrace about a year ago.
To be clear, my delay in embracing my sexuality is no fault of my upbringing. I grew up in the accepting community of Durham, and my parents were Subaru-driving, NPR-listening, reusable-sandwich-bag liberals. Nor was it the fault of my peers. In fact, at the arts high school I attended, being queer might have earned me some social capital. So I knew that whenever I came out, I would be met with open and loving arms.
But for years, I kept it to myself. It wasn’t because I wasn’t attracted to women around me, I just never got around to the critical part of actually dating one. (Upon reflection, maybe not telling anyone was part of the reason I could never get a date…) And to this day, I still have not been in a relationship with a woman. So for years, nagged by deep insecurity, I told myself that even though I knew I was bisexual, until I dated a women I didn’t really “count” as gay.
I hadn’t suffered the weight of discrimination like many of my loved ones, and while I couldn’t choose who I was attracted to, I could choose who knew. Many people in my life happily assumed I was straight, and I just chose not to correct them.
Because I hadn’t dated a woman yet, it felt wrong to say I belonged in the queer community. It felt wrong to take up space. I felt like I hadn’t earned it.
In the past few years, through conversations with my queer friends, I have come to understand that this thinking was harmful and denied me part of my identity. There is no one way to be authentically queer, and while I can never claim to relate to the wide range of queer experiences, I have full right to claim my own story.
So over the course of 2020, after my friends inspired my rainbow epiphany, I worked tirelessly to unravel much of this shameful thinking. I bought a pride flag on Amazon, claimed my queer identity, and — the big one — told my parents. I was certain I had overcome my previous backward thinking and was on the path to gay enlightenment.
But as I began my research on Deberry, the doubt began to bubble back up. I was preparing to write a story about a queer woman who had faced true discrimination. Who in the world was I to act like I could relate? Did I even have the right to tell her or any other queer stories? Did I even count as a queer woman?
Was I right before? Was I a big fat fraud?
My anxiety grew and by the morning of the interview, I was a wreck. Not only was I grappling with my own imposter syndrome, but I was also about to sit across from one of the most powerful people in Durham and ask probing personal questions. After unraveling all my worries to my mom across the breakfast table, she reminded me of something.
“Grace, if you are this anxious about the interview, imagine how she feels? You are about to ask her a bunch of personal questions about her sexuality.”
My mother had a point. (They often do.) But despite her reassurance, it was hard to believe that a woman like Deberry ever got nervous about anything.
Still, that morning I went to the courthouse, rode the elevator up to the eighth floor, and did the interview. Deberry could no doubt tell I was nervous but treated me with kindness and patience. I shared a little about myself, but I mostly listened to her story. I returned to the office and spent the next two days writing the story that Indy Week would headline “Her Best Self – For Pride Month, Durham DA Deberry discusses life as a queer woman, justice for all, and her inspiration.”
People who read the story didn’t know it, but they were reading a story about me, too.
I think, deep down, I originally wanted to write a Pride Month story to smother those deep feelings of inauthenticity. Perhaps, I thought, if I published a story in the paper for all the city to read, I could assert my queerness enough to “count.” If I openly celebrated the LGBTQ community, I could finally claim it as my community.
But that’s not quite what happened. It wasn’t seeing my byline on the page that really helped me to grow. It was Deberry herself and learning about how she defines her own queerness.
“For Deberry, her choice of the word queer reflects her belief that sexuality and identity are about more than who you love. ‘For me, queer is about culture, and about a worldview.’”
This phrase has stuck with me. It reminds me that being queer colors the way I see the world, affects what I value, and defines how I love myself. Deberry’s words emboldened me to share myself honestly — enough even to write a whole story telling you about it.
I have wholeheartedly embraced Deberry’s perspective, and I hope those who read my story did too. Because the truth remains: no matter who I will love, I will dance through life seeing the world through my rainbow-colored glasses.
Photo above: Grace Abels by Josie Vonk – The 9th Street Journal