It’s times like this that I want to change who I am.
Over the years, I've been turned down from countless jobs. I can name on one hand the number of call-backs I've gotten. I’m left with the painful conclusion that there must be something wrong with me. Why would a manager tell me they had an opening for a day-time position and then three days later, after she’d seen my face, tell me they simply aren’t hiring? If I were a more naïve person, I might think that she got frustrated with me because I pestered her about it too much, but stats on who gets hired say that’s a good trait in a potential employee. The only job that I’ve ever acquired that wasn’t guaranteed before I even applied because my parents got it for me was my position at the Diversity Education Center, where my being gay was considered a bonus. When I was younger, I could write it off that I didn’t have the work experience. But over the years as I watched less qualified but more straight individuals get the same jobs that I’d applied to, I started to not believe that. Now that I’ve had experience at the DEC, I can’t help but think that there’s no reason anyone wouldn’t hire me. My former coworkers have gone on to really well-paying positions in a variety of fields and I’m stuck here not even eligible for minimum wage.
It’s easy to blame it on appearance. Maybe that’s why it feels like it must be deeper than that. But I’ve seen half a dozen different studies that all say the same thing: women who get hired do so based firstly on their appearance and secondly on their abilities. I’m not an attractive person. Not by society’s standards. I can only imagine it’s even worse for my gender variant brothers and sisters, but all I can speak to is my own experience, which has always, since I was a kid, been a sort of female that society wants to pretend doesn’t exist. I’m not feminine. I’m not that masculine either. I'm some sort of complicated mix of both while magically not actually being androgynous. I’m sick of it. If I put on make-up to try and look like the stereotypical epitome of a woman and try and get a job by being normal, my short hair and wide frame are going to betray me and make me look awkward. And even if you don’t think I look awkward, I think I look awkward. My self-confidence has been reduced to a tiny thimble-full of angry dyke, trying to prove something by walking straight. I hate everything and everyone I run into because if I put that face on, I feel like I’ve just pulled someone else’s skin over top of mine, and it’s eight sizes too tight because she’s a size two stereotype, and I’m an out and proud size 18 (Yeah, double digits. Take that).
If I wear something more masculine, the standard suit that looks business casual on anyone, I look every inch a stone butch lesbian as there ever was one, because no matter what, it’s undeniable that my body’s female. There’s only one kind of attention that kind of presentation gets a woman, and it’s not the one I want. I’m not a man. I'm not pretending to be a man. So I don't want you to treat me like "one of the guys" because thanks very much but I'm not one.
I have no qualms about my weight. I have no qualms about my appearance. I like who I am. But society doesn’t. And I feel like if I’m going to survive, I need to change who I really am and become at least a shadow of society’s expectations of me.
And that’s why it’s at times like this that I want to change the world.
Fuck societal expectations. They do nothing but hurt people. Your whole life, someone is gonna hate you for something. There’s something to be had for dressing proper for an interview; that’s just polite. But that’s no excuse to run back to the closet, or develop an eating disorder because you think you weigh too much, or work your body out past its breaking point because you don’t think you weigh enough, or get plastic surgery because there's some tiny flaw in your face and it's the only thing you can see or a million other things people do every day to try and change themselves into a thing that they aren’t because they think it’s what someone else wants. Is that really who you want to please? The person who doesn’t respect the true you?
I know that even the strongest person, at some point, wants to give up the fight. We’re only human. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but in the meantime, it’s trying its damnedest to kill you, and it won’t feel like you’ve moved through it until one of you is lying bleeding on the ground.
Regardless of how you feel right at this point, I guarantee that every single one of you felt the way I felt earlier today, rejected by yet another job, and a tiny, shameful part of me blaming myself for it –wishing I could go back to the days where I could pretend to be straight/thin/normal/whatever. We can’t think like that. People are unkind to those who are different, but they are more unkind to those who are ashamed of their differences. No one can learn to respect you until you learn to respect yourself. Trying to be a better person is normal. But thinking a more normal person is better just doesn’t work.
It’s easy to want to change yourself. You’re just one person. And it’s so hard to move the world. But that’s why it’s so important too. The world is made up of “just one person”s. I know everyone says that you can't have an ocean without each drop of rain and everyone thinks it's cliche. So I'm gonna try a different analogy that might work better, but is much, much nerdier. And that's okay, because I'm a nerd.
You may be tiny little Mintaka, and you don’t shine very bright, and no one knows your name, but if you stop shining all together, we lose Orion’s Belt entirely. Someone out there is counting on you, personally, to shine as bright and unique as you can. We all may be just one person. But together we make up a tapestry as vivid and diverse as the night sky. And you may think that no one will notice if you stop shining. And maybe if you look at the whole night sky that’s true. But to Orion, Mintaka is more important than the sun.
Feeling like I want to change who I am makes me want to change the world.
