5 songs that helped me embrace my queerness

music is so important: clairo, boygenuis, mitski, muna, olivia rodrigo

where would we be without music? music is so important for helping us connect with ourselves internally and reflect upon our lives. music is a tool for personal growth and music helps us discover who we are. music was so vital for helping me love myself.

“sofia,” clairo

“I think we could do it if we tried
If only to say you're mine
Sofia, know that you and I
Shouldn't feel like a crime”

it’s so simple yet how can it not make me think: i was taught by fundamentalist christianity to believe i was evil. i felt like i had committed such awful crimes that i deserved to burn in hell: i stayed up late into the night crying begging god to forgive me. i was queer and i deserved eternal punishment for it: even when i saw myself as queer, it was as something criminal. “please god,” i cried, “purge the evil from me,” but i also knew that this evil was a part of me and that it was something to hide.

that easy lyric, “you and i shouldn’t feel like a crime,” feels somehow like something being said to me, in that special way we connect with music, that special moment when we feel the illusion of a personal connection with art because of how it touches us. clairo’s voice rings out like she’s imploring me to embrace myself as good.

and this lyric here, well:

“I just wanna say how I love you with your hair down”

i just like to feel like someone is saying that to me. it makes me feel pretty!

“emily i’m sorry,” boygenius

“She's asleep in the backseat
Looking peaceful enough to me
But she's waking up inside a dream
Full of screeching tires and fire
We're coming back from where no one lives
Pretty much just veterans
When I pointed out where the North Star is
She called me a fucking liar”

it is easy to believe that bisexuality is simply about sexual orientation and has nothing to do with romance (and by strict definition this is true). but i feel like for me at least, the concept of bisexuality is often a stand-in for other elements of my identity.

i think sometimes the label “bisexual” has helped me keep a safe distance from myself. if “bisexual” is “purely sexual,” then there is no need to examine the more romantic “homosexual” feelings and impulses that ran through me in my youth. when i said i was bisexual, i could avoid that oft-asked question: “so could you envision yourself in a romantic relationship with a man?” the label “bisexual” was a way for me to identify my queerness in a semi-open way. in truth, “bisexual” was a simple but inconclusive answer to more complicated questions about romance, gender, and sexuality. arriving at “bisexual” was a temporarily satisfying way for me to hit the brakes on a frightening process of self-discovery.

the way “emily i’m sorry” so authentically describes this connection with a “same-sex” friend makes me think about same-sex relationships in my younger days that i told myself were about nothing more than sexual exploration but: if i had been willing to embrace myself, if i had not been so afraid to look inside myself, i would have known there were stronger feelings at play. the tragedy is to have had those feelings pass through me unenjoyed, unsavored. i’ve heard lucy dacus say she wishes she had a more “joyful” experience exploring her sexuality, and that is so on point and also i feel like it’s about so much beyond sexuality.

“emily i’m sorry” is not a happy song by any means: but it captures a certain complexity in a “same-sex” relationship, a depth of feeling that exhibits how “bisexuality” isn’t just a "sex thing.” The song makes me think sadly of missed trysts and deeper connections with others that might have been.

these are the reflections i have whenever i listen to this song. but the feelings are mostly echoes of feelings i might have had as a teenager: i mean, feelings i might have had if only I had loved and embraced myself for who i was instead of thinking i was going to burn in hell for being myself. sure, i had those non-sexual non-platonic feelings of connection in some sense. this is why i can summon their echo through music being made 15 years later: but the echo does not compensate for the truths that passed me by. They do not make up for the devastation of repressed queer joy.

“townie,” mitski

“And I want a love that falls as fast
As a body from the balcony
And I wanna kiss like my heart is hitting the ground
I'm holding my breath with a baseball bat
Though I don't know what I'm waiting for
I am not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be

I'm not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be
I wanna be what my body wants me to be”

this song goes well with something the band mannequin pussy shouted at their detroit show: “fuck your parents!” i think that’s so important.

our parents bring us into the world with a vision of who we will be, what we will do, what type of life we will have. but what do we truly owe our parents? a good friend insisted to me we owe them nothing. “but they brought you into the world,” i insisted. “i didn’t ask to be here,” he kept saying, and he gradually elaborated that his parents owe him and not visa versa… because it’s his parents after all who forced him to live in this difficult world! he did not ask for this!

we both agreed we loved our parents and felt like we owed them a lot, given how much they had done for us. still, we have to break free of our parents’ expectations: for our livelihoods, for our bodies, for our identities for our self-expression. that’s why i always sing along: “though i don’t know what i’m waiting for / i’m not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be / i wanna be what my body wants me to be.”

in my family, it wasn’t so much about what my daddy wanted to do with my life as it was about what god supposedly wanted to do. whenever “it’s my life” by bon jovi came on, my mom reminded me: “this song is evil; it is not your life; it is god’s life.” or: “your body is not your own; it is a temple unto the lord.” i was taught that even my thoughts could not be trusted: my mind itself was polluted by evil. the devil was real, and he might even be inside me. i felt him constantly tempting my mind toward embracing and loving something evil about myself. if i fell into such temptation, i would be in open rebellion against god! i had to always be on guard.

i guess i deeply internalized those types of lessons. even as an atheist i struggled to look at my own queerness. i clung to the scripts written out for me, as if i would somehow become what i thought some phantom other wanted me to be.

but now i have a new tune:

“though i don’t know what i’m waiting for / i’m not gonna be what my daddy wants me to be / i wanna be what my body wants me to be.”

that’s a lyric for my notebook. that’s an anthem. that’s the kind of music i wish i’d had as a kid. thank you, mitski.

“silk chiffon,” muna

this song just makes me so happy.

“Silk chiffon
That's how it feels, oh, when she's on me
Silk chiffon
That's how it feels, oh, when she's on me

I'm high and I'm feeling anxious
Inside of the CVS
When she turns 'round halfway down the aisle
With that 'you're on camera' smile
Like she wants to try me on

And life's so fun, life's so fun
Got my mini skirt and my rollerblades on
Bag on my side 'cause I'm out 'til dawn
Keeping it light like silk chiffon
Life's so fun, life's so fun
Don't need to worry about no one
She said that I got her if I want
She's so soft like silk chiffon”

there is nothing complicated here like in “sofia.” this song is pure joy. this is someone who has embraced their identity, who loves themselves to the point they “don’t need to worry about no one.” there is no analysis here: there is only fun. i am afraid of riding rollerblades tbh, i always have serious issues with my back whenever i try!, but the imagery in this song makes me feel free: like i am moving about in the world with my queerness unrepressed, loving myself, having fun. “life’s so fun, life’s so fun.” it’s just makes me think about queer people being out in the world being joyful having fun being happy. that’s a joy i’ve always missed but known i need.

now i wonder: how can i as a queer person experience that joy if i repress myself?

“i hope ur ok,” olivia rodrigo

“his parents cared more about the Bible
than being good to their own child”

“i hope ur ok” makes me think of a quote that always sticks with me: “religion makes good people do bas things.” religion makes people teach their children that they are evil. religion makes people terrorize their children with threats of hell. true, not all religion, but this is what fundamentalist religion is capable of: otherwise good people do awful things to their children in the name of god’s word. they believe they are good!

sadly, queerness was abusively repressed in the Evangelical environment of my upbringing. many of us who grew up in these environments were left with a deep sense that we were fundamentally evil because of our queerness.

how can we ever overcome that? olivia rodrigo makes me feel reassured: she makes me feel good about the prospects for a lasting internal peace. people like her, the person in these lyrics of hers, are all around me:

“Her parents hated who she loved
She couldn't wait to go to college
She was tired 'cause she was brought
Into a world where family was merely blood

Does she know how proud I am she was created
With the courage to unlearn all of their hatred
We don't talk much but I just gotta say
"I miss you, and I hope that you're okay"

these words don’t fit me precisely by any means (my parents don’t hate who i love), but the feeling behind them feels so comforting and loving to me, especially in the context of all my old friends who have checked in and been there for me. in that and other senses, listening to olivia rodrigo helps me embrace myself for who i am. i know there are people out there who are so proud of my for unlearning the hatred i was taught, whether that hatred was for myself or others.

and i am so grateful for the music being made today!!!!

(boygenius) source

(photo my own, Brooklyn, May 2022)

thanks for reading my diary!

for 5 dollars a month, upgrade to paid and gain access to:

• frequent photography posts (likely 4-5 paid per month - most of these will be paid)

• occasional paid subscriber only specials

• occasional video / audio posts

• and more to come 💖

20% of all revenue i raise per month after fees will go to LGBTQ fund of the Grand Rapids Community Foundation, an organization in my community. 💖

i consider your contribution to be support for my writing, which i want to mostly keep free here, and these extras are a token of my thank you 💖

all other content will remain free! 💖