Pride in Isolation: Searching for My Queer Community

As we approach yet another Pride Month, I’m going to level with you—I’m in a bit of a limbo of my queerness and Pride.

I’ve written a small collection of Pride reflections over my nearly three years at OFM. I’ve alluded to a lot of the changes over the columns I’ve written on varying, personal topics, but in brief, a lot about me has evolved during my tenure here.

I got the job as copy editor freshly moved to Denver, in the infancy of my recovery from alcoholism. I lived in Denver for two years, over that time really coming into my own as a queer adult and truly understanding for the first time, with a sober head, who I was. 

I made the move to Los Angeles last year, and shortly after, came out as nonbinary. 

Los Angeles is already considered a difficult place to establish community and make friends. A good friend here told me that under normal circumstances, baby Angelenos should safely give themselves 12 to 18 months to feel grounded in this city, and that doesn’t account for the strife the pandemic ultimately brings to building community and meeting new people.

Walking around, especially in places like West Hollywood, it’s clear that queer people are everywhere, and the community here is bigger than anything I’ve ever experienced.

But, as someone fairly new to the second-largest city in the United States, and as a freshly out, nonbinary person, I’m absolutely not sure where I belong, let alone how to tangibly identify and embrace my queer and trans community here. As much as my community sometimes feels pervasive in my life, showing up in all kinds of unexpected places, it often feels abstract, like an idea.

An important piece of context to my current chapter, I should jump back to my time in Denver. As a journalist, I often inserted myself into queer spaces around the city for my work. As someone newly sober, my experience in the city was never what I envisioned as I finally made my way somewhere with abundant queer people and queer spaces (which were often alcohol-fueled). 

Even in Denver, I don’t think I ever really found my footing. I got close on social media with a number of folks in the alt-drag scene; I dated scarcely, and ultimately, I left the city not really feeling like I was abandoning an established, queer community that I felt part of.

In retrospect, I recognize that post-sobriety, I was undergoing a number of intimate conversations with myself regarding my identity and gender, and even frequenting digital spaces like Grindr, abundant in cis, gay men, I felt (and continue to feel) out of place.

So, flash-forward to now. I’m freshly exploring my gender in a public capacity; an easy example is my collection of clothing, most of which is more than a year untouched, adding some cute crops, dresses, skirts I’ve always yearned to play with (and often think, ‘Why did it take me this long?’). 

I’ve gone on some dates with cis, gay men, hoping they recognize my gender and are seeing me as I’ve described, not just as a man using they/them pronouns. 

I want to openly explore my fluid sexuality and gender, my relationships, my community, my transness, by meeting and embracing my trans neighbors, but I’m realizing just how little digital space in dating and meet-up apps is reserved for people who aren’t cis.

I think forward to June:

Am I going to Pride?

I did nothing last year … I really should think about it.

What would they even do for that in Los Angeles right now?

Who would I even go with?

So, rather than thinking about the unknowns, I’m going to go back to what I know my community is right now, even if it doesn’t always feel the most tangible.

I am over the moon with gratitude for my digital community, especially given the hyper-isolation I’ve experienced through the pandemic.

The queer people I’ve only met once or twice through other friends, some I’ve never met at all in person, whom I find myself interacting with through my phone, sharing our experiences as we mutually cope through the pandemic—these recurring, exceptional characters in my life are the current backbone of my LGBTQ family.

The trans people I’ve met who have validated my experience as an often cis-assumed, nonbinary person, and the queer people from all around the country, even others (albeit only accessible through the electronic brick in my pocket) have been crucial to the conversations I’ve been having more openly and honestly with myself, and have been foundational in crafting the guide map to how I want to approach my community going forward.

I unexpectedly established a following of largely queer and trans people on TikTok, a space as a millennial I was often unsure if I should navigate until the beginning of 2021. While the app often boasts silly trends and derivative, digital content, I was blown away at the amount of LGBTQ folks on the platform talking about their experience and even just watching from my phone in my small, Hollywood apartment, so many of their voices give me warmth and solace.

I can’t conclude this column acting like I have a ton of foresight about the future here.

I’m trying to approach this like most of the pandemic: act intentionally, but also without too many expectations. I’m finding that in my adult life, the pieces will absolutely fall into place how they are supposed to. 

Right now, my queer community is more abstract than it may have felt before, but that doesn’t make it less crucial and real in my life. 

Ultimately, I’m eager to see what my community and my queerness looks like as I approach Pride Month 2022 and author my next annual reflection.