Many of my early expeditions into “queer life” were fraught with conflict and misunderstanding. Without a proper script to follow or immediate role models to look to, there was only an ocean of confusion - about who I was meant to be, what I was capable of, of how to outgrow the formats of compulsory heterosexuality that had been set out before me.
For the most part it was a rocky process, not helped by the fact that I was often working it all out on my own, or through similarly aged peers who were just as lost - the blind leading the blind - even though I was coming of age during a time where online communities existed and queer narratives were piercing the mainstream.
My parents had only ever had friendships with other openly straight people. Thus, growing up I was starved of examples of what it could look like, to live as a queer person beyond my youth. I felt a palpable shame about my internal life, my desires, an anxiety about my future, and often didn’t give myself permission to pursue opportunities and relationships because I had told myself it wasn’t viable, or sustainable. It meant the process of reconciling my sexuality was a lot more fractured, when it could have been liberating. I was exposed to harm by being in unfamiliar environments on my own without knowing how to advocate myself or express my own boundaries. I imagine some of this could have been avoided if the right people were there to form as a buffer and to act as a guiding force.
It was in my early 20s that I had my first proper romance, and through them began meeting older queer people at home - artists, researchers, and writers who weren’t apologising for their identity or their choices.
It was in my early 20s that I had my first proper romance, and through them began meeting older queer people at home - artists, researchers, and writers who weren’t apologising for their identity or their choices.
I’ve sometimes felt at odds with my own peers, and it’s these relationships with older queer people that have kept me alive. The idea of a mentorship can sound overly formal, but it’s not really planned. They might not even know that I view them in that way. Sometimes they’re older women, or chatty gay men, or people who have recently transitioned, or gender nonconforming people who exist on the outskirts of “queer life.” These relationships become validated in passing, in comments online that turn into conversations, in group situations at parties. It can often be accidental, or transient, the way they take shape.
Over time, queer communities have become ruled by commodification, by the promise of mainstream inclusion, and it’s easy to become competitive - as young people - when opportunities for recognition get offered to us or dangled before us. This tokenism can often lead to power differentials and hierarchies playing out exactly as they do in other communities, distracting us from our shared mission.
Sometimes they’re older women, or chatty gay men, or people who have recently transitioned, or gender nonconforming people who exist on the outskirts of “queer life.”
The rising cost of living and renting, and the ongoing process of gentrification in major cities, has similarly left us time poor, disconnected and stripped of opportunities to congregate. Having mentors present is sometimes a necessary antidote to conflict- it’s hard to have an ego when you have more experienced people in your community to school you when you’re acting out, and to remind you of their own past mistakes. Especially if you grow up in isolation, in suffocatingly hetero environments, it’s easy to get a big head and convince yourself that your experiences are totally unique and beyond reproach.
The habit of connecting online - and establishing identity through a constant and agonising self-reflection and self-branding (navel gazing) has meant we’ve become very detached from the importance of inter-generational links and stopped viewing “identity” as a collective thing, that has roots in history.
“Role models” - especially for those living in the country or outer suburbs - are difficult to locate. Growing up out of the city, I only saw a narrow future where I’d have to follow the same path as my parents. Such a feeling can be suffocating. I was shocked when I grew older and met friends who had role models for a queer life before they were pubescent. How transformative that must have been, to know there were options of living that weren’t relegated to scary, far off stereotypes.
I was shocked when I grew older and met friends who had role models for a queer life before they were pubescent.
Now, living in Sydney, I feel gratitude for the fact that there is, at least, some kind of inter-generational influence in queer spaces. This rewards us all in different ways, and I hope that soon I can start returning the favour to my younger friends. It’s an honour, to be humbled by the presence of those who are your front-runners, to be part of a cross-cultural conversation that has lived on through oral histories.
As American historian writes, “to think about experience in this way is to historicise it as well as to historicise the identities it produces.” It’s a feeling of togetherness and a lineage and a context that so often feels out of our grasp, that has been undocumented or erased, and re-emphasising these relationships can be a way we battle sentiments of ageism, to learn a language of reciprocity and remember where we all stand.
Jonno Revanche is a writer, editor, cultural critic and multidisciplinary artist, originally from Adelaide/Kaurna land. You can follow them on Twitter .
