As I write this version of my draft, legislation for the LGBT+ Community has changed in NSW, Australia. Looking beyond the religious implications that still impacted the government, when there should be a separation between church and state, there were a few wins that impact me. So I sit in front of this piece of writing I have been trying to write for over a year now and I feel remise not to mention these changes. After all, it impacts who I am and how I live within this community AND how I continue to disappear from it despite that.

There are many things in this world we do not know nor do we understand. So much so, I could sit here and become overwhelmed with it all as I try to surmise it to make my point. Though I have met many humans who believe they do, we as a species don’t know everything. We are obsessed with categorising and labelling things because it’s how our mind works in its compartmentalising intricacies. We can be so wrong though that it can be facepalming in our realisation of it.

One thing is clear, though, we do not know what any individual is thinking nor feeling unless expressed. Sorry, we haven’t perfected telepathy yet. I’m still trying. And even when someone expresses themselves, we can only trust our interpretation of these expressions as well as the individual expressing them. I mean, we have terms such as honesty and dishonesty for a reason. I was dishonest for the longest time about myself, to myself and ultimately to others.

Who has really seen Michael Stoneburner?

If you are reading this and went to high school with me, you’d have no idea who I was or what kind of person I was. You only saw the fear that kept me quiet. You would see the denial that kept me safe. You’d see me throw other people under the bus in hopes the focus would no longer be on me. You’d see how everyone continued to question whether I was a boy or a girl merely because I talked with my hands, I sang from musicals, I danced in the playground, I had no interest in sports but would love to hopscotch, play house and do skipping rope. When queer was a swear word and used to harm me. When saying yes when Matthew asked if I wanted to kiss him in the restroom only for the other boys to come running out of the cubicle to mock and beat me to the ground. I don’t know why I wanted to kiss him. I just did. Just like in the school before, Paul and I kissed. And the time before that when Corey kissed me behind the trees in the park and I felt complete perfection in me for the first time. It was just the way that I was.

No matter how hard I tried to kill that part of me.

Not only in high school was my life threatened, but in every day life. Death followed me everywhere and I wasn’t even an adult yet. I was still a child. A child watching people like me die and somehow it was all my fault. Somehow it was about a god punishing me. No matter how much I prayed the gay away, I still couldn’t please the people around me.

The AIDS crisis. The murder of Matthew Shepard. Media. Government. Religious vitriol that promised hell and damnation. Conversion therapy. Institutionalised. Killed. Stop talking with your hands, Michael. I’d sit on them. Why do you talk funny? I’d stop talking. Why are you looking at him like that? I’d stop looking at people. Why don’t you have a girlfriend? I’d force myself into a relationship with a girl even though internally never consented to her touching me, kissing me, wanting me. How each time I was with a girl felt like I was being sexually assaulted. A feeling I wouldn’t fully come to understand until I was raped at 14 years old and left on the dirt road feeling all those horrible feelings he left me with–only to realise it felt the same as after I had been with a girl.

If you’re reading this and went to college with me, you’d know closer to the truth when I’d fall head over heels for Craig and I’ll follow him around like a lost puppy. He was a horrible influence, if you paid enough attention, but no one warned me. I wouldn’t see it till I took too many of the pills he was giving me. I wouldn’t see it until the day he punched me in the face because I said no to him. How I’d see the swelling in my cheek and be reminded of the years of abuse I’d witness with my biological father unto my biological mother. I’d get myself out of that relationship. Not any of you. I was more your token gay friend to take the time to get to know me. You’d see my poetry mocked in class when I wrote about domestic violence and homosexuality. And not even the instructors would reach out to me and check to make sure that the domestic violence stopped. No one learnt that it was still going and I was doing anything I could to escape it.

Even run away to Australia.

Which I did the first chance that I could. But even that act was deemed selfish. My siblings would only ask me, “What about us? Who will take care of us?” As if it were my job because for all my life that’s what I did. How acceptable it was for a young child, into their teens and into their adulthood to be responsible for the well-being of their biological family because no one else stopped the man from beating us, raping us or trying to kill us. He was mentally ill so it was okay, right? It was the drugs and alcohol. It was everything else but HIM that did that to us. It was my job to forgive and forget and to continue to be the punching bag while I took care of everyone else but me. Because it didn’t matter what the queer needed, right?

I was an abomination after all.

If you’re reading this and we went to university together in Australia, did you know what you saw? You saw a person trying to have a fresh start but not realising I never would living the lie that I was living. I was married to a girl. She was my best friend as much as I would let her be. We labelled me as bisexual but that I chose her, which made it seem romantic. The problem was I wasn’t bisexual. And though I never told her, every time we were together it felt wrong afterwards and I’d have dreams of being left in the dirt road. And as the years went on, we’d struggle with this lie. We’d grow apart as a couple and rest as friends. The more I tried to be myself at university, the more I hated myself. I tried to be what I felt like every single one of you wanted me to be. Did I noticed that I never hung out with a lot of the guys in our course? Yes. Did I notice the whispers around me? Yes. Did I get the questions on whether I was gay or not? All the time. Did I even get the people who tried to take the time to convince me I was gay and that was okay? All the time and it was so damaging. “I always knew you were gay,” was such a damaging thing said to me when I finally did admit it. After my marriage ended, after we both decided to live each our authentic lives.

No one knew me. How would they? I didn’t even know myself.

No one in university knew I was self harming. That I was suicidal. No one knew how much I was hurting. How I fell in love with a married man who took advantage of me. Who dumped me when I confessed my feelings for him and he yelled at me for making things complicated? Even after begging to see me again. And again. And I said yes each time until I suddenly felt as if I were laying in that dirt road again.

All these people who thought they knew me. Thought what I needed. Should have. All those people I surrounded myself in to pray for me and to fix me because that is all my childhood ever knew in a relationship with others. Not one of you ever experienced getting to know Michael Stoneburner.

How could you? I wouldn’t know until I met my person. I wouldn’t know who I truly was until I began a relationship with someone who truly loved me for who I am. All those traits of mine you all found fault in? All those times I was hurting and most of you turned a blind eye and pretended not to see? All my perceived defects and conditioning and self esteem issues? My ADHD. My, then, undiagnosed autism? All of that? Joel loved it and wanted it all.

I grew up learning about unconditional love that only god and his trinity could bring, even though there were too many conditions to name to receive it, and no amount of sermons I ever experienced, taught me unconditional love until I met Joel. Married them. Learnt to trust through them. Learnt to love through them. Faced some awful truths with them and accepted some wonderful truths with them, too.

It was through them that I was able to meet Michael Stoneburner. Let me introduce you to them quickly because as the title of this piece suggests, they’re going to disappear.

Joel introduced me to the term non-binary. I’ve written about this story before and it has been published in different forms, but I’ll quickly surmise here. They sat down to talk to me about how they were not a he/him and as they explained it, my brain started to stack the dominoes into a beautiful pattern so that by the time Joel finished coming out to me, my dominoes fell perfect and I completely made their moment, my own. Don’t worry. We laugh about it. But it was this surreal moment. A perfect moment. Like when I was a child kissing a boy and it feeling right. Saying aloud, in my late twenties, to an uncaring pigeon, that I was gay. That I did not fit the binary the world was forcing me into. It explained a lot for me. And then, being the neurodiverse person that I am, I hyper-focused on the history of they/them and non-binary and how it has been around since pretty much the beginning of time. That in some first nation cultures these people were honoured and loved. I learnt just how much simpler my childhood would have been if I lived in a society that did not force me into misguided boxes.

Gender is a social construct.

I am not a boy. I am not a girl. I have biological evidence to support both of these statements and it’s none of your business beyond that. Remember how I said that we will never know what people are thinking or feeling? That’d we have to trust them? We will never know the true biological aspects of each individual person either. Science can provide evidence. Claims. Support. Diagnosis. Professionals can back this up. The rest of the animal kingdom can always say yeah uh hey, there’s more than two of things. We all aren’t walking two by two in this world, you know.

Intersex exists.

I used to bite my nails. Started when I was 12. It was a way to cope with the fear and anxiety I felt. When I couldn’t walk through my house safely. Quiet, Michael, he’s sleeping. Keep your siblings quiet, he’s sleeping. Going home after a teacher sent word that I had been in trouble. Any form of criticism. I bit those nails till they bled and continued to do so up until I started to put nail polish on them. As I explored non-binary and learnt more about myself, the more I sought medical attention. Beautiful nails that made the colour of my eyes pop and sparkled in the light. I stopped biting my nails. Then I discovered eye make up. Eyeliner. Shades. Colours. I found a technique that matched the shape of my eyes and like my nails I delighted in the majestic sparkle of it all.

I could look into a mirror and I could see myself.

A person who loved wearing makeup. Colourful pants and shirts. Shawls. Scarves. Hats. I was heading into a world where I didn’t hate myself physically and I legit felt amazing, beautiful and sexy. I had a good few years feeling this way. I changed the way I wrote without hiding my queer characters. I spoke at public events and engaged with my local community. I took part in community events. I advocated. I kept revealing my truths to anyone who would listen.

And that’s when I started to disappear. The more I presented myself to the LGBT+ community around me, the more I got shut down. It began with misgendering and setting boundaries for myself. Boundaries that I’m still setting up. My body, my mind and my heart is none of your business. You will have to trust me when I tell you who I am. And the constant misgendering in a public and popular LGBT+ event became too much for me. I’d get the community to want to argue with me, debate the issue in front of me and get me to defend myself or try and force out my truths. No one should have to explain themselves. For example, I don’t like to be touched or hugged without consent and it offends so many people who I won’t handshake or hug. And surprises people when I get angry when they hug or shake my hand anyway. I should not have to say, “Sorry I don’t like being touched because I was raped in my childhood.” I should be able to say, “Oh no thank you,” as I curtsy or use my words instead to convey how nice it is to meet you. I shouldn’t have to wear a tie around my neck because in society it is expected of men to do so, even though it reminds me of hands being wrapped around it and choking the life out of me. Or why I swear a beautiful blouse that matches my curves and makes me look gorgeous.

I owe no one an explanation and yet, in the LGBT+ Community, I found that it was almost expected of me. As if every aspect of my life needed to have a coming out story to defend myself and to justify why I was the way that I was. Or else face their shame.

Clap. Back. Just accept who I am. How ’bout that?

The more authentic I became in the queer world and talked about non-binary, the spectrum of sexuality and biology and the advocacies against the social norms even within the LGBT+ Community, the more I was deemed too political. I was avoided. Used in many cases. Misgendered in malicious compliance. Shunned. Mistreated. Abused. Isolated. It was bad enough this was happening in the real world still. Even recently, with the Australian Census, the equality bill, etc. It’s still happening. My local community will spend millions on celebrating a sports team but spend little on marginalised communities. Or bounce around the funding to each one because apparently there isn’t enough to spend on all of them at the same time.

And what’s worse, as I continued to withdraw, no one seemed to notice. I stopped posting pictures up of the different colours I’d wear around my eyes. Because I stopped wearing it. Nor were there pictures of my nails. Because I stopped colouring them and started to bite them again. I was struggling to find clothes that I loved because of my weight, so I began to develop an eating disorder. The happier I had become the worse people around me became, more so in the community I was supposed to fit in to. Because I wasn’t just a gay man or a lesbian or because I held people accountable for their actions. That now I reach an age where the younger generation is saying I had my time and that make up is for the youth, even though I’ve never had my time. I’ve lived others time.

It’s hard to wear clothings, make up and live an authentic life for yourself when walking down the street doing so caused people to spit at you, be verbally abusive or just give those judgemental looks. Hard to be a part of a community that despite their own life experiences, they still can’t see beyond male and female. That finding a home is at risk if you show up looking queer.

I’m not a sir. I’m not a ma’am. I’m not a guy or dude or mister. I’m a person. I have a name. Laws are changing where I can change the gender of my birth certificate, but I’ll be honest, I don’t feel safe doing so. Because I don’t physically fit. I can be dishonest and wear certain clothes, grow my beard out and avoid makeup. I can cover up the parts of me that reveal more than a specific gender. I can hide. I do it well. The world has taught me to disappear because it’s happier when I’m not in it.

Hi. I’m Michael Stoneburner. It’s nice to meet you.

I don’t want to disappear.

If you’ve reached this far, thank you. I love my readers. Not only do I post musings on my website, but it’s a place to buy my books, to join in on Story Stone Writing Prompts and to occasionally get Tik Tok videos. Though a lot of that has decreased due to circumstances, I hope to return to all that. Donations are always welcomed here: https://ko-fi.com/michaelstoneburner