I recently started learning how to drive after years of putting up w being unable to. i'm not looking to actively drive but i want to be useful to my parent and grandparent when i visit (so they do not shoulder a tiring activity on their own), and i want to be able to travel to remote places on my own.
My friend joked "congrats on not being gay anymore" when i got my learning permit. i laughed too but i also thought, well. i'd rather be independant. i'd rather have that option. if it comes to life and death, then i want to be able to drive.
a lot of the trans people i follow online are trans women. i don't know why but it's just bc our hobbies align, or bc i appreciate the things they share. it's really not that deep. but i often feel stuck wanting to talk about what being trans is, to me. because i'm transmasc and non binary, it's not like our experiences align really well (some of it, sure, but most of it? probably not) but we can still talk to each other and help each other out in our feelings. but sometimes? i wish i had more peers from my own community to draw from.
but when i'm online, i see jokes about fallout new vegas and i don't get them. i had a friend explain the "cracked egg" thing to me while i played Control on discord. i own a blahaj out of liking it as a plush toy, and only later found out its status as a trans icon. i can't do math not because of some weird gay status (that feels like ppl are talking down themselves?) but bc of a cognitive disability. i'm learning how to drive -- does that make me not queer anymore?
it's one thing to be online, it's another to make these online jokes, or beliefs, a core part of an actual community. there is no queer monolith, as each experience is unique, and once you talk to your queer siblings then it becomes obvious that there is validity in the individuality. but because people online are exposed to the same ubiquitous privileged communities, they have to fold back into themselves to find a sense of self that isn't defined by whatever quirky white lgbt+ jokes about today.
in a way, and it is something i will happily repeat, i am happy i grew up as queer in a less terminally online society. there were no apps on my phone throughout teenagehood and algorithms weren't dictating what i was seeing in my online endeavors. i built up my queerness with a very important sense of self, of finding mirror images, of picking what applied to me and cutting off the rest. i'm not saying "people these days dont know how nice it was" bc realistically, there is a bigger strength in a more accessible community -- but i want people to know these accessible communities are also the most visible ones and that might also be why they aren't as good to you as they could be. they will always betray you in a way, because they do not take into account your personal history with gender roles, race, class, etc. and they will pretend that their one size fits all memes are harmless even if they create a divide.
that divide, however, can be filled. for as many blanket statements there are, pebbles of individual lived experiences will fall in the cracks and make it a path everyone, eventually, can walk. you are not alone in being the way you are, even if the monolith makes you lonely.