Misfits, Guts, and Glitter

I grew up in the 90s without much real queer representation. The only ones I remember were Ellen coming out, Ricky from My So-Called Life, and Willow and Tara from Buffy. That was it.

I also grew up in a small town in Tennessee. There was no Pride. No rainbow flags. No out teachers or affirming adults. We were taught abstinence-only in school and signed tiny “True Love Waits” cards every year. Being queer wasn't talked about, except in whispers or slurs.

Somehow, our group still found each other. They called us “the freaks.” We were goths, gays, stoners, skaters, theater kids, and nerds, all rolled into one misfit crew. I was a goth kid and came out during my freshman year. And I paid the price.

I was relentlessly bullied. Someone carved “dyke” into my locker. I was pushed down stairs, had gum shoved into my hair on the bus, got beat up, and was mocked nearly every day. There was no one to tell, no one who would understand, and no one who could protect us. But even in all that pain, we created our own kind of survival. We leaned on each other, made each other laugh, shared CDs and thrifted clothes, wrote poetry, dyed our hair, and dreamed about getting out.

Then we heard about a place in Nashville, a little over an hour away. A gay bookstore called OutLoud.

We piled into a car and made the drive. Teenage queer kids heading to the big city, chasing a glimmer of belonging. I will never forget walking in for the first time. Grown-ups. Holding hands. Rainbows everywhere. Flyers for queer events tacked to a corkboard. Books that told our stories. People who looked like us, living lives we could only imagine. Happy. Free.

We stood in that space and realized that maybe, just maybe, we weren’t broken. Maybe there was a future for us. We could hold hands. We could fall in love. We could grow up and live full lives without shame.

We started going as often as we could, not just to OutLoud, but to all the places that welcomed us, just an hour from our small town. Right next to OutLoud was Lucy's Record Shop, which later closed and became Indienet. The Muse was where I saw so many unforgettable shows. Café Coco, a 24-hour café where we could eat fries and chain smoke at any hour. Next door was Magical Journey, a little shop that felt like it was straight out of The Craft. These places were pockets of freedom. We could exhale. We didn’t have to shrink. We could be queer, loud, soft, angry, joyful, messy, real.

Those spaces saved us. Not just the physical spaces, but the emotional ones we created in and around them. We found safety in each other. We carved out joy, even in the cracks. We didn’t always have language for who we were or what we were becoming, but we had each other, and that was enough to get us through.

Looking back now, I hold so much tenderness for that younger version of myself. The kid who got shoved in the hall but still wore fishnets and eyeliner. The kid who dared to come out in a place that punished them for it. The kid who found a queer bookstore and felt, for the first time, like they might have a future. Little did they realize their story would someday be told on the interwebs, well beyond the age of Netscape and a world away from the crackling dial-up.

We didn’t have much, but we had each other. And we made it. Not everyone does, and that truth is heavy. But for those of us who did, who found tiny slivers of belonging and joy in a world that told us we didn’t deserve them, our survival is sacred.

Now, when I think about queer joy, I think about those car rides to Nashville, our boots sticking to the floor at Café Coco, the smell of books and incense at OutLoud. I think about how joy, even in small doses, can be revolutionary.

We made something out of nothing. We made family. We made joy. We made a way.