Listen to a reading of Damien's story 
What happened?
My school’s gay-straight alliance club has this groupchat on Snapchat, and I’m a part of it. I don’t really understand Snapchat, honestly. Maybe it’s because I’m autistic, but the way people communicate on there doesn’t make sense to me. And anyway, the GSA’s advisor isn’t even in that chat, and I like him a lot. So I don’t say much in the groupchat, I just lurk.
I’m also questioning. I don’t know my gender, or my sexuality, not for sure. I think I like boys, and I think I may not be a boy myself, but it’s hard to tell. I only came out as some flavor of not-straight-or-cis last year, when I joined the GSA. I introduced myself as Damien, which is my birth name. They asked for pronouns, identities, whatever else — pansexual, they/them pronouns, I guess. That was fine, it felt fine. But I wanted to experiment a bit, you know? Those identities didn’t quite feel right. I’m still figuring everything out.
So, during my second week in the GSA, I asked people to use she/her for me. That didn’t feel right either, or maybe I was just having a bad day. The third week, I went back to they/them. Then xe/xir, then they/he, then any pronouns at all, then he/him but slightly to the left. And then I thought, wait, maybe I’m asexual? Or just a gay guy?
It’s all so confusing, you see? Feelings are hard enough already, without the whole “trying to label my identity” thing.
By the third time I’d changed pronouns, the Snapchat group started talking about me. why does he keep switching pronouns, one person asked. is he trying to mock us or something. I wanted to type something to defend myself, but I didn’t know how, I didn’t know what to say. My day had already been so overwhelming, and I was at home with my homophobic, transphobic parents, and I couldn’t think of any words.
Someone else chimed in. He’s on the autism spectrum I think? If he’s not mocking us then he’s just clueless.
And another. Yeah IDK, he’s probably just like, copying other people’s pronouns cuz he doesn’t know what else to do. My cousin’s on the spectrum, he does the same stuff. Can he just pick something and stick to it?
I couldn’t just pick something and stick to it. I’d tried to, and I couldn’t. I didn’t know what to do. Maybe they were joking — I was bad at picking up on jokes. Or maybe they weren’t joking. I didn’t know what to do. I closed Snapchat and curled up on my bed. Everything was so loud. The overhead light in my room was so loud.
What did they do?
It took me a few weeks of going by he/him, out of fear of upsetting my fellow GSA members, before I couldn’t take it anymore. Those pronouns didn’t feel right at this point. I was too scared to say so during the club meeting, though, when we were all so busy with organizing events for our school and gossiping a little bit about some homophobes in someone’s history class. I waited until the end to do anything, when all my classmates were clearing out of the room. I lingered, staring at our advisor, Mr. Ortiz, unsure of how to start a conversation with him one-on-one. Part of me was hesitant, because maybe he thought similarly to the other club members, like I was weird for not knowing about myself. I was the last student in the room.
While Mr. Ortiz packed his things, he looked over at me and, thankfully, started the conversation for us. “Hey, Damien, did you need something?”
I nodded. “Um, do you know about the groupchat?”
He tilted his head slightly. “I know it exists. What about it?”
Well, I told him about it. About what my classmates said, how they thought I was mocking them, how much my feelings confused me, how much the club scared me. I didn’t know what I wanted to call myself, but it certainly wasn’t “he” anymore. I just didn’t want to be made fun of again.
Mr. Ortiz frowned. He took a second to actually say something. “What? That’s not right. I’m so sorry, they shouldn’t say that stuff about you.”
“But what do I do? To fix it.”
“You don’t have to do anything.” Mr. Ortiz sat back down at his desk and started typing something on his computer. “Thank you for telling me.”
“But I’m— I’m doing something wrong?” I really thought I was. Maybe I was mocking everyone, without realizing it.
He stopped typing to look back at me, and I stared at the floor so he couldn’t make eye contact. “You’re not! You’re not doing anything wrong. Listen, I didn’t figure out I was a gay man until I was in my 40s. Plenty of people don’t know who they are. There are people still questioning who are super old. And really, you don’t ever have to know for sure. I guess your classmates don’t really get that, but I’m not sure. I’ll talk to them, ok?”
The way my classmates talked, I’d really thought I was the odd one out, not knowing my identity. But what he said made sense. “You didn’t know until your 40s?”
“That’s right. I thought I was straight, then bi, then…” He made a hand-wavy motion. I felt that. “Then a few years ago, I finally thought, ok, well, I’m gay.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, I’ve got to head home, I’m sorry. I’ll see you next week, alright?” He stood up, swinging his bag over his shoulder. “If you’re feeling down, or if these people start being mean to you again, please let me know. Go home, get some rest, take care of yourself.”
I did as he said. Knowing that I didn’t have to have everything figured out, I was less tense, and the light in my room was quieter. I still wanted to know. It was frustrating to not know what to call myself. But, hey, I still knew other things about myself. I could focus on my interests, video games and trading cards. I didn’t need to spend time wracking my brain about the proper labels.
At the next GSA meeting, Mr. Ortiz talked to all of us about labels, and how it’s ok not to know them. Most people stopped being rude to me about it after that. Some actually apologized to me, believe it or not. But even when a few of my classmates still mocked me, I could at least take comfort in knowing that I was ok, and I was allowed to exist without knowing everything about my identity.
Written by Adrian Wood
Narration by Jordan Walters
Want to try the skills Damien used?
ACLU resource on LGBTQ harassment in schools
Trevor Project's guide on creating LGBTQ safe spaces in schools
Want help now? There are free and confidential hotlines available 24/7. Call/text the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988 or contact the Trevor Project, a crisis hotline specifically for LGBTQ youth, by calling 1-866-488-7386 or texting START to 678-678.