When I was a young boy. I was never a young boy. And my youth and those hollow, sacred years were never to say, the best. A picture taken after the inevitable fall from family grace shows a wispy boy-girl with penetrating eyes and a weak, false smile.

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Begging to be filled in

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I found myself living alone at the age of sixteen. It felt personal, but turns out I was part of a larger statistic:

1 out of 4 queer youth experience family conflict and a lack of acceptance1.

Over one-fourth face homelessness or housing instability2.

120% higher risk2 of ending up on the streets3.

2x the average rate of depression, anxiety, and self-harm2……

When I was a young boy, scraping together rent at the age of sixteen didn’t allow for many teenage shenanigans. I spent long days in classrooms struggling towards graduation, my nights were filled working as a cashier at a local bakery. I was barely able to pay for the windowless basement “apartment” of a bible-thumping young couple my parents had banished me to. Not surprisingly, they didn’t approve of my friends. It was shelter, but not a home. After work, my hands smelled of frosting and spices….fruit and cinnamon pastries and the ginger cookies I lovingly nestled in boxes and sent out the door. After a long shift of serving sugary delicacies, I would return home with a crusty day-old loaf if I was lucky. Bread every day.

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Begging to be filled

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In the photo, I am ringed by a gangly group of friends, misfits- outsiders like myself. All of us teens, members of a lesbian resource center youth rap group that met once a week in the big city. It was the only lifeline many of us had, and I didn’t think twice about the 2 hour bus ride from the suburbs. A place of “recovery”, all of us were damaged in some way. In this picture, we were meeting for the first time on our own, outside of the resource center. We are nervous, excited, and full of hormones. We grin shyly around a small backyard fire with our newly shorn haircuts, trying to look tough and in charge, 

At school I kept my head down and my guard up. I didn’t want to be the target of harassment. I saw some of my close, effeminate friends fall prey like wolves on a fresh kill:

84% of LGBT youth report verbal harassment at school 

Hear on average 26 anti-LGBT slurs per day, some of the slurs coming from school staff4

One- third  of these students skipped a day of school in the past month because they felt unsafe. 

Sourdough, rye, wheat-cracked loaves. I ate my way through left-over loaves that didn’t find a home….outsiders like myself. Unwanted even though they shared the same qualities as the chosen ones, swaddled in paper sheaths and lovingly handled over the counter. I still love fresh baked bread, but seeing loaves lined up naked on a bakery shelf, faintly warm from the oven, unleashes a misplaced anger and sense of betrayal.

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Begging to be

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When I was a young boy, on dizzying days I watched myself spin out of control. Untethered and unbound from familial bonds it was hard to find an anchor, an identity. By questioning normalcy,  I found only pain. High school is the wrong time to show you may be different from “the pack”.

Every fiber of my body struggled towards graduation, when I would finally be free of the suburbs and student “pep club“ mentalities:

I saw the consequences of physical and verbal abuse directed towards LGBT students:

poor grades, having to repeat a grade….

28% of LGBT youth dropped out of school due to peer harassment.”3

At our evening rap groups, we joyfully shared our crushes, as well as the darker threats of violence. Often we clutched scraps of paper pointing us to “free” resources … .food pantries, shelters, a bus pass…..as we walked away from the safety of our meeting place and into the dark city streets. Still we feel light, buoyed by the goodbye hugs at the end of the night,… hugs we used as both armor, and sustenance, …at least for a few hours.

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Begging

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That close-knit circle of misfit girls huddled around the fire that day are now scattered. Some respond to he/him, others they/them, and a few of us, making peace with the fierce and independent women we became. I don’t walk with my head down anymore, but sometimes I instinctively become smaller, like prey trying to deflect attention away from itself…

Fire-bathed skin, the cracks and bubbles of sourdough crusts…..my favorite of the breads we baked. The outsides showing the scars of how it came into existence. 

Its insides, softly satisfying.

  1. Human Rights Campaign: “Growing up LGBT in America HRC Youth Survey Report, Key Findings” 
  2. The Trevor Project
  3. National Network for Youth: https://nn4youth.org/lgbtq-homeless-youth/
  4. LGBT Youth Facts/Statistics, Oregon Judicial Department 

Heather Wiedenhoft is a journalist and freelance writer. Born and raised in Seattle, she is a graduate student in the multimedia journalism program at the University of Oregon and works for the federal government promoting environmental conservation. As a member of the LGBTQ community, Heather wrote an investigative piece on the significance of drag king culture in her life and the lives of other queer youth for Oregon Humanities. Published in numerous environmental magazines such as Hakai and High Country News, Heather has begun to explore the realm of non-fiction writing and enjoys the creative freedom of lyric essays and poetry writing.