Sissy

by Jacob Tobia

  My earliest memories of church aren’t of singing or preaching: They’re of my butt falling asleep. Back when I was baptized, before we built the current sanctuary, we gathered for church service in what is now the church’s multipurpose room. I don’t remember too much about that space, other than the folding chairs. Back then, before Cary became the “it” suburb in North Carolina, we didn’t have the luxury of pews. Instead, we’d sit in metal folding chairs for the entire service. The chairs didn’t have any padding, just a thin coat of white paint over cold metal.

  After thirty minutes of sitting still on a metal folding chair, pins and needles were the only sensation I could feel. Everyone struggled with this. By the time the sermon was halfway done, our congregation was a sea of slowly shifting butts desperately attempting to avoid their fate. As a child, I thought this was just part of the whole Christianity deal: “We hurt our butts for Jesus.” It was like we were trying to experience the pain of crucifixion or something. Our sore butts were part of our penance, part of atoning for our sins.

  In those days, our church services ended not with a song, but with a chorus of loud clanging as each chair was folded and stored away. I also assumed this was a spiritual rite. Each week, we unfolded the chairs, we hurt our butts, we folded the chairs, and we put them back in the tomb. For a few days, they were dead to the world. But the next week, they were back again, Christ-like. A cycle of resurrection. A cycle of atonement. A cycle of cheap metal folding chairs.

  When we built the new sanctuary and finally got pews, I was shocked. It wasn’t the soaring, glorious wooden arches or gigantic circular windows that inspired me—it was the cushioned pews. Suddenly, I could worship Jesus without causing permanent nerve damage; suddenly, church was comfortable. It was a miracle. All glory to God in the highest. Hallelujah.

  Church was my refuge, one of the few places where my sensitivity, my creativity, and my penchant for bigger questions and larger feelings were embraced. Those were all parts of myself that I had to silence at karate practice, in physical education class, and on the playground. But not at church. At church, my love of singing, my proclivity to ask too many questions, and my enthusiasm for arts and crafts were assets. Sure, I was being a little bit of a know-it-all in Sunday school, but I was a know-it-all for Jesus. Yes, I may have been queening out in the church musical, but I was queening out for Jesus, so it was fine.

  I also really liked God, or at least the idea of God as he was presented to me, because God was a little bit of a queen, too.* I mean, think about it: He sits up in heaven on a gold-ass throne with a bunch of baroque naked babies flying around him and demands that you worship him and sing him lots of songs or else he will destroy your entire city and kill all your relatives. Talk about a diva. I mean, like, the Old Testament is pretty much just a litany of all the times God threw a diva tantrum in his dressing room because one of his fans coughed during his performance. He’s like Naomi Campbell constantly throwing his phone at the paparazzi (by the way, I support you, Naomi).

  And don’t get me started on Jesus. I adored the idea of Jesus. If God is Beyoncé, then Jesus was Solange or Stevie Nicks or, perhaps, Bob Marley. He was a down-to-earth, gentle rebel who wore flowing robes and long, curly hair. He preached forgiveness and free love and hung out with prostitutes and hated the government and gave people free food and turned water into wine to liven up the party. He even had a weird stoner cousin, John the Baptist, who ate locusts and honey and lived in the woods, taking people on spiritual journeys in the local river. As a historical figure, Jesus was the best.

  Despite how much I got along with God and Jesus, I had a complicated reputation in Sunday school. I haven’t spoken to any of my former Sunday school teachers to verify this, but I’m fairly certain that I was a little shit. On one hand, I was the pompous teacher’s pet. I knew all the answers, was skilled at reading aloud, and had a natural ability to bullshit when I wasn’t quite sure what the teacher was asking. While my classmates were busy being sleepy and bored, convinced that Sunday school was a premonition of hell itself, I was perky, energized, and hungry for biblical knowledge that I could use to prove I was better than everyone else and gain favor with my parents.

  On the other hand, I was a smart-ass with a budding intellect that I wholly dedicated to asking my Sunday school teachers very difficult questions. Questions like:

  If God made everything in the whole world, why did He make people sin? Like, He could’ve just made us so that we’d be nice to each other, right?

  On a related note, if God made the whole world and everything in it, then is God the one who set things up such that His only son had to die on the cross? That’s kinda twisted. Why did God do that? I’m only seven and I still think Santa Claus is real, but that strikes me as kind of odd.

  I’ve been praying for a new PlayStation for three solid weeks and it still hasn’t happened yet. Are you sure God really answers our prayers?

  God loves everyone and forgives everyone? Okay, then I don’t understand why there’s a use for hell. Hell must not exist.

  Why did God make war? That wasn’t very nice of Him. Also, why did God make homework? That wasn’t nice of Him, either.

  Mary was a virgin and God got her pregnant? What does virgin mean? How are babies made? Can God get ME pregnant?

  Speaking of which, how do we know God is a Him? Does God have a pee-pee? Did one of the prophets see it or something?

  I may have been a monster in Sunday school, but I was a star in choir—especially in my boy-soprano days. Like, I was good, okay? I was really good. I was so good that I had the starring role in an opera at my church when I was in fifth grade. The opera was called Amahl and the Night Visitors (which, it has only just occurred to me, sounds loosely like the title for a problematic Middle Eastern–themed porno. I can make that joke because my family on my dad’s side is Lebanese). It’s about a young boy named Amahl who used a crutch because he had a leg that didn’t work. One night, the Three Kings show up unannounced at Amahl’s house to crash for the night en route to visit the baby Jesus. They just show up. No letter. No call. No Airbnb reservation. They just knock on the door and are like, “Hey, we can sleep at your house, right?” to which Amahl’s widowed mother just has to be like, “Okay, I guess, sure.” The kings tell Amahl all about Jesus and how he loves everyone and is the king of the poor, and Amahl is so inspired that he offers to give the baby Jesus his most prized possession: his crutch. In the process of giving his crutch to the Three Kings, Amahl is (spoiler alert) magically healed by the love of Jesus and can walk again. So what do the Three Kings decide? They decide Amahl should go with them to meet the baby Jesus himself. And so the opera ends with Amahl’s mother sending him off on a trip with three rich older men.

  At the time, I didn’t realize how good Amahl had it. Today, I would do anything—anything—to have three rich older men take me on a trip. Sigh.

  Because being feminine as hell didn’t set me up to endure enough bullying, I also joined my church’s handbell choir. If there is one thing more homosexual than an opera about three older men taking a twinky guy on a vacation, it’s a handbell choir. I played handbells through the entirety of my elementary, middle, and high school careers. To this day, handbell choir keeps me humble. Every time I go to a red carpet event in Los Angeles or a gallery opening in New York and start to feel arrogant about how cool I am, I simply remind myself that I played in a handbell choir and I’m cut right back down to size.

  By third grade, that was pretty much it in terms of spaces where I could safely queen out: I had Sunday school, choir, and handbells. That comprised the entire dominion of my queenly reign. Pretty much everywhere else was hostile to my femininity.

  There were a few exceptions to this rule, my grandmother’s house being one of them. My grandmother on my mom’s side was a classy, sweet, kind Southern woman who’d learned to live in a more open-minded way in the post–Jim Crow South. She wasn’t perfect, but as
far as old white Southern grandmas go, she was pretty dang sweet, and I loved her ceaselessly. Also, she wore geometric-print windbreakers from the 1980s well into the 2000s, which certainly didn’t hurt. She held on to some of the pieces in her wardrobe long enough that they actually became ahead of their time again. I was always proud of her for that. If she were alive today, she would’ve rocked millennial pink.

  Part of the love that I shared with my grandmother was based in the fact that she adored my sweetness, my kindness, my compassion, and my gentle manner. I don’t know what exactly it was that enabled her to be so kind, affirming, and unrelenting in her support of my femininity, but I think it might have had something to do with being old enough not to give a fuck. Unlike many of the adults in my life, she never seemed worried about whether I was sufficiently manly. In fact, she would’ve been shocked and supremely disapproving if I’d ever lashed out in anger or been physically violent.

  Where everyone else attempted to curtail or turn a blind eye to my femininity, my grandmother looked it in the face, unashamed and unintimidated. She never would’ve said it this way, but in my mind, I wasn’t “Mom’s little boy” or “Dad’s little sport”—I was “Grandma’s little sissy.”

  Weekends at Grandma’s house consisted of all my favorite things. We’d run to the market to get fresh chicken salad and veggies, cook together, knit quietly, sip sweet tea, and play cards or Rummikub until about nine thirty p.m., which is when my grandma would fall asleep automatically, as if on autopilot, no matter where she was sitting. I would spend hours rifling through her jewelry collection and trying things on when she wasn’t looking. When we got ready to go to church or to dinner, she’d let me help her pick out her earrings and brooches, and I’d always choose the ones with the sparkliest, biggest, gaudiest costume gems.

  The most exciting trip I ever took to my grandmother’s house was when I was seven, and we spent the whole weekend alone, just me and my grandma. No Dad or Mom to worry about, no annoying older brother to contend with, just us girls. I felt like I’d died and gone to heaven, or, more accurately, like I’d died and been transported into an episode of The Golden Girls (Note: Is there even a difference?). My grandma would play the character of Rose—sweet, funny, and warm, but oblivious to what was going on around her, notably the fact that her grandson was obviously a homosexual—and I would play Blanche, minus the sex but with Dorothy’s wardrobe. No one would have to play Sophia because—call me a hypocrite or a blasphemer or edgy or whatever you like—she’s my least favorite character.

  During that trip, my grandmother and I had the best time. She taught me to memorize the Lord’s Prayer, how to skip—which, shockingly, I’d never learned to do myself—and how to blow a bubble with gum. After that trip, I went from being an underinformed princess to being a fully equipped queen. I could now skip up to my enemies on the playground, blow a bubble in their face, insult them while smacking my gum, and, when they got angry at me, passive-aggressively remind them that “God forgives us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, Susan.” In reality, I probably couldn’t have gotten away with that on the playground, but it was nice to know I could try.

  My grandmother passed away before I had the opportunity to properly come out to her, but I find great reassurance when I think back on the time we spent together. If she taught me how to skip and how to blow bubbles with chewing gum, she obviously wanted me to be a queen, I tell myself. There’s no way she wouldn’t be cool with this. She probably loves that I wear her earrings. To this day, I still think of my grandmother whenever I skip through the streets of New York or through a parking lot in LA after a successful meeting with a producer. I also think of her every time I recite the Lord’s Prayer, albeit my updated-for-the-feminist-matriarchal-twenty-first-century version:

  Our MOTHER,

  Who art in heaven,

  Hallowed be thy name.

  Thy QUEENdom come,

  Thy will be done,

  on Earth as it is in heaven.

  While I appreciate my grandmother’s unfazed support of my femininity as a child, I also blame her for some of my flaws. Namely, I blame her for my tacky fashion sense. To this day, many of my friends describe my fashion aesthetic as “Kinky 1980s Grandma,” and I think a great deal of that has to do with the fact that my grandma was my fashion icon. Her chunky, brightly colored clip-on earrings, her love of sparkly brooches, her pastel-and-jewel-tone wardrobe, her windbreakers, the fact that she never bothered to cut out any of her shoulder pads, the way she effortlessly merged Jackie Kennedy class and early 1990s flair, all passed along to me. They’re in my aesthetic DNA.

  Some days, when I look in the mirror, I feel like I’m the spitting image of my grandmother; except that she was five foot three and I’m five foot thirteen, and I’m significantly hairier than she was. Also, my grandmother probably wouldn’t have worn a leather dog collar as an accessory. But other than those things, we’re basically the same person. If you think what I’m wearing on Instagram is tacky or outdated, you should think twice before leaving a mean comment. If you criticize my fashion sense, you’re also making fun of my grandma’s fashion sense. And honey, you better not.

  * * *

  —

  After I gave up on expressing my femininity, my adolescent life became immeasurably easier. Once I’d accepted the rules, relinquished the idea that I deserved to express my gender in a way that felt authentic or natural to me, I was free to reemerge into the world of boys as a bona fide dude.

  As a young dude at the dawn of the new millennium, the options were reassuringly limited. I had three: I could be a cool kid who played sports and wore preppy clothes, I could be a skater kid who drank Red Bull and wore baggy clothes, or I could go the classic route and just be a fucking nerd.

  To me, the choice was obvious—organic, even. When I tried to learn how to skateboard, I hit an acorn, got thrown off, face-planted on the concrete, and started crying, so skater boy didn’t seem particularly promising. And because I had glasses and braces and couldn’t kick a football through a goalpost to save my life (in fact, I am still such a nerd, I just had to look up what a “goalpost” was called before I could write that last sentence—I Googled “big yellow football thing at the end of the field” to get the answer), neither jock nor prep seemed too promising, either.

  In my eyes, nerds had it made. They proved themselves not with athletic prowess, but with knowledge about particle physics or the inner workings of trains or the capitals of obscure countries or the ability to recite pi to one hundred digits. Among the cool sports kids or the skater dudes, I would’ve been a B-rate member of the group, but among the nerds, I could be head of the pack.

  Also, let’s face it: What nerds lack in homoerotic locker room culture and late-night sexual experimentation, they make up for in the ability to be pretty queer on a daily basis. As a nerd, I could watch lots of gay-leaning stuff: shows about sparkly dragons, cartoons about fairies, anime with buff shirtless dudes screaming in ecstasy as they shot their giant laser beams at other dudes.

  The Japanese cartoon Dragon Ball Z is a case in point. I’d venture to say it’s the most homoerotic cartoon ever made, and I watched it all the time growing up. When Goku (the main character) would go “Super Saiyan” (his most powerful mode), he would grunt, scream, and moan as his muscles doubled in size—his veins throbbing across his entire body—and his hair slicked into a giant, electric, bleach-blond updo. Half the time, his muscles would get so big and swollen and veiny and hard that they would rip half his clothes off. Then, all blond and sweaty and powerful and rock-hard, Goku would fight with some other dude (or alien), who was also sweaty, powerful, rock-hard, bleach-blond, and throbbing. Honestly, Dragon Ball Z is so gay that even just writing this paragraph I got sorta turned on and had to suck on an ice cube to stop myself from going on Grindr. I could never have watched anything so homoerotic if I hadn’t identified as a nerd.
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br />   Plus, nerds got wizards.

  If Japanese homoerotic anime was the base of my queer nerd mountain, wizards were its zenith. All I ever wanted to be, all I still want to be, is a wizard. Not so much a wizard à la Harry Potter—though I’d take it—but more a wizard à la Merlin from Arthurian legend (y’know, the knights of the Round Table and whatnot) or Gandalf the Grey/White from the Lord of the Rings. I mean, can we take a second to talk about the impact that wizards had on my self-esteem and self-love? Or on my sexual fantasies? Because we’re going to talk about both.

  For whatever reason, we’ve decided as a Western culture that the only time a person assigned male at birth may dare to be effeminate is if they’re magical. Gandalf the Grey is the best example. He is a weird outcast from most of society who runs around wearing flowy robes and recruiting his friends to help him destroy a terrible, awful, simply atrocious ring. He suspiciously has no sexual partners or desire to date women, loves crystals and sparkly magic, and carries around a long staff with a big ol’ shiny rock on top.

  So, being obviously feminine—and yet loved and adored and valued in the story—Gandalf already meant the world to me. Then he faced off with a Balrog (a giant fire monster) in Moria (this really evil part of Middle-earth), and fell into a fiery pit, never to be heard from again. Sure, J. R. R. Tolkien, kill off the gay character, why don’t you.

  But—surprise!—Gandalf comes back, and he’s gayer than ever!!! Reborn through his struggle with the Balrog, he comes back as Gandalf the White. He now has shiny, flowing, gorgeous white silk robes in place of his tattered old gray ones, and a gorgeous platinum-blond hairstyle to boot. Not only that, but his staff is different, more powerful, elegant white metal replacing gnarled old wood. Literally, he gets a makeover to be even more gay-slash-magical, and it’s one of the most dramatic and important parts of the whole book.