Season 1, Episode 1: Jai S.
CD: Welcome to OutSpoken Noire. Today we are interviewing Janay Stevenson. Janay's pronouns are she, her, or they, them. Janay, do you want to say hi to the people?
JS: Hey, everyone.
CD: Hey.
JS: Hi people.
CD: Hi people. [laughing]
Yeah. So, what I usually do is just jump in to your actual coming out story. So I guess…let's say, actually, ahead of that, do you identify as a Black lesbian?
JS: Yes…
CD: Okay. The Black part for sure. [laughing] The lesbian part...
JS: Yeah, the Black part for sure. Can I hide that one? Yeah. No denying. It's funny you ask, because I'm still trying to understand how I identify as a person, what my gender actually is, because that affects how I see myself. So I say yes.
CD: Okay, yeah. No, your response actually mirrors this project's own identity crisis, because I'm realizing that a lot of people don't use lesbian anymore and it has a certain connotation. And we can talk about that later because I'm interested in your take.
So yeah, but this is definitely ending up sort of expanding to Black lesbians, Black queer folk.
JS: Yeah, yeah, I think I mostly say queer actually now that you say that. I mostly say queer. Yeah, but yes, we can talk about it later because I want to see [unintelligible]
CD: Okay cool. So let's get into your coming out story. So you can start wherever you want and maybe just like walk us through and I will just ask questions as they come up. So how did you come out? How did that happen?
JS: So my coming out story is really shitty. It's not a good one. I grew up in the Caribbean. My parents are Jamaican, Bahamian, Haitian, so any Caribbean followers out there know how strict those families can be already outside of just Black American culture. So I grew up in the closet. I feel like I knew since I was a kid, but I grew up definitely in the closet. I wrote it in a blog post that I wrote once that I don't even think I actually grew up, I just sort of spread and spilled. Because when you don't know yourself, it's just like there's no actual shape or form. You're just spilling everywhere until you give yourself a form.
CD: Sure, yeah.
JS: The form I gave myself was, I'm a Christian. And I took that form for a long time, all the way up until college. I was part of youth groups. My friends in college had like this big joke about anytime I would leave the house, they'd say, “Where are you going?” And I'd be like, “Life group.” Or, “Where'd you go?” And I was like, “Bible study.” It was like every day.
Monday I had a group, a life group, and then I was leading a student college group on like Wednesdays, I think. Tuesdays I babysat for like this women's group. Thursday… like I am not kidding, every single day there was something. And then of course, Sunday I went to church. And so, yeah, I hid it for a very long time and did a lot of very risque things trying to prove to myself that I wasn't gay. Like that whole Christian... that's a whole other story. That I wrote about once.
CD: Okay. Are you a writer?
JS: I am.
CD: Okay. Awesome. I should have cleared that with you ahead [laughing].
JS: Yeah, a lot of my stories are on my blog, actually.
CD: Oh, okay. Okay. And then later you can shout out your blog, then, but yeah that's awesome. I like the idea though of how you described you know if you don't really know who you are just sort of like being kind of amorphous until you...
JS: Yeah, oh I like that word! “Amporphous.” Yeah, yeah, you're very amorphous for a long time and I think I'm only just now… I have, um, I made a painting -- oh, it's not here it's in the other room--but it's about me actually realizing that at 25 I'm finding that shape and then I'm not just a bunch of scribbles anymore.
So let's just fast forward. My best friend at the time was the worship leader at the church. She was like the Martha Mary of the church. Everyone loved her and that was my best friend in the church. She was also like the worship leader. She was also one of those people that did every single thing for the church and then she became a full-time employee of the church my junior year of college.
CD: So were you going to church regularly, sorry, when you were at home with your parents? Or when did you really start going to church?
JS: Yeah, yeah I mean my parents, their religious beliefs are very interesting. They shifted a lot but like yeah we went to church, me having this secret, having this best friend that kind of makes me feel like I have to prove myself to everyone and feeling like people could sort of tell I was a little bit “off”, not “off”, that's not the word I would use.
But I remember people making comments like, “Oh, you know, you're really honest,” and I felt like that was their way of saying you're more rough around the edges. Because I feel like in Christianity you're kind of used to being a little bit dishonest about who you really are when you talk, when you have conversations. It's just about Oh, what Bible study book are you reading? or this or that.
People would ask me questions and I would say I went to the club, or I did this [other activity], and so people would say “honest” and I realized they were actually saying You're not quite prim and proper yet, but we'll get you there kind of thing.
And so having this best friend that was so prim and proper was very strange because I felt people's eyes on me, and I felt people comparing us, and kind of wondering why she was friends with me anyway. And I felt like people could tell because I'm not clearly… I didn't like, wear dresses and things like that. I wasn't very girly at all.
CD: I was going to ask you if you were presenting similarly to how you present now. Can you describe how you present now for people who are listening?
JS: Well, I present very androgynous I would say. I had hair back then, but I think it was pretty obvious I was more “masculine”, as they would say. And it wasn't like I purposely tried to present that way, it was just hard not to be who I was in some shape or form. And I just wasn't going to wear a skirt.
So yeah, so I could tell people [were suspicious of me], and years later, I found out that some people were like, Yeah, we always thought something like this would happen, or We never really trusted you. And so this feeling that people were always watching you, and they knew you had a secret, but they kept their knives behind their back because it was only potent if the secret got out. But people knew and they were just kind of waiting. You can't name it. You can't name it, but they feel something and they're kind of waiting on it. That's such an eerie feeling when I look back at how many people just said, Oh yeah, we knew, but then still did the things that they did.
But anyway, so now this friend gets married and at the church I was at, I don't know how many followers are you know Christian or used to be Christian, but it seems like Christians get married really freaking young.
CD: Yeah.
JS: And so everybody was getting married. I was still, like, meeting random people on Craigslist to prove that I was straight and none of that worked out. I hated it.
CD: Oh man. OK, why on Craigslist instead of just in person?
JS: Shame, hiding, like you know, just the shame of feeling like something was wrong with my vagina.
And also, I think that there was a little bit of insecurity because I wasn't very feminine. I just didn't feel comfortable approaching…well, men didn't even approach me that often. And I just didn't feel comfortable, it was just…I don't know. That's a good question. Why did I do Craigslist and not try to date someone in the open? I can't…I couldn't tell you the answer to that, but just shame, I would say.
CD: So meeting men?
JS: Yes, okay. These are like very risqué kinds of things where I look back and think Yeah there's definitely some interactions that I could have died in because someone got too rough, or this or that. And these are all things I was doing just to prove like, no, you know, I am straight. And I'm not. I hated every second of it. It was very traumatizing. I traumatized myself that way.
CD: Right. So, your friend gets married?
JS: My friend gets married and we were living together at the time. But when she got married she had like a little house or something and they decided to move. Well, they had already planned to move in together. I was just living with her until he came into the house. So he moves in, I move out, but I had a scholarship with my university that lasted four years anyway, so this was just during a summer period.
And when school came back in, I went back into my scholarship housing. At her wedding, I met a young lady that was part of the youth group. She was in high school and at this point I was 21. When I say “met”, this isn't the first time we met but like sometimes churches are set up in a way that unless you go to a particular study group with someone you just see someone every Sunday and you pass her by, but I… oh, no! I'm messing up the story.
It's not that I just met her at the wedding, I lived with her family for two weeks because my scholarship housing was closed for two weeks.
CD: After the wedding?
JS: Yeah.
CD: Okay.
JS: Yeah, and I lived far from my actual home and I had a job so it was worthless to go back home, and it was just two weeks. I think I asked, or [the family] offered. Or they knew somehow that I was going to be out of a place for about two weeks until my scholarship opened, something like that.
You need to understand that this family, and I had known the three people [in the family] separately: the father, the mother, and the daughter. I didn't know that they were a family.
CD: Oh, okay.
JS: So, like I said, going to church you just see characters, you don't know what their stories are.
CD: Right.
JS: So, yeah, so I stayed with them for about, I want to say it was two weeks, maybe it was a week and a half, and the daughter and I grew very close. It was like almost instant, maybe like a day or so afterwards, we were just inseparable. And that was my first love, I would say. Well, love…I don't know. I was young. Now that I know who I am, it makes me question how much I truly could have loved her. Because, you know, how can you love someone if you don't love yourself, kind of thing, like RuPaul says.
CD: Right.
JS: At the time I would have said this was my first love.
CD: And like, how did you understand that love at the time? Like, how did you frame it for yourself? Because you weren't out to yourself yet.
JS: Right. Right. I think it's because the things that that people described, and the things that my friend described when she married her husband, and I heard people say these things [about love]. But with guys I attempted to try to like, or I’d attempt to try to have a crush on a guy and just not actually feel it. Or even talking to a guy I never felt it.
But with her, I felt these things even if they were just minor, even if it was like Oh this is a genuine crush and I realized like Oh, okay, like…your vagina’s not broken, you’re like, gayyy. [both laughing]
CD: Yeah. So, during the course of this period with this other person you kind of came to understand that you have an attraction to “same-sex”, quote-unquote, to be binary. [laughing] Sorry, to anyone listening!
JS: Yeah, it hit me especially after we had like our first sexual interaction, and like with men I just kind of laid there and dissociated, but with her and I, at this point I was very uncomfortable so I didn't even take off my clothes. But, it was still very arousing and, you know, all the things… trying to get too graphic.
CD: You can if you'd like to, this is not a PG situation, so whatever you'd like to broach you can broach. [laughing]
JS: So, yeah, in short I came without having to take off my clothes and that was like Whew! The glass-breaking moment, like Oh, this is what's been wrong.
CD: Right.
JS: Right. So I leave her house, I go back to my scholarship housing which was only five minutes down the road from her in the small town that we were in. And yeah, I figured after I went back to my own whatever, school starts…she's doing her senior year of high school… I'm doing my… was it my senior year of college? Actually it was, it was my senior year of college. And I just figured, yeah, we would just fall off, but that did not happen.
CD: What did happen?
JS: We talked every day.
CD: Oh, every day?
JS: Every day. Like it was on the phone. We would talk on the phone all night, fall asleep on the phone. Then we would talk as she was getting ready for school and I was getting ready for class.
Text all throughout the day, find a way to see each other and then text on the way home and do that every day. Constant communication.
CD: Sounds about right, yeah.
JS: Yeah, sounds about right, which is low-key unhealthy, but also, whatever.
CD: Sure. But it was your first love…
JS: Yeah, it was. It was. So, this continues for a few months. We're back and forth, you know, feeling kind of guilty. At some point, the youth pastor sort of picks up on it and speaks to us privately, and he was like, “You know, I don't want to shame you all at all. I don't understand what it's like, but I just want you to know that I'm here to pray for you.” And that was it.
CD: How did he mean that?
JS: Huh?
CD: How did he mean that? Because I was going to ask you if anyone had noticed what was going on. So it sounds like your youth pastor picked up on the romantic feelings between you all. So when he said he would pray for you…
Because when you first started to describe what he said, it sounded compassionate…
JS: It was like, not necessarily understanding, but because he knew us, we were really good friends with him. Like, he's a good guy.
I still think to this day he's a good guy. I don't know where he is, but I would say he was really kind because even after things really took a turn he's the one that messaged me privately to see how I was doing.
But I think, you know, he still had to adhere to his beliefs, but he wanted to be kind and gracious and say like, I don't judge you, but I have to, given my position, uphold what I uphold and I hope that you two overcome this sort of thing. But it's not like he went and told a bunch of people or anything.
So as I started to pick up on people noticing, even my closest friends who weren't very religious were like, We can tell something's going on. And instead of like taking this kindly, it's like, that's the whole thing about being Christian, it just makes you feel so ashamed of everything. And so I felt ashamed that people could tell, or, you know, I thought I was doing a great job of hiding this. So I just kind of didn't want to be around it anymore and I still [believed] that something's going to change. [I’m] gonna fall in love with a guy, [I’m] gonna be a good Christian… this and this and that… and the woman I had in my head, I had this idea that [I was] gonna be her someday. [I] just need to get out of this situation.
So I leave and I move to Hong Kong.
CD: Whoa, wait… [laughing]
So, okay, so did you graduate from college and that was…
JS: No. This was my last semester and I had spoken to my guidance counselor. She's like, “You know you technically are finished with school but you have all these…” Like what are they called? It's kind of… I forget what they're called. Like extracurricular credits. But there's a word for it that [starts] with an R. Anyway just like these bull crap classes that you're supposed to take and I didn't know you were supposed to do that so I had all of them saved.
CD: Oh, the general requirements?
JS: No, not general. They're like literally bullcrap credits like tennis or something. Recreational. There's a word that our school had for them because I think they felt like it built you up outside of just doing classwork. I forget what the word is.
CD: Yeah.
JS: Yeah, so I had all these credits that I hadn't done and my major at the time was international affairs. She was like, You know, you should go abroad.
CD: Yeah.
JS: And just take weird classes abroad.
And I was like, all right. So I got accepted to the program and I moved to Hong Kong. And just before I did, [this girl from church I was dating] asked me to be her girlfriend, if I'm correct…Yeah, I believe she did. Or like, we sort of just came to that.
CD: So did that just happen that way or was that in response to you about to leave, just kind of like wanting to make it official before you left?
JS: It might have been a response, like maybe a way for us to hold on to each other so that when I came back, things wouldn't be over.
But I mean, it was ironic because the whole time we were just debating on whether or not to be together at all. Not even debating it, it was like a struggle. So I feel like in the end, me leaving, it was like, Oh, but wait…maybe…
I don't know. I couldn't tell you. I think we were just young and trying to figure out things and as much as we didn't want to be together, we did. And probably because it was long distance, we felt safer saying, Oh, let's be together. Blah, blah, blah. Who's to say? So, yeah, so I leave.
And I'm living in Hong Kong and I hated it. It was like, you know, go visit, go see the place. But it was very racist and I hated it.
CD: Okay, you're not the first person to say that to me.
JS: So, yeah, yeah. It was some interesting times. So I'll fast forward that whole six months to April when everything starts to go down and she messages me right before Easter. I always remember the dates. It was between the 17th and the 20th that all of this really started to happen. And she messages me and she says, “You know, my parents are asking questions. They're starting to wonder about us.”
And I feel like at this point there was no more running I could do. I was already in Hong Kong and I'd already… like slowly…
Because even in Hong Kong I tried to go to church. But it was like a veil had been lifted [from]over my eyes. I won't say Christianity is dumb and it's like a brainwashing religion, you know all the negative things people say, but I started to realize I didn't fit in and I've been trying to fit in for so long, and there was a lot of things I didn't agree with. A lot of things that I questioned, but I accepted because I thought this made me whole.
I thought this made me good. And so, I'm in Asia and I'm just starting to really unpack what I've been taught to believe. And I've heard it said best as “your intuitive self meets your indoctrinated self”. And I had become more in tune with who I was and what I liked. And I just like, my indoctrinated self started to crumble. Like, I don't actually believe all these things. I don't think I have to have sex with men to prove that I'm straight.
CD: So it started to click for you at this point.
JS: Yeah.
CD: And then you get home in April…
JS: I was still in Hong Kong at the time.
CD: Still in Hong Kong, okay.
JS: Yeah, and she calls me about this and I, for whatever reason, I said, just tell them. Like, I think I was just tired of running away. So I said, just tell him, we'll face the music. But I also didn't expect what would happen. I just didn't think they would do what they did.
CD: Oh gosh, okay. I just got immediately anxious. OK, go ahead.
JS: Yeah, it's a bad story. So we have a brief talk about it, and then she tells me, “Oh, you know, don't message me as much,” because they were basically kind of surveilling her now, surveilling our relationship, it seems to me from the way that she was saying “Don't text back” or “Don’t write this,” or whatever. It just seemed like now they were on top of it trying to figure something out.
So I don't hear from her for like a day or so and then I was like, all right let me just write some vague text about prom or something. And I don't get a response, but she had seen them. Like it showed red and this and this and that.
And it's not like her, like I said, 24-hour communication. Even being away, we knew what times to call each other and everything, so it wasn't like her not to respond. So out of nowhere, I just think, let me just check my email. And I checked my email, and I had an email from her parents. And it’s basically like, We trusted you, we thought you were like a mentor to her -- which I never said I was -- and like, you know, You disrespected us, you disrespected our home and you know just going on. Things that honestly if I was a strict Christian like them I would probably be just as upset about, not to say I excuse what they said, but…
CD: From their perspective.
JS: Yeah, from their perspective, like yeah, okay, you're gonna be angry. So they write all this out but then they CC'd a bunch of members from the church.
CD: Oh wow, okay.
JS: So it just got out there, and then I started getting all these emails back [from church members] and I shut down for a while. I didn't know what to say because I was in shock. Like imagine you do so much to hide something and then not only is it out, but it's out to so many people.
CD: Right, completely exposed.
JS: Yeah, yeah.
CD: So when you say you were like in shock, over what period of time after they just kind of pulled your cover completely off…like what were you doing in that period of time? And how long was that period of time where you were just kind of like, I don't even know what to do?
JS: So I did respond like a day later, and then that period of time of “what to do” lasted like a month and a half of just being still in shock. And there was this seven-day period that I always remember. It was spring break in Hong Kong, and I stayed in the dorm in the bed for seven days straight. And I lost a lot of weight. I didn't eat anything and it took me a while to gain that weight back because I stopped eating for months.
So I sent like response eventually like, you know, This is out of proportion. You did not have to send it to a whole bunch of people. I don't agree with what you did. Also, this girl's 19 years old, right? She's not a child and she's able to make her own decisions. Because it started to come off like I had taken advantage of a child.
CD: Yeah, that’s kind of what I thought they were getting at.
JS: Yeah. I'm 21. She's 19.
And it took me a while, but it did take me a while to not feel like that for a while. I really did feel like I took advantage of a child until someone later on in life was like, Janay, no, she was 21 and you were 19. Like a two-year difference is not a child.
CD: No.
JS: So, the pastor sends me this long email and it has like all these very insane-- I would say insane-- things that I was supposed to do if I wanted to be welcomed back into his church.
CD: The youth pastor?
JS: No, this is like the head pastor.
CD: Oh.
JS: But it was kind of weird because it was almost like he was saying he had the authority to let me back into God's grace. And I told him, “Your beliefs, or your authority of what you think you have is very off.”
CD: Right.
JS: And it was just all these things I was going to have to do. And it was weird. Like, “You're going to go to church and you will not speak to these people. You keep your head down.” It was like this abuse and I'm not…I may be ashamed, but I'm not gonna let y'all, especially in that day and time where so much that was going on-- low-key, white people-- I'm not gonna let y'all tell me what I'm gonna do.
CD: Right. So was this a white church?
JS: It was a predominantly white church. The girl was Black. Her family was Black. But this church was predominantly white, so I'm not gonna let y'all dictate my life.
So, I ended up being in Hong Kong for another month and a half by myself. No one's speaking to me. A lot of people have cut off contact except the best friend. My best friend at this time. And I started to also see a change in her because it was like a week after this had happened. They sent her the emails, too.
CD: Alright, so they CC'd your friend on this.
JS: Yeah, she knows about it. She's trying to… now that I look back I realize she was trying to still find that balance between being a good Christian and being a good friend, and I wish she had seen that those things were not mutually exclusive. Because then she started asking things like, “So when do you think you're going to be over this?”
And it's only been a week and at that point. Even I was starting to feel like well, yeah maybe I should be over this because she’s like, “Everyone's moving on,” or whatever. And it's only so many years later that I realize it's easier to move on when you're…
CD:… not not the person involved.
JS: Yeah. Or when you're the one sending emails about someone and everyone’s so consoling. Oh my god, I'm so sorry that she violated your family… Like when you're being treated as a victim. So, of course they moved on. Of course they -- or at least to [my friend’s] mind, moved on.
CD: So can we zoom in on that a little bit? So this person that you were involved with has now… I know that her parents made you feel like you were some sort of predator. And kind of made sure everyone else saw it that way too, and that's convenient framing within like, Christian narrative as well, but in terms of how the person you were involved with actually felt, do you feel like at a certain point she bought into the victimization?
JS: Yes!
CD: Oh, ok…
JS: That’s exactly how she responds. I'll never know exactly how she felt or even what she said, because mind you, they had this whole talk with her, and sat down, where she divulged on what happened and confessed.
I don't know what that confession entailed. I don't know how she said it, because the way people responded, it's almost as if I started to believe that she pointed the finger at me, or that she made it seem like she kind of got manipulated into it. I don't know.
CD: It got her off the hook.
JS: Yeah, I'll never know. So yeah, so then I moved back to this town, and it only lasted three months. I didn't really know where else to go, I didn't want to go back home, I had tried to move to a different country or whatever, but it was just… it was just a lot. And there's probably a little bit of a part of me that thought I would be able to fix it, right? I went back to this town and I did try to apologize to the family outside of the church. I never stepped a foot back into that church But I went to their house, which, who was to say that was a good idea or not.
But I went to their house to apologize and she opened the door, the girl that I was involved with opened the door. And her mom was in the background and I saw they were moving. They were packing up all their stuff. And she just immediately got upset. Like the look on her face, I'll never forget. That was…I have never seen someone hate me more than that.
CD: Wow.
JS: And yeah, everyone was like, “You're no longer welcome here,” or something, and then closed the door or whatever and I left.
So it was quiet for a little bit, but I definitely…I was hurting. It was a very dark period. I didn't even think I would survive that at all. I tried to kill myself a few times. It was really hard. Because at that point, I didn't have…I only had a few friends, you know, outside of church, but my entire life was church. Mind you, every single day I was at that church. So suddenly, I'm not welcome unless I do some really crazy stuff, but then the entire congregation has their eyes on you, kind of thing. And it's like, I can't go back. Ever.
So at this point, I'm trying to grapple, like, so what is my life now? What do I do now?
CD: And what did you decide to do?
JS: It took me a while. Um, so... I guess the end of how this story goes, sort of the end, is I reached out to the girl after, what? Three months of no contact? I just wanted to know, like the question you asked: what was she thinking? Well, I just had so many questions and because out of fear and shame, I hadn't messaged her at all.
But then I thought, Well, Janay, what's it going to hurt if you message her at this point? What can these people really do to you?
CD: Were you still in this town?
JS: Yes, I was still in this town. And this is about…after I reached out to her, I think two days later, I left the town. I reach out, she sends this message and it was like, “I regret you. Fuck off.” It was a mistake. So to answer your question, yeah, she bought into it. And she said, you know, You disrespected my parents and this and that. It's just like this long You're worthless and I and I don't think anything of you and you need to just get on with your life kind of thing.
So then she must have informed her dad that I had messaged because then I get a message from another number and it's him and he's like You don't need to contact us, this and that… You're very bizarre, and Your friend the worship leader told us that you had threatened to shoot the church up so you don't need to be contact.
CD: Whoa, wait.
JS: I'm not kidding.
CD: Your best friend?
JS: Yeah.
CD: And she made this up, of course. You did not threaten to shoot up the church.
JS: No, we had a conversation about how I felt and I was like, I'm angry. Like this is how people snap. And you see these people get mad at their coworkers and they'll go in and make these mass shootings. There was something that had happened recently about a coworker who got mad and went to the police and shot at his co-workers. I was like, You know, I kind of see where he's coming from. Like, I can get how people can make you feel so angry that you want them… J. Cole said it best in his song. I think it was…it's not “Friends”, it's another one. And he says, “I'm not a violent person, but I can't help this feeling to want to see you feel pain.”
CD: Yeah.
JS: And I [understood] that a lot. Like, yeah, I just want to see them hurt the same way I'm hurting because I'm trying to kill myself. I'm like 30 pounds underweight, by myself, and everybody else is just like Oh, we're so good, we're so great. So anyway she took this and twisted that and said I had threatened to come and shoot the church and even, according to his message, had made a statement that I had pinpointed exactly who I would kill first or whatever.
CD: Oh, yeah, ok. So she just really elaborated on this.
JS: Really elaborated.
So I left. So after getting that message or whatever, I quit the job that I had that same day and I left the very next day. I packed up everything and I got a dog from the shelter because I thought I would like, veer the car off a cliff if there wasn't another living thing in the car with me. So I got this dog from the shelter and drove home. I went back home to my parents. And it was quiet.
There really was not much interaction with that church since then. Probably one or two [people reached out]. Like I said, the youth pastor, after all this went down, he did message me privately and he said, “I feel really bad. I didn't know that this is what they would do. I just hope that you're okay.” I don't think…I think I maybe said one sentence back and that was the last time I ever spoke to him. The church secretary reached out to me months later to see how I was doing and I kind of responded. I was like, You're not trying to see how I'm doing, you're spying.
And you know, we ended up having a little bit of a talk and she tried to make me feel like, Oh, you brought this on yourself. And I said, No, honey. And I gave her a long list of everything that went wrong. And I told her, “You could have at least said sorry.” And then she said “Sorry” in this really pathetic way. And then I left the conversation and I never spoke to her again.
And that is about it. I completely shut down from the world. I deleted all social media. I started going by just J, the letter J. Not long after, I just moved to Germany and I stayed. And Germany is where I sort of reinvented myself kind of thing.
CD: And so when did you just say I'm just gonna leave this? Like I recognize who I am now, I can start over. How did that take place? What did that feel like? How are you thinking of yourself in this time?
JS: That took place just before I left and moved to Germany when I decided that I was just going to be... so before then I was still going by my full name. When I landed in Germany, the first person that asked my name I said “J”. At this point, I had already debased myself to just like no social media, anything, and then [not being on social media] continued when I left.
But what led to that was that year back home I joined another church trying to kind of redeem my spiritual calling, my spiritual life or whatever. Or just prove to myself that I wasn't a mistake. And I didn't like the church either. And there were just a lot of things I didn't like, especially with the young adults group.
And there ended up being a very unfortunate situation with the young adults group, and I got kind of shunned out by them too. And at that moment I decided, Stop chasing this. Not even “chasing”, like, You don't belong here.
And I think, not to say that they made me feel this way, but it's like the more things happen, the more I realize I'm not cut out to be a Christian, because I'm not cut out to be fake. And that's not to say all Christians are fake, and granted that was a very blanket statement that I just said, but it's like the amount of picking and choosing I would have to do with my identity and what I chose to show and how honest I could actually be, I'm not cut out for that.
Because there is some part of American Christianity where people are putting on a show because it is so much about perfection unto Christ and it's like…we're not perfect.
CD: It’s a performance.
JS: It’s a performance, yeah.
CD: Of “perfection” and “goodness”.
JS: Yeah. Yeah, and you feel like you have to be…that these little things about you are so bad and no one can know about them or this and that. And it's like, I'm not cut out to do this performance anymore. I'm not good at it and every time I get found out something really bad happens So I had this…it wasn't even… it didn't even have to do with my sexuality. There was a lot of drug use, a lot of drinking, and like frivolous behavior in this young adult group and there was a night where I smoked some weed, but it had a terrible effect. I had a really bad trip, and a whole bunch of things… I can't …there's like a whole backstory to that, but in short, people in the young adult group treated me really shitty after that and I was like, Yeah I'm not I'm not doing this anymore with you guys like at all. So then I leave I moved to Germany.
CD: Why Germany?
JS: I'd always wanted to go again. I went in college and I always told myself one day I'll live in Germany. So I just did it. And then it was in that time of living in Germany and then eventually moving to London, as well, that I fully came out, I would say. At least to myself. Coming out to people, I recently did last month. Coming to America and being like, “Hey guys, I'm gay.”
CD: Okay, so you just named it. You named it, and the way you thought of it is gay, or queer, you said earlier…
JS: Queer, yeah.
CD: Sorry, queer.
JS: Yeah, so yeah, it was in that time of like meeting people, dating women, finally, openly dating women. I didn't know anyone there so I could be whoever I wanted to be. That's what I did.
And just learning. I mean, not to say that these relationships were very great, but I still had so much to learn about myself and about dating and compromising and all this kind of stuff. And yeah, over time, it grew my confidence and coming back to America, I, you know, just life. Life teaches you things. Like it forces you to chip away at yourself until you see yourself, until there's like shape and form. Until like, you stop spreading. And I stopped spreading.
And yeah, so that was mostly the coming out story. The girl did reach out, actually, in case anybody wants to know.
CD: I wanna know! I definitely want to.
JS: While I was working in London, I published --I do a lot of poetry. And one of them got published in a magazine. I don't know how she saw it, and I don't even know if she saw it in the magazine, or if she saw it on the blog, because it was on my blog first, and I gave it to the magazine to publish.
I have no clue. At this point, my Instagram name was something super obscure. I don't even think I still had a Facebook. Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. She went through some sleuthy work to find me. And she found me. And she reached out anonymously first, and she messaged me through a fake Instagram page. And the headline of her message was, “You should read this.”
And it was the title of the poem that had gotten published, because the poem was about her, and it was about realizing that I had romanticized a lot of our relationship, and I hadn't accepted that she actually is a terrible person.
CD: Okay. She read this and wrote you about it.
JS: Yeah, she did. But I don't think she understood the poem correctly, because in her message it was like…okay, so her message was basically – and mind you she didn't reveal herself til the very end when I realized, oh this might be whatshername. She was like, “It gets easier, I'm glad to see that you're doing much better than when you were there.” And, you know, “A lot of people were hurt in…”
CD: Oh, no…
JS: Yeah, no…
CD: No…
JS: It's just like, No, no, no, no, no, honey!
CD: Yeah.
JS: You just…you just…ugh! There's so many words.
CD: She could have kept that email.
JS: She could have kept it. She really could have kept it. And I made sure to make a blog post. And I knew she found my blog. I made a blog post directly to her saying this is exactly for you. This is exactly how you translate this poem, since you translated it wrong, and this is how I feel about you.
CD: Right.
JS: So she just goes on to say…well, at first because I didn't think it was her, and I think I asked the question “Who started the rumor that I was going to kill someone?” At that point, I didn't know [it was her]. I did know, but I didn't. I wanted to see if this person would confirm who I thought it was, but then she started deleting messages and talking about, “Oh, I just want to respect my parents and my boyfriend because I shouldn't be talking to you.”
And that set me off one, because no one likes to feel like you're sneaking around to talk to [them], like I'm some abomination. But then when she said parents and boyfriend, I realized this must be, whatshername. And I wrote her name, and I said, question mark? And she said, “Yes.” And then I said, “Well, I'm surprised that you even reached out because the last thing you said to me was…”you know, that whole message.
And she was like, “Well, I just felt like you disrespected my parents.” And that was it.
And I was like, sis, what your parents did…I don't know if now you'll understand it or in years to come, [but] what your parents did was diabolical. Like on so many levels. They're terrible people. And it seems like you're just like them. And so I said, I'm going to kindly end this conversation with you. And I never spoke to her again. And that was that was 2019, September of 2019, I want to say.
CD: Oh, so fairly recent.
JS: Fairly recent. I want to say that was September 2019.
CD: Yeah. Now, how old are you?
JS: I'm 25.
CD: Okay. Okay.
JS: And I wrote a blog post after like a week of thinking about it because it did make me cry. Not because she had reached out, but because she brought so many feelings that I had hadn't really dealt with in a while, or just I hadn't touched in a while. And for her…like, you want to feel like people are sorry and if they could do things differently they would have, but to hear that you still feel like you need to sneak around? And that your parents find it disrespectful to speak to me? And just for you to say like, It gets better as if you went through the same thing I did? And you were miraculously healed from a situation that nobody penalized you for? It seems like…it really was a slap in the face.
And that's when it really dawned on me how pertinent that poem was. You are a terrible person. You just really are through and through a horrible person. I don't know if you're closeted and you're pretending, or if you just had a phase where you wanted to experiment, but you used me to get your little experience. And now you are parading as this proud Christian woman. And, you know, reaching out… oh! That's what she said!
“I reached out to give you closure. It seemed like you needed it.” And I was like, No, honey, you misread that poem to some serious degrees. That is not about closure. That poem was closure. And I said in that blog post, “I'll never need you to give me closure. That doesn't come from you ever.”
For any person, I believe, closure first comes from you when you accept that you give up the hope that the past could have been any different.
CD: Yeah, right.
JS: So yeah, that was like that was the very last time I had any contact with her, and I wrote my response. I'm sure she's read it… and then I just continued on.
CD: Yeah, yeah, so where are you now in the States?
JS: I'm in Atlanta.
CD: Okay, you're in Atlanta. That's a good place to be queer.
JS: It's an interesting place to be queer.
CD: Okay, tell me more about that, then, because I want to ask you about where you have found community, because we've heard a lot about community you became a part of seeking validation, seeking goodness, and you were not treated kindly or well by those people. And then it seems like your travels kind of helped you to find yourself. And now you're in Atlanta.
So what does community look like now for you? Like who do you have in your life that makes you feel good? Who affirms you? And I'm also just curious about why you say Atlanta is an interesting place to be queer.
JS: Atlanta is interesting. It is very queer-friendly, but like many places you go to, it's mostly centered around gay men and things like that. So you find it hard to find lesbian bars, lesbian hangouts. And I would say Atlanta is very hetero-normative.
CD: Yes, yeah.
JS: So it's hard, especially as an androgynous person, I feel like -- and this would be interesting to talk about with lesbians and things like that -- like androgynous lesbians tend to, at least for me, kind of have a harder struggle. Because you're either I like feminine girls, or I like studs, and I'm neither. And especially in lesbian communities, I just feel like they kind of expect me to be a stud that's going to approach you, but I would equally like to be approached. But then there’s like this very southern Black heteronormativity that is under this blanket of being very open because there's a lot of gay men here, but it's not as open as you would think. And so, I have a community of friends, granted they're mostly all straight, and they have friends, but you know, sometimes I think I still haven't really, really found a queer community that I feel very comfortable in.
I had queer friends that I met in Berlin and things like that, and I felt very happy to be with—Actually, in London is where I was starting to find a queer community that I liked. Then I ended up leaving. So yeah, I mean I would say no one…disaffirms me? Is that the word? Unaffirms?
CD: Yeah. Disaffirms, yeah.
JS: Yeah, no one disaffirms me, but it's still kind of lonely not really having a large community of lesbians to really chill out with or whatever.
CD: Right.
JS: Or just to understand you and things like that. Yeah, just, I don't know.
And then, you know, approaching women, I landed in a city where I'm hearing that, Oh, women would be into it, but they won't say that in public. If you approach a girl in front of her friends, she might be like, Oh…, but then hit you up later like, “No, I thought you were cute!” I'm just like, I'm cool. Like, there's a lot of experimenting and, you know, straight-presenting stuff. And it's kind of like…
CD: How long have you been there?
JS: Since June [2020].
CD: OK. Oh, OK. Just because this will probably not [be published] in real time. So we are in October 2020. So you moved June 2020.
JS: Yeah.
CD: Which means it was already during COVID. So probably that affected the social scene as well, I'd imagine?
JS: To some degree. I have this theory that Atlanta does not know we're in a pandemic.
[laughing] That they've heard about it, but not quite sure it's a thing. People are out and about.
CD: Oh, OK. Can I ask you-- how much time do you have, actually?
JS: I'm okay.
CD: Okay. Because I have a lot of questions I want to ask you, but you had such an elaborate coming out story. Like, you had the longest coming out story, and that's not a criticism. Like it was just a wild ride, and one that I hate that you had to go through, though I guess it led you to being who you are now.
But there were a few things I wanted to ask you about that we didn't get to, so maybe like a little bit of a lightning round situation if you're open to it?
JS: Mm-hmm.
CD: One thing is your parents. What is your relationship like with them now and how much do they know about your identity?
JS: Oh, so I'm not incredibly close. I don't come from a very close knit family. Like, yes, we are, but we aren't kind of thing.
Um, I mean, they know. Cause when this happened, I told them why I was coming back to town.
CD: Did you tell them why?
JS: Yeah. I told them everything that happened and it was kind of a blessing because I feel like, basically I felt like my parents weren't going to make it any worse on me. At all. And they were really angry, and my mom even said like she wished she could have done something, like if she’d been in the same town. She didn't know these people. I'd gone to college for four years and my parents, you know, it's kind of expensive to visit so they hadn't really visited. So they didn't know these people, they didn't know this church, you know, but she wishes she could have said something or done something. And you know, my family was very receptive.
One of my aunts asked if I wanted to talk about it. I said no, vehemently. I just was not ready. And people were kind about it. My aunts were very kind about it. And it was nice. It was nice briefly because I didn't have, and I probably still don't, have the best relationship with my parents. But for that week of me being back and people knowing what happened, I did kind of feel like loved on for a bit.
CD: Yeah.
JS: And that was nice because that was new.
CD: And is it just you? Do you have siblings?
JS: Oh yeah, I have a lot of siblings. [both laughing]
CD: Oh, okay. A lot. Okay. So that's nice that you got a lot of support from your parents. Do you have the kind of relationship, though, where you just don't really talk that much about your identity? Or maybe you have these...
JS: Yeah.
CD: OK.
JS: Yeah. I feel like they'll really come to terms with it when I actually bring a woman home and say, Hey, this is my girlfriend. Or, Hey, I'm getting married.
CD: Yeah, one of those. [laughing]
JS: Yeah, right.
CD: Yeah. So I wanted to ask you also about your background as a Caribbean American person. I know, like, the Christianity piece and the Caribbean piece probably overlap a bit, but what impact – oh, a cat!
[Jai lifts up a cat]
JS: Yeah, he started to cry, so I was like, all right, you can come.
CD: What impact do you think your Caribbean background, if any, had on the formation of your identity, or the suppression of the formation of that identity?
JS: It probably had more impact as a kid because I was more around the community then. And as I grew up, I’m around a very eclectic crew, and if anything, now is the time in my life where I don't have any Caribbean friends. But growing up I did, so as a kid it definitely…you hear the stories. You hear…you know in Jamaica they say -- I'm gonna butcher the pronunciation -- but basically it translates to “gay people need to burn” kind of thing.
CD: Yeah.
JS: Like, you know, there anyone who's been to Jamaica or heard of it, there's still very harsh responses to [gayness]. It's mostly [toward] gay men. Women get by. As you know, that happens in society.
But yeah, so there's always this kind of fear of how your parents would respond, how people would respond. Especially like my grandma, who I don't know if anyone's told her. So yeah, it makes you, on top of just being in a Christian community, being in a Caribbean one, it doubles how you feel. Christianity just makes you feel like God is looking at you, but the Caribbean side makes it seem like your entire community [is looking at you], and like when they do find out, they will respond to you.
And my mom, when I was younger was …and she apologized when I did come out, well at least initially, but um, she was very… she saw “signs”, and that's what people told me later.
That's another thing. Just people all around me saying, “We always knew”.
CD: Does that bother you?
JS: Yeah, it does bother me because it's like that struggle was hard.
CD: Mm-hmm.
JS: And it was hard because I was hiding it from you! [laughs]
CD: Right.
JS: And you knew but you you were just hoping I would keep it in, you were hoping I would continue to torture myself the way that I was, and that kind of thing. Not to say they can really “deep” because unless you really know what it's like to be in the closet they can't really “deep” how their behaviors compounded the way that I treated myself and how I saw myself, because I saw myself through their eyes and the things that they would say about other gay people and things like that.
And you know, people were asking questions, [saying] You were always a tomboy, this and that. And then growing up in church, it's like, one, I don't like that that many eyes were on me my entire life. And two, it's just like, so if you always knew, were you just kind of waiting to respond this way?
CD: Right.
JS: And that just kind of makes you seem more premeditated in a way. But yeah, she said she always kind of knew, but she was still very harsh about it. And my favorite is like when we would go shopping for clothes and I would pick up things that she thought were “metrosexual”, or “butch” was the word that she would say. I remember this one instance, we were in a store, and I picked out a shirt and I loved…I still think about that shirt. Because I wonder what if I had gotten to keep that shirt?
And she refused to buy it. And she's like, I'm not supporting any of these metrosexual behaviors, you need to curb yourself and stop acting this way or whatever. And I remember she bought everyone else something that day, and I didn't get to leave with anything because the things that she was picking out I didn't want. They were like overly girly.
You know stuff like that it it hurts because you… like at that point – and I didn't even think this shirt was metrosexual I just liked the shirt -- but you start to feel like people don't like you. They don't like the way you are, and these constant things of, you know, act this way, join this, or Why do you want to do this?, or Why do you hang out with this [group]?, or Why do you dress this way? You start to realize people are not going to like me until I change, until I am something that I'm not. And I did that for years. And so that's why the eyes on me hurts, because it's like, all the things I did for you, all the things that I changed myself for you, and you say you always knew.
CD: Right.
JS: Yeah, that kind of hurts. So yeah, hopefully I didn’t stray too far from the question…
CD: No.
JS:…and at least answered part of it.
CD: One of the other things that you brought up is that you're a writer and I'm interested in how that may have helped you to sort yourself, or reckon with things? If it played a role at all. Do you feel like it did?
JS: Yeah, probably in the last year, as I'm using my writing as healing work. And I started writing stories, or like just film products that I hope get picked up, or a TV series. And I feature characters that are more like myself. I think before I would write about characters that were so far off from me and what I was, and now my characters look like me. I was telling someone the other day -- I don't know if you ever grew up with an imaginary person in your head that was kind of you-ish?
CD: Yeah, no, I understand what you mean.
JS: Mine was very feminine and light skinned my entire life, and I told a friend that only last year did this person become dark-skinned and look like me. And so that reflected a lot in my writing, just feeling freer to write about making love to a woman, or you know, being. You know, just things.
But yeah, before? No. I think I saved a lot of my old journals. A lot of it was very sad. When I go back in the re-read, it's just like, Lord, will you change me? There's this angry monster inside. And that was me referring to my sexuality. And like… yeah, yeah.
But then it's more of just lamenting. Now it's more freeing in my art. You can just see that my art, things are not as tight.
CD: Is this all on your blog?
JS: Yeah a little bit. Yeah. More on my Instagram because I stopped writing as much on the blog. I'm sure the last post is from a few months ago. But I started posting more of my art pieces and poems [on Instagram] and I'm trying to do more of that because in that whole two-year period of not having any social identity I kind of started to hate social media so now I'm trying to rebuild like, you know, Post this even if it's not yourself.
CD: Right. That's awesome. Well, my final question to you, which I said we would get to and that I'm starting to make a regular question: I'm just interested in what your take is on the word lesbian and especially given that it seems your preferred word is queer. How do you feel about the word lesbian and what feels maybe more “right” about queer?
JS: I'm sure my views of lesbianism are informed by how people like talked about the term when I was younger, and as kind of like a derogatory term for some reason. And even the idea of the type of woman that people would think of when they said “lesbian”… like it's the words they use: butch or dyke or whatever. Kind of terms that we've actually now defanged and we use them with pride.
But growing up, I think [how people were using the word] didn't represent how I felt because I also saw the term lesbian as it must be this butch that, you know, I don't know what she does… maybe she's like lumberjack type lesbian. Or dreads and Jordans type lesbian. And that wasn't who I was. I was still trying to figure out what I was so I didn't want to be termed a lesbian so that [people] wouldn't automatically assume that meant I was masculine. And that’s kind of weird, and I think that may be very an isolated way to look at it. I don't know how many other people do, but that was based off of just the way lesbians were looked at in the community that I was around. And probably the unfortunate thing that feminine lesbians don't get as much.
CD: Yeah, I think that's true.
JS: Yeah, or at least they looked at as straight-presenting, or just like, Oh, maybe you're just tired of guys kind of thing. So yes, for a while I just struggled with being called a lesbian for that reason. And yeah, like I said, because I was trying to figure out how I identified.
So I would say now I still don't quite know, but it's more in that genderqueer, genderfluid kind of way where I feel equally as masculine as I do feminine all the time, and I can't really say I identify wholly with one or the other, but there is some pride in being a woman. I like being a woman, I like being told that I am a woman. So as I started to understand what genderqueer meant, and this umbrella of transgender -- although I don't identify as trans, but knowing that it's under that umbrella -- and things like that, then I started to feel like, well, am I...?
Is this that? Am I lesbian then? Just by definition of how we're defining it now, although we're learning more that you can be lesbian and not necessarily be...
CD: Well, how do you define it?
JS: I identify as a woman.
CD: How do you define lesbian?
JS: Probably an outdated way of looking at it, honestly. Like two women; a sexual or emotional relationship between two women. And I guess I would say it's outdated now because not everybody who may present as a woman, or what we think a woman is, identifies as a woman, but would say they're in a lesbian relationship. Or, as I'm learning more about the LGBTQ+ community, there's just so many umbrellas, so many terms, that things are…this is why people say “no labels”. Because things can get just really confusing. Because I wasn't sure if I truly identified as a woman, but I also didn't like saying lesbian, so I would just say queer, and also because I feel like I’m attracted to femininity.
CD: Okay.
JS: And that femininity can be expressed also in a gay man or in a transgender person. Not that I've ever had a relationship with either, but I just, I always tell people, don't put anything past yourself. Don't assume whatever.
But for the most part, I'm attracted to women. But I’ve found myself attracted to like, a very effeminate gay man before. So then I felt like, Okay, maybe you're not really a lesbian lesbian, so what are you? I don't know….
So yeah I guess that's why that term kind of feels a little off to me because I feel like society has an idea of what that term means and I don't want to be a lesbian in that way.
CD: Yeah, I think that is sort of the consensus I've been hearing about the word [lesbian] is that because it already has this established connotation, it feels like you have to wear that if you take on that label. Which feels like, you know, nobody wants more of society's projections on them. And then you look at the word queer, for example, which has been repurposed, or as you say, like reclaimed, right?
You know, that kind of means it can turn into something new, and it's still more malleable, like nebulous in a good way. It leaves room for a lot of people to still identify as not straight, quote-unquote.
JS: Yeah, exactly.
CD: So, yeah, I think that’s interesting. Well, thank you for your take on that. Sort of took a little scientific turn there. [laughing] I was like, What do you think about this term?
OK, well, as I sit here losing my voice, thank you for sharing your story. I really appreciate it. And I am really, really impressed and touched by your resilience, and I’m very excited for your journey as you learn more about yourself and what what feels good in terms of how you think of yourself, and relating to the world, bringing your art to the world, and everything that comes with being you and channeling that through your art. So I’m looking forward to hearing about more of your projects in that regard, and I really feel very lucky that you came to talk to me. So thank you.
JS: Oh, that's so nice of you to say that.
CD: Well, yeah, but I do appreciate it. And I will share with everyone your handle and your blog under your post, so that will be there. But thank you again for being with us.
JS: Oh, side note, my Instagram account is like a fake account, but it's me. It's like 100 followers, only a few posts. I've been told it looks like a bot account, but no, it's me. I just don't post very often, and I don't friend everybody.
CD: Okay, fair. That's fair. Okay, well, thank you for being with us. I'll share all of that with [everyone], and have a good day!
JS: Thank you. You do the same.