Survival Mechanisms
On Imitation, Camouflage, and Display
One of the lenses through which I have often viewed LGBTQ+ life is the lens of survival: how do LGBTQ+ folks go about seeking to protect and preserve ourselves in the midst of contexts that are often unwelcoming and unsafe? This is certainly not the only way to think about LGBTQ+ life—it is just as important to consider it in terms of thriving, joy, and abundance—but the lens of survival can throw certain aspects of it into relief, revealing the transformative power of the closet itself, as well as the transformation one can undergo after coming out and living openly.
Like so many LGBTQ+ folks, being closeted forced me to develop a special set of survival skills that helped me make it through my awkward teenage years in a community I intuited would not welcome my authenticity. My senses in the closet were on high alert; I was always on the lookout for danger, for potential threats. I often thought about the threat of violence, but by extension, I constantly feared having my sexuality discovered. I knew that the attraction toward men that I was just beginning to understand was for some reason a serious liability, and could provoke strong reactions in members of my community—so I avoided that danger by paying attention to detail, like a young deer whose ears perk up at the snap of a twig in the forest.
But I also paid attention to detail in order to imitate those around me, which I thought would provide further protection. I knew that something about me (not just my attraction, but also a kind of inchoate sensibility, the way of moving and perceiving the world my attraction entailed and involved) stood out—which meant that I was exposed, and therefore at risk. So I turned to boys my age who did seem to fit in, trying to speak the way they spoke and act the way they acted. A certain kind of cultural masculinity was effortless for them; if it could not be effortless for me, at least I could try to make it look effortless. I remember practicing my walk in front of the full-length mirror in my bedroom as a teenager, experimenting with lowering my vocal register to seem more rugged and confident—and less sensitive, swishy, delicate.
For years I had placed so many subtle limitations on how I spoke and acted, under the impression that by going unnoticed I would protect myself; but going unnoticed meant feeling unwanted, unloved. I had tried to craft an elaborate disguise within which to hide, but over time, I felt like this mask began to smother me—and the closet began to feel more like a tomb.
Coming out of the closet was a struggle against all the survival instincts that had at first helped me to feel safe, but had eventually hardened into a prison: in revealing my sexuality to others, I was fighting against my hard-wired tendency to try and blend in. It was vulnerability in the truest sense: in these intimate coming out conversations with friends and mentors, it felt like I was handing them a sharp knife with which they could seriously harm me, trusting that they would not. But as I shared with a few close friends, then slowly became more and more open—and especially when I emerged from the closet in a dramatic, irreversible way, through an angsty poem posted to social media (which I absolutely do not recommend, by the way)—the closet ceased to have power over me, and I broke free of its constraints.
Years later, after putting in a ton of work to undo the shame and self-hatred that had seeped into me, I had a huge revelation: the skills I had been forced to develop in the closet, rather than simply fading away, had persisted and were now being put to a completely different purpose. Rather than paying attention to detail in order to disguise myself, I was now doing so in order to express myself and claim my dignity. Rather than seeking to blend in and avoid detection, I sought to be seen, to assert my belovedness, and to prove to other LGBTQ+ folks that our lives can be worthwhile, beautiful, free, and full of love. No longer was I crafting a disguise that would allow me to stay safe behind it, but I was crafting a persona, enacting a performance, that could express myself to others in a community where I could be known and loved. Life inside the closet and life outside it were both performances, but the former was done in order to hide, while the latter was done in order to be seen, to be known, to be loved.
The transformation of these skills did not mean that they no longer served to protect LGBTQ+ folks from harm, to help us survive; rather, they became survival skills of a community struggling to take care of each other, instead of the survival skills of an individual trying to make it alone. The performance of authentic life outside the closet is a kind of display: a warning for enemies, and a signal of safety for friends. Crafting a disguise to blend in and avoid detection may have protected me from harm for a while, even if it ended up feeling more like death than life; but crafting a persona, a performance to take a hold of my dignity—this served not only myself, but all those LGBTQ+ folks looking desperately for defiant hope.
The revelation continued when I began to reflect on this transformation in relation to drag performance. I had minimal experience with drag while I was closeted and in the years afterward, but as the shame began to lose its grip on me, I began to tiptoe into the broader LBGTQ+ community and feel more comfortable in LGBTQ+ spaces. Soon, it struck me that drag involved the same kind of transformation of the survival skills of the closet: drag performers must pay attention to detail in order to create elaborate ensembles and mesmerizing performances, they must learn to imitate and camouflage themselves with makeup, clothes, and body language in order to create magic. The very things they may have been forced to learn as young, closeted teens—the survival skills that kept them safe from harm—were now transformed into art, into displays of pride.