Coming back to a conservative household during the pandemic and hiding my gay identity

Till March 2020 I was living my best gay life away from my hometown in my university. One email that one night changed everything.

We knew Covid had started spreading in our city but while having a late-night conversation at a bus stop, I did not expect it to be our last for a long time. We were asked to go back home before a lockdown hits us. I happily packed my bags thinking this would be a 10-day trip and I’d be back before I know it.

Turns out, I’m writing this from the discomforts of my home. Sure, for some people being at home, a place where you have no responsibilities, sounds nothing less than a party but for someone who had finally started living life on their own terms, it sounds like walking into a torture chamber.

Every day since my return has felt like a bubble of hot takes getting bigger, swallowing my existence inch by inch and the worst part is, I don’t know when this will end. The pandemic has not announced its final season yet, and I am afraid, the authority, the self-esteem, the acceptance, everything I have worked towards, will be for nothing if I can’t claim my identity in this space.

Like every conservative household, my family expects me to dress a certain way, talk a certain way, not talk or dress a certain way, all of which is totally opposite to who I really am. The memories of my ‘genderless, aggressively androgynous, women loving days’ have slowly been overridden by trauma so who even am I anymore? A cis-gendered heterosexual woman who breathes only the way their family wants them to? I am gagging.

One's nurturing plays a significant role in determining their experience with their gender identity and sexual orientation. I believe most of my queer friends are going through the same crisis. When you get a taste of what your life can be, if you’re free to claim your true self, going back to the roots that chained you can be a daunting experience.

The first few days back home were terrible. Déjà vu and my PTSD have been best friends since. I had to change the way I talk, be ready to get misgendered all the time and forget the fact that gay people exist.

Over the year, I have had to do many things that did not resonate with my identity like wear clothes that made me want to peel my skin off and during this, I have lost all sense of security and belongingness that I had created for myself back in college.

It is very important for me to check my privilege here because I have access to a community over the internet that helps me cope with everything going on at home. I am so grateful that they keep the memories of my identity alive, and I wish everyone stuck in the closet right now had that secure space somewhere somehow.

The world might be struggling right now but people from the community have been forced to fight bigger battles. Incidents of homophobia and transphobia led violence, both on the internet and in real life have been on the rise since the start of the pandemic (which means bigots are really jobless) We have had to go back inside the closet and lose the key to it indefinitely.

I can only hope to go back to my safe space before I lose myself completely. I want to occupy space in society without feeling threatened and not think twice before being my best gay self.