Finding My Ruling Identity

The television screen is dark, with the outline of a performer standing on stage emitting through. Amongst the quiet cheers, popping sporadically, the iconic organ chord pours out of the speakers. “Dearly beloved,” the opening two words of the song greet the audience. They respond with a frenzied cheer. He goes through the whole speech talking about how life and crazy and the afterworld. One minute later, after instructing us to “punch a higher floor,” he dives into a guitar riff accompanied by the synthesized sounds of an electric keyboard. Purple lights flood the stage. He is majestic. Purple jacket, white laced bloused and high heels. Though the beat it rhythmic, I reach for the remote and quickly change the channel.

My mom is the first to speak, anger laced in her words.. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“I can’t stand him,” I say. Disdain painted on my face.

“It’s Prince. How can you not like Prince?”

“Everyone at school says he’s gay.”

“So what if he is?”

“They say I look like Prince. Everyone thinks I’m gay too.” I storm out of the room and into the sanctuary of my bedroom. I stare in the mirror hanging on my wall. Sure, our skin color is the same, and my hair is curly and black, very similar to Prince. I scoff at my image and dive into my bed.

How can people like Prince? His music is not that great. Michael Jackson is better. The great 80s debate inundating the school halls. The majority consensus is with Jackson. My vote cast to the king of pop because the Prince of pop creates a nightmare in my life. What is he trying to prove with his outfits on stage? Is he trying to be a man, a woman? What? There is no word to describe who he is. What he is. Everyone questions his sexuality because gender roles are strictly dichotomized, as they have always been. Men are like He-man: powerful, tough, strong. Women are Jem: cute, flashy, outrageous. Prince is neither.

I fall asleep, angry. Knowing the next day at school is going to be hell. I mentally prepare for the unescapable derogatory digs about my sexuality.

Mom walks in. She sits on my bed next to me.

“You know, they’re just jealous of you,” she whispers.

Jealous? Jealous of what, exactly? My lack of muscles? Of manliness? I doubt they are jealous of my facial features being similar to his Musical Majesty. I wish everyone would just shut up about him.

Prince. How can I choose to see myself in a person who I was unwillingly associated with throughout my childhood? Since elementary school, I spent a quarter of my life walking in his shadow. Constantly being compared to him. Having my sexuality questioned. He and I were the punchline in every gay joke I heard in high school. Yes, I hated the man. Similar to Jackson, I loved his music, but not the artist. How can he ever be the celebrity I feel who perfectly represented who I am?

I spent most of my life discovering who I am as a person, like most people. Depression submerged within during my traumatic childhood because I could not develop strong, deep connections with my peers. Why would I? They mocked my appearance and never looked beyond the surface to the person who I really am. It created self-hatred because I could not grasp my personal identity, which was like Prince. What was he? What am I?

It was during the mid-2010s; I realized I needed to change attitude towards myself. With the rise of RuPaul and the emphasis on self-love, it was time to face my depression head on. Who am I? What do I identify as? I began my journey of self-discovery with many blogs on gender and sexuality. However, the most beneficial came from a small blue app called Facebook. My research lead me to a facebook group called Genderfluid.

Where did this come from? What the hell is genderfluid? I knew the term androgenous and even metrosexual (which I felt I was neither). Eventually, sociologists speculated the perhaps Prince was genderfluid because he was fluid with his fashion choices.

I came to understand gender as a social construct. Powerful industries with clever marketing strategies impose fashion. Finally, there were a small percentage of people who embrace being outside of the binary. The nonexistent words of my teens finally appeared through multiple facebook posts. Maybe I was genderfluid. Neither hailing male, nor female. Comfortable bending the norms or fitting in both, while being in neither social role? Was that what Prince was in the 80s?

I cautiously donned the label, taking both a literal and figurative step into his heels. Despite the teasing and hazing I suffered in elementary school, I want to be as courageous and independent as Prince. Able to wear what I feel and ignore the scrutiny surrounding my choice. Unlike him, I lack the fame, finances, and liberty to do so. However, as new words entered our social vocabulary, spotlighting gender identity, I discovered my true self.

Presently, my animosity towards the purple donning performer vanished. I know Prince represented the person I wanted to be in the 80s. As I grew older, I secretly appreciated him as the kind-hearted person he truly was. He easily became what I aspired to become: inspirational to other artists. The threat posed to me in school when I was younger forced me to hide who I was. . I masked it under the expectations of what the 80s gender roles were. As an adult, I understand the intent of Prince’s fashion choices and music. It makes me proud that he was both my representation and inspiration to become my true, authentic self today. Because of his courageousness to stand out and be himself, we know so much more about gender identity today. It paves the road of acceptance for so many people in the future while washing away hatred with purple rain.