Sorted by Jackson Bird

Author:Jackson Bird
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tiller Press
Published: 2019-09-23T16:00:00+00:00

June 14, 2011.

I ended up packing a huge suitcase full of two wardrobe options for every occasion—swim trunks and a bikini, baggy khaki shorts and skinny jeans, a suit and a dress for the ball.

Well, not a whole suit. I’d found suit pants and a matching vest on sale at H&M that I planned on wearing with an old button-down, a Gryffindor tie I’d ordered online, and Converse shoes since I didn’t own any dress shoes. At least, that was the plan if I didn’t chicken out.

There was so much to do before the ball, though. The HPA had about half a dozen different programs and press events I had to shoot footage of, I lent a hand selling merch in the vendor hall, and each evening we all let loose by scream-singing and jump-dancing at the raucous wizard rock shows.

I also had an unexpected new experience to contend with: people recognizing me from my videos.

You don’t really expect to get noticed when you’re barely scraping five hundred views a video, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years it’s that it takes very little attention online for someone to reap the consequences, positive or negative.

I didn’t have a Sharpie on me when the first person asked me to sign an autograph and all they had, oddly, was a thick whiteboard marker. I sloppily tried to sign my name and a quick, encouraging message with the cumbersome utensil. I’m pretty sure it was illegible. I might’ve even misspelled my name.

Overall, probably fewer than ten people recognized me, but that didn’t make it any less weird or humbling. There was one person in particular who really took me aback. They pulled me to the side after one of the evening’s wizard rock concerts and told me that they had recently come out. They said they had shown the educational videos I’d made on LGBTQ+ topics to their parents and that it had helped their parents understand what they were going through.

I was floored. I had felt like such a fraud making those videos when I didn’t even have the guts to be out yet myself. Knowing they had helped at least one person, and meeting that person in the flesh, was astounding. It made me feel like I needed to continue making more videos on less-talked-about LGBTQ+ topics and work harder to make them even better.

Even with that boost of confidence and inspiration from a queer person who wasn’t afraid to be themself, I still didn’t have the guts to wear my suit to the ball. I dug out the same dress I’d worn to my dad’s wedding from the bottom of my suitcase, flipped that switch in my brain, and tried to forget about what I was wearing so I could enjoy the dance with the two thousand other sweaty nerds.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.