When I was about 4, my mom had that moment that a lot of queer kids’ parents have where their kid wants to be in the other gender’s clothing aisle. She could have shut that part of myself down, but she didn’t. That was the start of me showing signs of being queer.

Other people kinda decided for me that I was queer. I was the last one to know until I was 14 and it finally dawned on me that I was bi.

I came out to my mom at that time. She’s Christian and she never said that being gay was wrong, but I thought she might kick me out. And that was so far from reality. She never tried to stop it. She educated herself. She was really great.

I had some hard times with my dad where he would try to berate it out of me. I would get called gay at school and I’d come home and cry because I didn’t think I was and he would say, “well are you???” But most of my other family were like, well… he was playing with barbies at 4 so…

When I was in high school, I was unabashed. I hoped if I was wearing high heels and fishnets then it would piss someone off. I didn’t know I was genderfluid because there wasn’t much of a conversation around that.

I was full speed ahead with my queerness in high school but then I was tamed into cisgenderness after that. It was much easier for people to be like, oh he’s a gay cis man, got it. It was easier to digest for them. It was harder for me to be genderfluid and to express myself with women’s clothing.

But lately, via my outlet with music, I’ve explored who I am like when I was the kid who always liked to play dress up and isn’t like a boy or a girl. I felt like a little bit of both. I had a patrick star moment in a video we shot recently with this pink vinyl skirt and these giant hooker boots. And it’s in these moments where I’m performing that I’m like you are that star that you knew you could be. It’s like gender-fluid euphoria.

People thought I was transitioning but that’s not what it is for me. I officially came out as gender-fluid to my friends and online in the last few months. It was like coming out twice.

I would tell younger me to dig your heels in and be yourself and don’t water yourself down for a small town.

I was already dealing with people not liking how gay I was, so I thought if I wear high heels then they’re really gonna hate me. And now I have so many people who I wear heels around and they don’t even question it. And if they do then they’re not going to be in my life for long.