My Cis-hetero Fears

The campus is not too far. The physical, in person university campus. We’re a generally accepting school. We have a queer resource center, we have a lot of transgender and nonbinary students. We even have some queer professors. So why am I still afraid to take an in person class?

Yes, I got used to the methods and comfortability of the asynchronous zoom class over the pandemic, but that’s not the only reason.

I’m afraid of cisgender heterosexual people. Still afraid, I guess I should add. Maybe it has to do with the current public discourse around transgender health rights, and the fact that no cisgender or heterosexual people I know will stand up and say it isn’t right, or say anything about it at all. Meanwhile the void pit in my stomach is screaming.

Maybe it has to do with past high school trauma and how the queer resource center isn’t open for lounging yet, and so if I went to the campus, my safe space would be unavailable. One would probably read this and say,

“Aren’t you like, 25? Why do you need a safe space?”,

because I’m afraid of cisgender heterosexual people.

They don’t have pointy teeth and they aren’t scary monsters from under the bed but they might as well be the ones that hide behind the curtains and jump out at you with intrusive questions about your body and identity once you are out of the closet.