THE SUN SHINES FOR EVERYONE
Posted August 9, 2023.
Est. Reading Time: 6 minutes.
My home is dark. My lights stay off. I hold my hand out, I step lightly. Walls feel closer or farther. I still hit edges. I’m in a stranger’s home when it’s pitch black.
I went to a few local beaches and national forests this summer. As I stared at the scenes of nature, I relished how easy I could hear and see: waves forming and collapsing, birds flying and singing, branches dancing and rattling. Nature brings peace to the mind; nothing demands attention. Everything comes and goes in harmony.
But staring into my mind is a different experience—like walking in my home when my lights stay off. Peace must be earned here. My eyes stay shut. I prefer to move in darkness. Finding my way takes effort. Anything can demand attention. Anything can make me stumble—thoughts, memories, feelings. Doing this more often makes it easier.
When it comes to gender orientation and identity, the voices of people who matter most have also been wandering in the dark. Coverage has been plenty: politicians, researchers, and reporters are all consumed in the light of day. Yet stories from the LGBT+ community remain scarce. These stories are less familiar with the limelight of life—safer where no one sees them.
In his memoir, Pageboy, Elliot Page brings to light his story as a transgender man. For a long time, he felt destined to be disconnected from everyone; “Alone you thrive, secret and safe, but separate you feel invisible,” he shared. In the LGBTQIA+ community, there are others like Elliot, force to hide from the world and force to hide from the Self. Here are three important messages he shares to help the LGBT+ community find places to belong.
What Is Lost Can Be Found.
Since childhood, Elliot was given minimal space to explore his sexuality and gender. At the age of six he asked his mother, “Can I be a boy?” At fifteen he tried talking to her about his sexuality. Discomfort was always the clearest response. He kissed a boy the first time he was called a faggot; he looked like a boy himself. And in this small space, hiding felt better. Loneliness was his sanctuary for happiness—imagination and self-expression without fear. But as he became an exile to those around him, his inner space turned into a prison: “The closet was grueling, it suffocated me. Stewing in my shame, exhausted, lonely, and depressed, I wish to be the person so many wanted me to be. It felt like the only option.”
Space to explore forbidden thoughts and a place to role play an unacceptable life is what Elliot relished. This happened when he was alone, isolated but protected. This became hard, however, as he needed to escape from himself. Puberty hit: his breast grew, his weight redistributed, and his voice more distinct. And it became harder as his successes grew: praises amassed—the desired appearance, the pretty dresses, the attractive makeup. Only confusion was certain: out of his sanctuary and into the world; into the limelight but still in the darkness. “Being made to feel that I was inadequate, erroneous, the little queer who needed to be tucked away while being celebrated for repudiating myself was a slippery slope I’d been sliding down since before I could remember,” he shared. Ellen always was the right image, out in the world. Elliot was forbidden, imprisoned. His inner space no longer just sacred. The right image needed to be sustained at all costs: “There was a lot at play when I would abuse my body, having done it since I was a small child…People cut themselves, I’ll try that. People get wasted, I’ll try that. People stop eating, I’ll try that. People repress, I’ll try that.”
Rediscovering lost parts of yourself is a difficult process. You will have to figure out what you’re looking for. More importantly, you will first find what means you used to make those parts forbidden and unacceptable—a different approach for the buried shame, worthlessness, and fear. Once you begin to uncover what you’ve lost, you begin to understand how to liberate it. As Elliot said, once you decide to stand up for yourself, you will have to face what has been hijacking that resolve.
Heal Your Inner Space.
Belonging to something or someone shifted Elliot’s attention outward. Yet, still struggling with his own identity, he became a “pinball of projection,” rushing to the next project, the next relationship, the next location. Elliot shared of an early experience with the queer community, “it slowly exacerbated my dysphoria. I was not settled, I still felt out place…” When projects ended, he ached, a “bond being abruptly broken.” Intimacy also stirred chaos: “if a part of you is always separate, if existing in your body feels unbearable—love is an irresistible escape.” With nowhere to go, self-love flooded into relationships.
To be at peace anywhere in the world you must first restore silence to your inner landscape. A silence which stops the threats of isolation. A place where self-love can be at home: a kind of safety only found in solitude, to have “time to sit, a moment to think.”
Healthy silence will then allow discomfort to catch up. There is no room for threats here. As Elliot shared, “years and years figuring out all the tricks to avoid my feelings, to exit my body, numb it out”— “the answer was in the silence, the answer would only come when I chose to listen.”
Be A Part Of This World.
Changing directions was a common theme in Elliot’s journey—to be female, to be gay, or to be trans. The person he wanted to become never lived: it was Ellen, not Elliot, who had grown up. He shared of his experiences with queer friends, “In high school, there were only whispers of us types… how to access such a thing was not just a mystery but an impossibility. The loss of which was sizable…. My heart aches for my younger self.” This lack of familiarity with his true Self is what he is changing for those in the LGBT+ community.
For many, the LGBT+ umbrella provides a shared sense of experience, an opportunity to be loved and to be protected. One’s genuine Self can be nurtured here. However, what is misunderstood about this umbrella is its purpose. It’s not meant to make all those under it equal in experience, identity, sex or gender. It’s not meant to shield them from the world but from the conditions of their lives. The umbrella shields those under it so they can leave behind current predicaments and reach their desired destination—where the sun can shine for everyone.
Elliot’s role as an actor changed once he embraced himself as a transgender man. No longer acting to escape but acting on behalf of others. Other’s experiences and identities aren’t identical to his. Yet he offers access to outcomes once thought impossible and forbidden. His imagination is out of refuge and imprisonment—visible to those still seeking loneliness for safety. Elliot’s intention is far from telling others what identity to embrace. Rather, the intent is to show the world how to embrace everyone and anyone: with acceptance, validation, and nonjudgment. It is to remind those struggling with their sexuality and gender identity that human love is compatible with their journey.
You are never truly alone in nature. The sunshine surrounds your body, and you reach out to meet it with your warmth. You can hear nature speaking through its silence. Your mind is similar in this way: when you see light with your eyes closed, when you are soothed by your darkness. Harmony also exists within. Elliot found this inner peace: “New. At last, I can sit with myself, in this body, present — typing for hours, my dog, Mo, lounging in the sun, my back straighter, my mind quieter.”
