Queer Praxis
Questions for LGBTQ Worldmaking
Edited By Dustin Bradley Goltz and Jason Zingsheim
24. Gray’s Anatomy
Extract
RAGAN FOX
In the gay world, turning 30 with grace is akin to “Take Back the Night.” When I close my eyes, I see myself in a bar filled to the brim with gabies (gay babies) and youth-obsessed clones who drone on and on about spray tanZZZ. In the daydream, I scream, “I refuse to be an age victim! I release the gaymmunity’s impossible expectations, ignore youth-oriented pontifications, and turn a cheek away from age evaluations! I take back the night! Gay men over 29, unite!”
I remember thinking 30 was an expiration date. I remember dreading the day my “milk” would go “bad.” I remember telling my friend Paul, “If I’m 30 and still going to gay bars, Old Yeller me. I want a bullet to eat my brain. I will not be one of those lame bar trolls at whom we snicker and flick our cigarettes.”
Then Earth rotated around the sun a few times, and the moon’s gravitational force pulled and tugged at my flesh. My outlook changed; my brainwaves hit troughs and crests. I looked down at the Tweety Bird tattooed on my left shoulder and came to a frightful realization:
I’m—gasp—not—shudder—going to be—ahem—18 forever? Can I write a letter to somebody about this whole aging thing? May I speak to the manager, or Mother Nature’s supervisor? What’s that you say? Mother Nature IS the supervisor on duty? Certainly somebody’s...
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