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BY FORTESA LATIFI
JUNE 24, 2021
Blair was 22 years old and had never had a boyfriend. In college, the one date she ever had was with a boy who told her he didn’t want anyone to know he had gone out with her. She thought her lack of romantic success was her fault. But when the pandemic hit and the world shut down, Blair was forced to leave her college campus during the last semester of senior year, leaving her with a lot of time for self-reflection. Like so many other Gen Z-ers, Blaire filled her newly free time by spending a lot of time on TikTok. And the TikToks she watched made her start thinking– what if her romantic pitfalls weren't her fault, it's just that she wasn't actually attracted to her dates? What if she wasn’t straight at all?
“One video was specifically like ‘straight people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about whether or not they’re straight’,” Blair said. “And I was like, oh, interesting, I’ve been thinking about that a lot.”
As Blair dove deeper into TikTok and her own thoughts, she enlisted the help of a friend who’s bisexual. It took her about a year to come to the conclusion that she was gay. Heterosexuality, she said, was always the default. But after having time during lockdown to think and explore and wonder, she saw a new path for herself.
Many people have shared a version of Blair’s experience – that of heading into COVID-19 lockdown thinking of herself one way and emerging from it with a different understanding of her identity. David, 17, spent years trying on different labels to see which fit his gender identity before he settled on one that felt right: he was a trans man. But during lockdown, he says, he found a label that fit even better: bigender.
“Being stuck at home means you aren’t performing constantly anymore to an audience,” David said. “You’re performing to yourself – which makes you realize the things you’re comfortable with.”
At his Catholic school, David still presents as a woman and uses his dead name but he’s planning on coming out at school in September for his 18th birthday. (His 18th birthday comes with another milestone: he can begin taking hormones, which he says his parents were uncomfortable with him starting before that age.) He’s not sure if school will be back to in-person instruction by then, but if it is, he wonders how the school administration will react. He thinks they might ask him to use the bathroom for disabled students in order to avoid the question of whether he should use the men’s or women’s room.
Dr. Russell Toomey, a professor in family studies and human development at the University of Arizona, says he isn’t surprised by the benefits some young people are finding in exploring their identities during the pandemic. “It raises the extra time you have to sit with yourself to really do that reflection,” Toomey said. And while he notes that peer relationships are a key cornerstone of health and feeling connected to the community, it may feel safer to explore shifting identities, like gender and sexuality, away from the gaze of peers.
Aamina, who’s 25-years-old, non-binary, and uses the pronouns she/they, felt similarly about the opportunity isolation provided.
“I think it really does give you this strange and unique opportunity to reflect on what your sense of self is built on when it’s not built on what other people think of you as,” she said. “When I’m able to isolate myself literally… It's very clear I’m doing this kind of stuff because I feel that it will be more welcomed by certain people, not because I like it or think I look good in it or feel [like] myself in it.”
She started to realize that she had been performing femininity in her gender expression because it’s perceived more welcomingly than other identities. “There’s a specific warmth people have toward women they find attractive,” she said.
During the pandemic, she said she found herself getting dressed the way she wanted, without worrying about seeing anyone she knew. And in that freedom, she found herself more comfortable with being non-binary.
“Out in public, women exist to be looked at and there’s nothing I can do. No changing my pronouns can [change] that,” they said. “But it does feel like it gives me some kind of agency over what people think of me.”
Kate, a 25-year-old student and nanny who grew up in an evangelical Christian household that she calls “about two steps away from 19 Kids & Counting,” began questioning her religious beliefs after an abusive marriage to a fellow Evangelical. “It was my last straw with God,” she said. “I had surrendered and sacrificed myself until I was a shell of a human.”
After leaving her marriage, she began listening to the podcast the Liturgists which she describes as a “deconstruction of Christianity.” When the pandemic started and in-person gatherings waned, the hosts of the Liturgists started 24/7 Zoom rooms where listeners of the podcast could convene. For people leaving the churches they had spent their entire lives in, the Liturgists Zoom rooms provided a new community.
While she was already questioning her religious beliefs, Kate said seeing the way the Evangelical community handled the pandemic pushed her further away.
“There’s this mentality within my family where they’re not worried for their own personal safety because God is in control and God knows when they’re going to die and God has predestined everything,” she said. “So they use that as a copout for not doing things to protect other humans.”
Kate took pandemic precautions seriously and in doing so, only saw her family about three times in the last year. In her isolation, she found the freedom to explore her religious values without judgment. “There was less of this feeling of needing to project a certain image of myself,” she said.
Nowadays, Kate isn’t putting a label on her religious beliefs, partly thanks to the staggering unpredictability of the last year. “One of the most helpful things that’s come out of this pandemic is embracing uncertainty,” she said. “Getting used to knowing what was going to happen in the pandemic made it easier to get used to not knowing what I believed or felt about God.”
Young People Found Time to Figure Out Their Identities During the Pandemic
From coming out as queer to shedding life-long beliefs, many found space to figure out their true selves.BY FORTESA LATIFI
JUNE 24, 2021
Blair was 22 years old and had never had a boyfriend. In college, the one date she ever had was with a boy who told her he didn’t want anyone to know he had gone out with her. She thought her lack of romantic success was her fault. But when the pandemic hit and the world shut down, Blair was forced to leave her college campus during the last semester of senior year, leaving her with a lot of time for self-reflection. Like so many other Gen Z-ers, Blaire filled her newly free time by spending a lot of time on TikTok. And the TikToks she watched made her start thinking– what if her romantic pitfalls weren't her fault, it's just that she wasn't actually attracted to her dates? What if she wasn’t straight at all?
“One video was specifically like ‘straight people don’t spend a lot of time thinking about whether or not they’re straight’,” Blair said. “And I was like, oh, interesting, I’ve been thinking about that a lot.”
As Blair dove deeper into TikTok and her own thoughts, she enlisted the help of a friend who’s bisexual. It took her about a year to come to the conclusion that she was gay. Heterosexuality, she said, was always the default. But after having time during lockdown to think and explore and wonder, she saw a new path for herself.
Many people have shared a version of Blair’s experience – that of heading into COVID-19 lockdown thinking of herself one way and emerging from it with a different understanding of her identity. David, 17, spent years trying on different labels to see which fit his gender identity before he settled on one that felt right: he was a trans man. But during lockdown, he says, he found a label that fit even better: bigender.
“Being stuck at home means you aren’t performing constantly anymore to an audience,” David said. “You’re performing to yourself – which makes you realize the things you’re comfortable with.”
At his Catholic school, David still presents as a woman and uses his dead name but he’s planning on coming out at school in September for his 18th birthday. (His 18th birthday comes with another milestone: he can begin taking hormones, which he says his parents were uncomfortable with him starting before that age.) He’s not sure if school will be back to in-person instruction by then, but if it is, he wonders how the school administration will react. He thinks they might ask him to use the bathroom for disabled students in order to avoid the question of whether he should use the men’s or women’s room.
Dr. Russell Toomey, a professor in family studies and human development at the University of Arizona, says he isn’t surprised by the benefits some young people are finding in exploring their identities during the pandemic. “It raises the extra time you have to sit with yourself to really do that reflection,” Toomey said. And while he notes that peer relationships are a key cornerstone of health and feeling connected to the community, it may feel safer to explore shifting identities, like gender and sexuality, away from the gaze of peers.
Aamina, who’s 25-years-old, non-binary, and uses the pronouns she/they, felt similarly about the opportunity isolation provided.
“I think it really does give you this strange and unique opportunity to reflect on what your sense of self is built on when it’s not built on what other people think of you as,” she said. “When I’m able to isolate myself literally… It's very clear I’m doing this kind of stuff because I feel that it will be more welcomed by certain people, not because I like it or think I look good in it or feel [like] myself in it.”
She started to realize that she had been performing femininity in her gender expression because it’s perceived more welcomingly than other identities. “There’s a specific warmth people have toward women they find attractive,” she said.
During the pandemic, she said she found herself getting dressed the way she wanted, without worrying about seeing anyone she knew. And in that freedom, she found herself more comfortable with being non-binary.
“Out in public, women exist to be looked at and there’s nothing I can do. No changing my pronouns can [change] that,” they said. “But it does feel like it gives me some kind of agency over what people think of me.”
Kate, a 25-year-old student and nanny who grew up in an evangelical Christian household that she calls “about two steps away from 19 Kids & Counting,” began questioning her religious beliefs after an abusive marriage to a fellow Evangelical. “It was my last straw with God,” she said. “I had surrendered and sacrificed myself until I was a shell of a human.”
After leaving her marriage, she began listening to the podcast the Liturgists which she describes as a “deconstruction of Christianity.” When the pandemic started and in-person gatherings waned, the hosts of the Liturgists started 24/7 Zoom rooms where listeners of the podcast could convene. For people leaving the churches they had spent their entire lives in, the Liturgists Zoom rooms provided a new community.
While she was already questioning her religious beliefs, Kate said seeing the way the Evangelical community handled the pandemic pushed her further away.
“There’s this mentality within my family where they’re not worried for their own personal safety because God is in control and God knows when they’re going to die and God has predestined everything,” she said. “So they use that as a copout for not doing things to protect other humans.”
Kate took pandemic precautions seriously and in doing so, only saw her family about three times in the last year. In her isolation, she found the freedom to explore her religious values without judgment. “There was less of this feeling of needing to project a certain image of myself,” she said.
Nowadays, Kate isn’t putting a label on her religious beliefs, partly thanks to the staggering unpredictability of the last year. “One of the most helpful things that’s come out of this pandemic is embracing uncertainty,” she said. “Getting used to knowing what was going to happen in the pandemic made it easier to get used to not knowing what I believed or felt about God.”
