Underdog Freaks of America

I plead alliance

To the flag

Of the underdog freaks of America

And to the rebels

In which they land

One Nation

Underground

Individual

With poverty, and disgusted by all.

Me, age 17, via my old blog: sociallyawkwardpsycho.blogspot.com

As a teen, I explored queer identity through drawings. It was my guilty secret. I remember ripping doodles of kissing girls into tiny pieces as I took them to the recycling. I few queer characters that were reoccurring:

The pansexual Mary Jane was free spirited. Being as she was extroverted and hypersexual, in quite contrast with my own personality. She often showed up in my journal, out of context, for art class. Her first appearance in my sketches was a goofy comic parodying the song "I'm sexy and I know it".

Her family actually originated from another galaxy, but they were forced to blend in with society on earth. One day she couldn't hide who she was anymore, and cut her hair. Half her hair is a short, messy Nickelodeon slime green and the other half held over her head like an umbrella, long and pink. She's known for her eclectic outfits, and experimental hairstyles. She has freckles, square blue glasses, and braces. Mary Jane had distinguished herself from the rest of her family by moving into the tree house in their suburban backyard. She was one of the first reoccurring characters in my drawings.

Marco was her triple "A" (agender aroace) grey alien "boyfriend", an interstellar hippy taking protection over the human race and developed a squish on this curious creature. He avoided Mary Jane's advances, which was based on my own aversions and a-spec experiences.

In my first drawing with both of them, Mary Jane sat cross-legged with her back turned to the viewer as she faced the sunset of the beach shore. Henna tattoos sprawled over her skin and her hair was in a sideways french braid. A peace sign was traced in the sand. Marco stood bare foot and wore a tie around his head, flashing a peace sign with his only two fingers at the audience. He was vaguely inspired by the Lisa Frank stickers I had as a kid. He was also the protagonist of an alien story I wrote in school, where his civilization came back to earth hunt him down with a gargantuan industrial skyscraper-like mothership.

Bobby Joe was MJ's demisexual side-lover. Mary Jane smuggled xir in to live in her tree house. Mary Jane was xir first serious involvement. Bobby Joe was a sweet and affectionate person. Though xe secretly wondered if xe was being taken advantage of... Xe had spent the beginning of xir life objectified and analyzed by researchers. Once Bobby Joe got out of the medical system, xe was then harassed in the school system. Bobby Joe used to be called an "it" by peers because xe was a solid androgyne and refused to "pick a gender".

Bobby Joe was the most experimental of the characters, being based on "The Monster of Ravenna" I'd read in a book about mutants. Bobby Joe had a membrane running from xir wrists to hips, like bat wings. Xe only wore sleeveless ponchos, often green and purple. The colors were inspired from a dream I had where I talked with a androgynous person: Naively, I chased them down, wanting them to confide with me their assigned gender. Along the way I passed objects that were the colors green and purple. I took the dream to represent my own identity questioning and those two colors came to mean androgyny to me. Coincidentally, I found out later that they're also the colors on the genderqueer flag. There were a couple holes cut in the membrane at the hips, making it possible to tie the ends of leggings in place. There was a mesh over on knee of the leggings to allow light for the rudimentary third eye on xir knee socket. Xe had one eagle foot, so xe only wore sandals . The "horn" on xir head was only a bony lump peaked barely above the hot pink spiked hair designed to obscure it. Xe'd been encouraged surgery to "fix" their body. Bobby refused because it was only cosmetic and xe wanted to embrace xir body as was.

This was at a point in my life where everything was mind-blowing. I couldn't see myself in the heteronormative narrative or the heavily gendered society. Living in smaller areas and with limited internet access at home, I often relied on the library for information on the LGBT community. So some concepts were left up to imagination.