I’M JOSH AND THIS IS MY STORY….

I’ve learned that I feel the most safe when I’m outside. I used to spend a majority of my time in the woods around my house growing up. It was hard being a queer kid in a small conservative town, so I would escape into nature. There, I didn’t worry about what I was wearing or if my voice was too high. I wasn’t scared of saying or doing the wrong thing that would give away my secrets. The trees never cared, so I figured I wouldn’t either.

One of my last apartments backed up against a local nature preserve, and I would go there often to run or just get away for a bit. There were plenty of hiking trails away from the paved pathways most people would use, so I usually stuck to those or left the trails altogether. I would usually hike or run and listen to podcasts or audiobooks, but sometimes I’d be in the right mood to listen to music.

Over the past five or so years, I’ve been exploring my gender identity and expression. I have a lot of internalized identity shame (don’t we all), so the expression side of this journey has been extremely hard for me. I have an intense fear of embarrassment, even about small things like what kind of music I listen to. I was shamed as a kid for liking “girly” music to the point where I would hide just so I could mouth along to lyrics. I would even go out, deep into the woods, just so I could sing a song quietly to myself that I wasn’t allowed to like.

So, when I lived at that apartment that backed up against the preserve, I would sometimes be in the right mood to listen to music I would have been shamed for as a kid. It was empowering, and I felt like I was reclaiming a part of my childhood when I practiced my catwalk on a trail with Sissy that Walk blasting in my ears. I could sing along, and stop to break it down with duck walks and voguing like I was on the damn main stage. I wasn’t any good at it, but, again, the trees never cared. Eventually, I always ended up back on a main path and would head home.

Along the way, I usually liked to pull up Snapchat’s location map and see how others were enjoying the preserve. It kind of helped me feel connected to everyone there that day, and it was a great way to test my comfort boundaries since I could see other people in my safe place without actually seeing them. Well, one day I opened up the map, clicked on the story, and I was in it. Someone had secretly filmed me walking and dancing and put the caption, "These woods are so magical even the fairies are out. #FaggotForest."

Could you really even tell it was me? Not really. Was it even that clever? I mean, kinda… but with my history with hate crimes and my shame, I was devastated and honestly kind of scared. I didn’t feel like it was my safe space any longer, and now I was the Sassy-squatch of the preserve that others might be looking for. I didn’t go back after that. Not in a way that mattered, anyway. It’s been a few years and I’ve worked through it, but it really set me back.

- Josh Miller