In my early 20s, I tried to make a list of historical figures and literary characters who I felt landed on one side or the other of this divide. I tried to write a whole book explaining these archetypes. When I showed a draft of my book to someone for feedback, they questioned the binary, and I said, yes, I'm questioning the binary too, and they said, no you're not, nowhere do you question it, you just reproduce it, your reproduction of it is the whole point of the book. I scratched my head and said "oh." (OK, so, I didn't know how to write a book, nor did I yet understand my own thesis.)

I feel like this assumption of "quiet desperation," "barbaric yawp," or even blends thereof, is part of what's behind the anxiety over when we identify ourselves as queer (or don't).

By anxiety over identifying ourselves as queer, I mean a sort of philosophical anxiety. Questions like: Do I tell people immediately that I'm queer or do I let them figure it out and not worry if they don't? Is being gay central to my selfhood in all situations or is it something I "just happen to be"? Is "trans" an inseparable part of the correct name of my gender, or is it an optional adjective describing how I came by my gender? etc.

Part of the issue lies in other people's assumptions about what "queer" means. Am I always sad, always happy, always a dragger-downer, always a magic spellcaster, etc.? The moment it's brought up, they begin to fill in the blanks for themselves, and I'm likewise filling in the blanks on my end. Sexuality/gender is never just this "extra thing." It's something we're always linking to our sense of self or having someone else project those connections on us, and it's something we project on other queer people too and make assumptions about how it works for them.

That's a big part of why, in my early 20s, I was spotting these either-or archetypes in books. I was noticing and naming the binary, which was only a prerequisite to the next step (one I wasn't quite yet ready for): working through it and picking it apart.