On Queer Love - Katie Proctor

2021 marks my sixth Pride month since I first came out when I was 12, and had no idea what was waiting for me outside the metaphorical closet. As June begins for the second time in the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing the LGBTQ+ community to be separated and preventing celebrations at Pride events throughout the summer, it is easy to forget how much love and solidarity can be found, despite the difficulties stopping typical displays of support.

I’m extremely lucky to have had a relatively easy time growing up as a queer person. Despite being the first person I knew to come out, and attending a small single sex high school with a very heterosexual class of under 30 students, from the majority of people I was met with support – if sometimes having to answer misguided and uneducated questions. The usual “does this mean you like me?” and “are you sure it’s not just a phase?” were par for the course, I knew that: I’d spent enough time on Tumblr, after all. Seven months later I came out to my parents and received the same acceptance, in spite of my worries. With the stress over, I resigned myself back to normality and began to adjust to my new gay life, a prospect that seemed increasingly unlikely to be like something from a coming-of-age film as time went on, and I continued to be quite literally the only gay in the village.

Nevertheless, it didn’t take long before I started to feel lonely, and not just in the sense that conversations began to constantly centre around boyfriends and parties while I spent my weekends reading YA lit and struggling with anxiety. To put it simply, I was surrounded by straight teenagers happily living their very straight lives without a care in the world about the way the world felt about the people they liked and were dating. I was not only the sole openly queer person in the vicinity, but also the sole queer person that seemed to exist at all. I wasn’t just missing out on first loves and breakups and eating tubs of ice cream in tears like Rory did at my age in Gilmore Girls. I was missing out on community, understanding and solidarity.

Looking back, in a lot of ways, I’m glad things turned out the way they did. If it wasn’t for my 12 year old self doing something so astoundingly brave (even though it didn’t feel like that at the time, I know it was now), many other people would have been just as lost as I had been. In a roundabout and totally accidental way, I got to act like a big sibling to a lot of younger queer students a few years later. And although I had spent a lot of years by myself, somehow I think knowing that I left having made things easier for those who could have been like me made the loss feel less painful.

Having spent a transformative period of my life feeling lonely and like an outsider, and eventually having found an LGBTQ+ chosen family of my own, I feel as though I have a greater appreciation for queer love in all its forms, and what it truly means. The way I see it, love between queer people, whether it be platonic or romantic, is a connection that goes deeper than surface-level feelings. I feel love for minds, souls and personalities, and I also feel so much love for the stories and experiences we share as part of a community that is so enriched by bravery and pride. And my love does not end with those I know personally. For me, it is something that extends to queer people everywhere who are fighting their own battles every day, whether it be with themselves or the people around them.

Queer love comes with an innate understanding of both the struggle and joy that is unique to being part of the LGBTQ+ community. I hold so much love in my heart for my straight friends and family who have supported me unconditionally, and that will never change. But it is a different love I feel when I get to march at Pride with a flag around my shoulders and a smile on my face, and when I get to hold someone and welcome them to a new and incredible part of their life.

Leeds Pride, 2019

I am a poet who writes about love, something which everyone can relate to, but I will never allow the fact that my sexuality is integral to my work to be erased. I write what I could never read, what would have made me feel like I was part of something for all that time. My romantic love is unashamedly queer, as is much of my platonic love. For that alone, it is more special than I can ever accurately express in words, and the one of a kind, strange and beautiful experience of queer love is something that I will forever be thankful for.

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Katie Proctor is a poet from Yorkshire, England. Since they can remember they have loved to write, whether it be prose, poetry or stories, and writing will always be their first love. Nowadays, they write freeform poetry and prose often regarding their experience with love, relationships and mental health. Their debut collection of poetry, Seasons, was published in August 2020, and their sophomore collection A Desire for Disaster will be published later this year, both by Hedgehog Poetry. They are the editor-in-chief of celestite poetry, a journal of creative writing and non-fiction. They are a student with a passion for literature, history and classics, and are a big fan of Shakespeare. They love to act and plan to study English Literature at university. You can find them on Twitter @katiiewrites and Instagram @katiiewrites.