Growing up in Pig Farm, Illinois, I learned very early that softness was dangerous.
That town was a flat expanse of Midwestern corn and gravel where nobody quite knew what to do with a femme, tomboyish, neurodivergent kid like me. When I became a cheerleader in seventh grade, it effectively tanked my social standing with the boys. So I adapted. I learned to survive by becoming a chameleon in marching band, madrigals, math team, and theater.
My primary survival tool back then was a brass trombone. I loved playing it, but extending that heavy slide out in front of my chest was also a physical defense. It kept the other boys at arm's length in the hallways and band room. If you keep enough metal between yourself and the world, maybe nobody will notice how soft and queer you actually are.
Performing the spirit
When I got to college, the shield changed from brass to religion.
I fell headfirst into a megachurch that looked progressive on the surface, with guitars, fog machines, and big smiles, but underneath it smelled like shame. For seven years, I made that place my entire life. I volunteered six days a week, directed children's worship, ran youth group programs, and spent hours at the altar praying for God to burn the queerness out of me.
I wanted so badly to be good, to be healed, and to be loved that I gave them the performance they demanded. I stood at altars swaying and weeping on cue. I even spoke in tongues that I made up on the spot. I swear to Cher, I stood there babbling syllables ("oo baba kanda shoulda boughta honda") just so the elders would believe the Holy Spirit was moving through me and that the revival was working.
In reality, my autistic brain was completely overloaded. Behind my closed eyes, I was thinking about warm nachos and staring at boys in tight jeans that smelled like livestock and Axe body spray.
They called it revival. I call it the longest, loneliest winter of my life.
The quiet years of survival
When the performance finally collapsed, walking away didn't bring instant freedom. It brought silence.
I married someone who was also escaping that world, but our bond was built on shared trauma rather than authentic truth. For years, I turned my volume all the way down. I hid my body, swallowed my stories, and stopped singing. Survival meant keeping quiet, living in black and white, and trying not to take up too much room.
Healing did not happen in a single holy moment. It happened in small, messy, cut-and-paste DIY zine pages, late-night guitar chords, and the quiet realization that I was never broken to begin with. I was queer, autistic, and bright as hell, and the world had simply tried to tame the flavor out of me.
Scars turned into sequins
That is when Glittergrit was born.
Glittergrit is not a costume; it is the part of me that refused to stay buried. It is the decision to treat scars like sequins, to find camp right in the middle of survival, and to make peace with my soft, loud, complicated self.
I strapped on high heels, marched for trans youth on the steps of Florida capitols, stood on stage at Nerd Nite talking about neurodivergent spice over corporate beige, and rode through St. Pete Pride as Grand Marshal in an open white Jeep waving a Black Lives Matter sign.
I stopped apologizing for being too weird, too femme, or too loud.
Stepping up to the microphone
And now, life has brought me to an extraordinary full circle.
This week, I am preparing to step behind the broadcast console at WMNF 88.5 FM to launch my three-hour radio show, In Full Color, running live from 3:00 AM to 6:00 AM on Monday mornings.
The contrast hits me right in the chest.
The same kid who held a trombone in front of him so no one could hurt him, the same church boy who had to speak in made-up tongues just to feel safe in a room, is now stepping up to a live broadcast microphone.
Only this time, there is no shield. There are no fake words. There is no pleading for conditional acceptance.
Sitting in that studio in the early hours of Monday morning, I will use my natural, resonant baritone voice to keep third-shift hospital workers, truck drivers, insomniacs, and queer night owls company across Tampa Bay. We will spin raw riot grrrl, celebrate local Florida indie bands, champion independent record shops, and remind anyone listening in the dark that they are not alone.
If you have spent your life being told that you are too much, too soft, or not enough, please hear me on this: you do not need to perform your way into belonging. You were never broken.
You are magic, and it is time to live in full color.
