I guess most people want to be wanted (choose your song reference). But, a lot of us aren't. I didn't jump on the bandwagon supporting the inclusion of all the various groups these last years. Whether they're Gay, trans, POC or some other distinguished group, they all wanted the same thing. They wanted to be in the room with all the other people. They wanted to be included. They wanted a seat at the table, to share the moment & conversation with other people. They didn't want to be alone, to be the outsider, to be the obligation or the freak.
I think most of us go through this at some point. For some of us, it nevers ends. If it does end for some, they're probably always afraid it'll return. I had those things for a while when I was younger. Long enough to know what it felt like & then it was gone. I didn't cause it, but still from then on I was the person outside looking in.
I never had the nerve to demand inclusion like the masses of trans & queers of recent times. I knew that wouldn't work. Still, I could talk, I could dress myself up, I could make myself capable of being included. There was always a price. I could never really be me. The time at these events was always precarious. A single misstep & I was out. There would be whispers & side glances. They'd wonder who brought the stray. They'd check their purses, wallets, etc...
Even at my most saleable, there was still only so far I could go. Eventually, my In would tire of the questions & bail on me. When the dazzling diversion they thought I could provide turned out to be something else, they felt cheated & cut me loose. When you play this game of inclusion, you aren't really included. You're the oddity, the prop, the conversation piece. You're the tolerable weirdness brought to keep the party from getting too stale. Eventually they tire of the flavor or you burn too bright & it's over. Back to the outside for you.
These people who clawed for inclusion this last decade never really were. They were just the current props used by the social, political, fashionable topsiders. This election must of been a very sobering wake up for them. Society still sees them as the freak, the refuse, the feral trying to get into their party.
People that don't accept you for being who you are from the start, will most likely never accept you at all. They may tolerate or use you, but they'll never really open the doors to the estate for you. Unless of course you're the help. Remember, the mean girls never really want you to change, they want you to go away, to not exist.
Begging for inclusion always comes with a price. You're selling a bit of you, your self, your spirit. You're dimming that bit that makes you, you. Maybe it's better to blaze out in the darkness than to be dimmed at the ball. There are no good answers.
Take care.
Cya...