Lots of coming out stories focus on the hard stuff we all deal with. This isn’t a coming out story, but I wanted to think about the unexpected gifts that being queer had given me.

As a teenager, I learned about punk and riot grrrl and zines because people who wrote me letters from a queer pen pal service. And riot grrrl lead me to feminism and a more dimensional understanding of race and gender. Punk taught me to be skeptical about authority and assumptions. Punk taught me that my opinions – and the process through which I formed them – were real and valid and important. Punk taught me to trust my ability to learn new shit, and it gave me the courage to try new things. Punk introduced me to cool music and lots of other queer folks, which was especially important in the conservative rural town I grew up in where it felt like I was the only ‘mo for miles.

Being out in high school – not quite by choice – divided the wheat from the chaff for me. Or at least well-intentioned kids from bullies and homophobes. My friends were still my friends, even though my sexuality cast theirs into question and often made them the target of queer bullying as well. I learned how to avoid the big, mean kids who wanted to grow their social status by proving how tough or cool they were. Kids who often learned violence at home, and recreated it verbally or physically against anyone who dared to be different.

Being queer taught me not to assume the best of anyone (even within the queer community), but to let people reveal their character. (And I learned that actions, not words or intentions, were the best way of sussing out how kind a person is.) As a result, I met friends who had also been through a lot of similar experiences and were thriving in spite of a fair amount of adversity—friends who were strong, smart, honest, and caring – who knew about my assorted baggage and also accepted me at face value.

And by dealing with so much bullshit early on in life, I trusted myself to cope with it. I learned early in life about my own resilience and abilities, meaning when I dealt with hard stuff (like relationships and addiction) later, I was more prepared. This isn’t to say everything was a cakewalk, but I was able to apply the skills learned in adolescence to deal with tough stuff as an adult.

I got good at dealing with rejection, too. Lots of people are homophobic. That doesn’t mean they don’t like you personally. It means that maybe their religious upbringing taught them that being gay was a choice and a sin or that queer folks were perverted or predatory by nature. Maybe they were dealing with their own gender or sexual identity. After a while, I gained enough perspective to see that their prejudices had nothing to do with me personally. Most of the time they were opinions based on ignorance and lack of exposure. I’ve gotten good at ignoring this, at patiently answering questions that I can. I am better at gently explaining that while I am glad to see folks want to get educated, I’m not a representative for all queer people nor am I obligated to educate them. I’ve also developed an ability to firmly, but not rudely, explain why these questions, ones that make me a gay ambassador, are invasive and often offensive.

Being queer taught me to pick my battles. It isn’t necessary or even possible to have a full on intervention every time some kid said that something they didn’t like was “so gay,” and I shouldn’t engage in conversation with people who might never be receptive to a give and take exchange. I learned that when I am tired or burnt out, I can just ignore homophobic shit talk and think about Beth Ditto.

Finally–and I think this is the most important thing: being queer taught me a lot about kindness. Within queer communities, bars and social scenes, people are often dealing with accepting their sexuality, their gender, rejection from their families, addiction and abuse, and tons of other things. You can never tell what was going on with people. I learned a lot about not making assumptions, and about treating people with compassion. I learned that sometimes the people who are hardest to deal with are going through a lot of internal stuff. Of course, sometimes they were just assholes, but my behavior doesn’t have to mirror theirs.

I’m sure there’s more. The point is, for all of the hard stuff I’ve gone through being queer, there have been some unexpected surprises and rewards along the way.