Miguel finds joy in traveling, producing their own music, and talking about gender. As a second-year doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte studying Organizational Science, they love bringing historically excluded voices to the forefront and envisioning more just and equitable organizations. Follow them @lilmigsbigworld on Instagram!

rainbow platform crocs

miguel wilson

There are very few things that better encapsulate my queer identity than my platform, rainbow (knockoff) crocs. Like my gender identity, I have arguably found even more joy from these shoes because they were not something I could have ever fathomed into existence. They are a gift that I have had to grow into and my winding journey to them matters to me just as much as their simple existence.

We talk of “bliss,” how our worries fade away and life at once seems worth living. In my dictionary, right next to those five letters, I see my feet sliding into my crocs for the first time. I can count the years of my crocs journey, but I think counting the places and faces between would do a better job of showing just how far I have come. My youth was something I took far too seriously. The worry of surveillance and peering eyes kept me from ever really feeling comfortable in my skin. Looking back, I can see how physically I shrunk myself, so as to not draw too much attention. Yet, my true self would scratch its way to the surface once in a while. My cover was blown when people began to ask “what” I was; I now so desperately wish to pose the same question to them. However, in the moment, stunned and emotionally raw, I played by their rules and foolishly found myself justifying the very reason for my existence.

Perhaps, it was forgetting to not walk a certain way or talk a certain way, but my inability to fit within whatever box everyone seemed to perfectly fit in left me with one unspoken truth: I must not matter. If I can’t fit in, it must mean I have done something terribly wrong. It never was those words exactly—I was never that blunt with myself. I think it might be worse though, to tiptoe around such a subject, and to tear yourself down in little ways. I grew older and pushed away from the thought of expressing myself. My body was no longer a vessel for the creative, beautiful spirit within me. I wore baggy clothes and sneakers till holes bore through their tops and sides.

Judith Halberstam’s queer temporality, or the idea that queer individuals do not exist along the same life paths of our cis-heteronormative peers, is very real. It is more than rejecting timelines that state we should settle down and procreate. I see it as the nurturing of what never was, and learning to love that “now” is even better. I often hear of people wishing they had started exploring their gender sooner. Such thinking does not serve us, but if the shoes fits for you, so be it. I know for certain that my gender journey is more than simply switching on a lightbulb and finally deciding to walk in the light. In today’s cruel world, we need however long it takes to stumble in the dark; whatever it means to feel safe.

I had to go to countless thrift stores before I found my crocs. It took other less exciting shoes to open my heart and mind to even thinking that I could put on such beasts. I wear them now and I see all the days of telling myself to be smaller and I have no choice now but to be taller. I love that they are mine, down to the jibbitz (yes, one of them is Peppa Pig); little treasures that were given to me by my dear cousin. I am not sure she fully grasps what they mean to me. They are her support forever encapsulated and now I carry them with me around the world.

My crocs were my shoe of choice as I trekked through Albania. I cannot think of a louder shoe to wear as a Black person in a country where Blackness is something far from normal. I wore my crocs with my dresses, while my crotch bulged and I smiled because I knew I looked really cool. It does not matter where I go, I know I am the future beyond even my own wildest dreams and I love being the person that brings people pause. I need not open my mouth to make others think and that is some powerful, queer juju.

Even as my (fake) platform crocs send me flat on my face every once in a while, I cannot bring myself to resent them or to permanently cast them away. My guess is that it is because, again, I have drawn a connection to my gender. Being queer has exposed me to plenty of struggles. It can be hard being the first embodiment of “different” for people. For myself, I strain to find elders, and in my experience, respect, love, and sexuality often are not found in the same room. Being tokenized is often the price I have to pay to be seen and touched. My body simply does not exist within many people’s understandings. Yet, like my crocs, I exist. I endure. Most importantly, I have fun and it shows.

Slowly but surely, I am learning I don’t have to play by the gender binary’s exclusionary rules. I can fall more madly in love with myself and enjoy my time with friends and family and learn what it means to be safe—truly safe. I could make a joke about pulling my crocs’ straps down, but they broke off a while ago. Perhaps, it’s the universe telling me that I do not have to be scared anymore. I can run and jump, so long as I know I’m also staying true to myself and the little me that could have never thought to be so tall and so loud. I hope everyone gets to feel that someday. I hope everyone finds their rainbow, platform crocs.