While engaging in a late night scroll of Bluesky, among the sea of furry art and robot posting among my for you feed was an article that stopped me dead in my tracks. It was a review for a new laptop, the Macbook Neo, which has recently taken the consumer tech internet by storm for its affordability. It offers the exact same suite of features that every other MacOS install does. The review was a reflection on how young people, specifically preteens and teens fail, grow, and learn with computers. It was a really touching article that made me absolutely ball my eyes out and if you're on this site, there's a chance you will too. I was that kid Sam Henri Gold wrote about, so many people I know were that kid.
It made me reflect on my childhood and my relationship with The Computer. I think I bring a different lens to the phenomenon Henri writes about, one that factors in queer identity with technological exploration. When you grow up in a suburb, you're automatically a lonely kid. When everything is a 15 minute drive away and you're eight years old, you have to find some form of fun at home, I found that in the family computer and a Nintendo Wii.
From an early age, I learned the rules of engagement with The Computer. I learned how to be kind to it, and how to ask nicely. It was easy to learn the language it spoke, it was easy to understand what it can and cannot do. This language was being taught to me as I was learning to read. I was in my elementary school's "tech club" where I created short animations and helped run the morning school news broadcast. I slowly became the go-to tech support in my family. The Computer taught me that I can bring value to others.
I begged my parents for a copy of Frames, an animation software for education. While yes, it was fun to race 150cc in Mariokart Wii, it felt even better to make a crude stop motion animation for myself. I felt more accomplished by screaming into a microphone over random garageband loops than going through an endless rotation of extracurricular sports that felt like chores. I remember the countless times I opened up the khan academy javascript course. Only to give up halfway through and try again the next week. The Computer taught me how to make things.
I realized I was some form of queer around 11 or 12 and was punished greatly for it. My friends I had all throughout elementary school stopped talking to me entirely. I began to search online for what I could possibly be doing wrong or why I was like this. After searching, I found the answer: I was transgender. A southern school system is no place for a transgender child, so I began to shut myself out and began to isolate myself. I interacted with my small amount of friends through school on hormone-ridden discord servers. During this time of extreme isolation, I valued the immense amount of freedom I had when at my desktop. Gone were the rigid rules of Floridian public education hellbent on pushing you through rigorous standardized tests and 7:00am classes. On the internet and on your desktop, you can learn about anything and be anything. Furry and queer spaces taught me radical acceptance more than any therapist could. I could finally connect with people about experience design. I could download an endless amount of fashion inspo from pinterest and stay up all night making picrew avatars and place them all in a file called "transition goals". As I sat helpless to my body being annihilated by the poison of testosterone, the matrix of pixels in front of me brought comfort and hope when I needed it the most. The Computer taught me community and self expression.
Going into high school, I became obsessed with modding game consoles. I used the disposable income I had as a working teenager to collect as many consoles that I could. Every Saturday, thrift store employees would shudder as I dart to the back of the store and snag up any radio, game console, monitor, or DVD player that I could find. Hours were spent following online tutorials as I threw some custom firmware on a 2DS with a scuffed touch sensor. Most of the radios scattered across my room were broken and and opening them up, just made me more confused. It wasn't about the games or listening to PBS, I barely did either of those. In fact, this is when I started to fall out of love with video games. To me, it didn't matter if these consoles worked. I was learning and changing and these computers were learning and changing with me.
The Computer taught me to love the process of failing.
As I continued to isolate and feel my body collapsing in on itself, I developed suicidal thoughts that could not be ignored. I tried to end my life multiple times. I wound up at a cruel and un-empathetic mental hospital twice. During designated journaling hours at the hospital, I wrote about how much I missed my friends on discord and missed the long nights of learning. The mental hospital, for all its flaws, taught me something incredibly valuable: The Computer is my way out. On The Computer, I did not get physically assaulted in the restroom, mocked by teachers, and sexually harassed by other students. When I got out, I committed myself to intaking and making art. I began to discover more music that shook me to my core and I developed my love for film at this time. Torrenting Adobe products to create posters inspired by my favorite film or album lead me to pursuing a career in design. No matter how bad the art I made was, how many pieces are left unfinished on a mechanical hard drive shoved in my closet, I did not care. It was mine. The Computer taught me rehabilitation and to love art.
As I went off to art school, I learned more about the world around me. Pulling all-nighters for a storyboarding project and losing sleep over how my abstract stage set would look once lighting completed focus brought me so much joy. I wasn't completely happy with where I was. I had known I was transgender for so long, I had finally scrounged up the money to get gender affirming care at 19. Ordering estradiol off the internet was the single-most empowering decision I have ever made. Base closet overhauls, random styling guides, and rewinding winged eyeliner tutorials made me at home in my body. Joining all-trans discord servers and talking with others openly about our passions and our struggles helped me understand my place in the world. I was finally learning how to come out of my shell. The Computer gave me hope. The Computer saved my life.
Now, I am ten weeks away from graduating an art university and feeling a bit nostalgic at the end of my school years. I wouldn't wish what I went through on anyone, but I wouldn't change anything. My experience seems near universal to introverted trans women. We lose so much of our agency during adolescence, that we scrap for anything to make us feel in control. With The Computer, we have control and we can learn through it. We learn The Computer's language because it can keep us safe. It is a language that gives us worth in the eyes of a broader society, but it is also a language we love.
I am starting to worry for trans women younger than me. Mobile computing is slowly replacing The Computer. Mobile computing is not a blank canvas. Phones do not ask you what you want to do, they tell you what you will be doing. There is no exploration, no opportunity for growth in something that barely lets you change icon colors. As a conservative grip tightens on mainstream social platforms, queer ideas and people are being erased from the mainstream internet. As LLMs insert themselves everywhere into daily life, they will lock people in to one, advertising riddled app and refuse to cite their sources. Even if it means meeting them where they are, such as short-form video platforms, we have to push back. This isn't to say queer teens right now aren't creating things, I'm sure there's forty teenage trans girls lined up to tell me how godawful my site is. But exploring and learning is now something that must be sought out. In place of the blank canvas, stands a framed painting that sets off an alarm if you get too close to it. We have to inspire younger people to explore, we have to pass our knowledge down, we cannot lose this fight. I do not want to lose an entire generation of artists. I do not want to lose an entire generation of queer people. The Computer* saved my life and I want it save others.
-mariex3
*and the beautiful people inside it