Being Seen and Unseen
There is a moment when the world doesn’t simply see someone—it decides who they are.
It’s not gentle or subtle. It doesn’t arrive with kind words or soft corrections. It comes with fists, rocks, and the sharp-edged laughter of those who delight in exclusion. That moment doesn’t pass. It repeats, becoming the rhythm of the day. For some, it begins in high school.
The schoolyard was a battlefield, though no one would have called it that. Rocks ricocheted off brick walls into eyes, and words, sharper than stones, cut through the air. Onlookers’ laughter echoed louder than the insults. Teachers stood nearby, silent or, worse, smiling. Their indifference weighed as heavily as violence. It was as if the institution agreed with what was being taught—not in the classroom but on the playground—that some people do not belong.
And yet, that place, with its cruelty and chaos, could feel safer than home. Imagine that school, where cruelty was routine and survival was a daily negotiation, became the refuge. Home, the place meant for love and safety, could be something else entirely. The absurdity of that truth haunts those who have lived it. Survival wasn’t about enduring one hostile space but navigating between them.
To be othered is to carry a weight that no one else can see. It is to be defined not by who someone is but by what they are not. It is to stand in a room full of people and feel invisible and yet, at the same time, hyper-visible—as though existence itself is an insult. Every glance, every word, every gesture becomes a reminder. These lessons aren’t taught in classrooms. They are enacted daily.
This isn’t just the cruelty of children. It is the cruelty of a system. The culmination came on Year 12 Awards night, which was meant to celebrate achievements, not amplify cruelties. The student committee handed out awards to staff and fellow pupils—a series of inside jokes and acknowledgements of shared camaraderie. Then, in front of the entire year group, they gave me the “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert” award.
It felt like the air had been knocked out of the room. Skin burned under the weight of their laughter. Breath caught somewhere between fury and despair. Someone should have called it what it was, but silence filled the room. The teachers said nothing. No one called it bullying. No one named it homophobia. Their silence spoke louder than the laughter. It was an affirmation. This was acceptable: a person could be reduced to a joke.
Slavoj Žižek, a philosopher who interrogates power and systems, might say that this moment was no accident. According to Žižek, the exclusion of the Other is not a mistake. It is a necessity. Systems require their scapegoats, their outsiders, to define themselves. The laughter wasn’t incidental. It was part of the system—a mechanism reinforcing norms of belonging and rejection. Those silences and those awards weren’t accidents; they were the system functioning exactly as intended.
In that silence, in the cracks left by indifference, clarity begins to form—not just about the cruelty of their actions but the fragility of the system that needs the Other to exist. The weight of being othered isn’t just external. It seeps into the soul, teaching people to question their worth, place, and existence. For years, voices are softened to whispers, words steeped in apologies, if spoken at all. Language itself feels like an enemy, a weapon that can be turned against someone at any moment. Silence becomes safety, a retreat from chaos, and a binding force. It holds back not just the world but also the voice and the ability to claim oneself fully. Breaking that silence is as much an act of rebellion as it is an act of survival.
But exclusion does not only wound. It also binds. In the margins, tight-knit communities often emerge. Those with similar scars create spaces for laughter, love, survival, and solidarity. Among the excluded, there is fierce camaraderie. These bonds, forged in the fire of shared rejection, often carry a strength and depth unmatched by the easy connections of those who fit neatly into the centre.
And yet, in that silence, something begins to grow. As Žižek suggests, being excluded forces a confrontation with the raw, unfiltered aspects of human experience—the “Real.” The Real is society’s suppressed truth, the undeniable flaws and pain it tries to hide. To encounter the Real is painful but liberating. It reveals what is broken and points to what must be rebuilt. In those cracks, doorways begin to appear. Slowly, carefully, those who have been othered step through them.
Resilience doesn’t arrive fully formed. It is built in fragments, in moments of quiet defiance. It is found in surviving when the world insists survival is impossible. The choice is to claim space, speak the truth, and exist unapologetically. Over time, a voice emerges—not the whisper of survival but the full-throated cry of reclamation.
Looking back, those experiences reveal their lessons. They teach how to see the world not as it pretends to be but as it is. They teach that worth is not found in the approval of others but in the certainty of one’s existence. They teach that the power of identity lies not in what the world allows someone to be but in what they insist on being.
Reclaiming spaces that once sought to expel someone is a radical act. It is a reminder—to oneself, to the world—that belonging is not granted but demanded. Speaking one’s truth in a world that has tried to silence it is an act of love for oneself, those who couldn’t, and those who will come after.
The cracks in their system are not just wounds—they are pathways for others like them to walk through, build something stronger and more authentic, and insist, as they have, that being Other is not a flaw but a strength.
This is the gift and the curse of being othered: it tries to break, but it also reveals the cracks in the system that made it so. It exposes the arbitrary, the constructed, and the false. And in those cracks, there is room to build something new.
The biggest lesson is this: spaces of belonging are not granted; they are claimed, built, and protected. Refusing erasure is not defiance—it is survival. If they called you the Other, so be it. Perhaps the Other is not less—but more than they will ever understand.
C.L. Hayden,
DEC 2024
Clinton Hayden is a Wiradjuri Blak queer artist and writer based in Melbourne. His practice spans photography, AI image creation, print media, drawing, and bricolage, exploring the intersections of personal and collective histories. Clinton’s work is deeply informed by his commitment to preserving and promoting Wiradjuri language and engaging with Indigenous Queer Futurism.
