here's the thing about the mutant metaphor
Here’s the thing about being a mutant - no one really tells you how to be.
If you’re lucky, you may grow up knowing about mutants. But even if you’re lucky, the ones you see on TV, in books, in magazines are probably nothing like you. Some of them are noble and heroic. Some of them are scary. Too many of them are the subjects of warnings and threats, people you were told you don’t want to be, should never want to be. Too many of them are labeled villains for wanting to do more than survive.* Most of them are obviously mutant; you can tell just from a glance. Most of them just want to live their lives, but even so, most of them are so gifted they stand out among others.
But here’s the thing about being a mutant - you are born with it. Your mutanity is in your genes; there is no other way for you to be. Some flatscans may tell you that they’re fine with mutants, if only mutants “didn’t wave their mutanity around for all to look at”, but being a mutant isn’t something you can turn on and off. It is just… existing. When they say that, what they’re really saying is that they don’t want any reminders or proof of your existence.
Not all mutants manifest in the same way. Some mutants come into themselves in times of pain and trauma. Others, not so much. Many discover their mutanity as they hit adolescence, but not all. For some, their mutanity is so clear and obvious, they have always known. Some find it harder to see in themselves, but don’t pass as a flatscan well enough - they may be told what they are, they may be ostracised for existing before even learning what they are. For some, their mutanity manifests in such subtle ways that the flatscans never notice. These mutants may realise as they grow older, or live out entire lives never truly knowing themselves.
You may know all this, even if they don’t tell you. You’ve read the stories, watched the movies, heard it all before. Some kid’s mutanity manifests - violently, inconveniently, awkwardly - and the X-Men swoop in to the rescue. They teach the kid the ways of mutanity, they give the kid a family and a purpose. Sometimes the kid falls through the cracks, in which case they find other lost, feral mutants, and make their own family. And then there are those who are too uncanny or different even for the other mutants, who form their own community underground.
But what if you’re none of the above? What if you’re more like poor Doug Ramsey, whose mutant power is languages, who would never have known about his mutanity if it wasn’t for his proximity to Kate Pryde?
Because, see, here’s the thing about being a mutant - sometimes you’re invisible to other mutants. Sometimes you pass so well as a flatscan that the other mutants treat you like one. It doesn’t make you any less of a mutant, but it means that you learn, at some point, that it doesn’t always get better. It means that you will always be isolated - the flatscans know on some instinctive level that you are not the same as them, you know that there are things about yourself you can never talk about with them. But you also know that you won’t get that invite to Xavier’s, you know that your powers are too subtle, too noncombative, to have a place among the young ferals. And you look too much like a flatscan to be accepted among the Morlocks.
Some mutants may tell you that you might as well be a flatscan, because passing is a privilege. Passing means that you don’t fear death quite in the same way as them. Passing means that unless you change the way you dress, or wear mutant logos, you probably won’t get harrassed, or fired, or killed, for existing.
Passing means no one ever sees you for who you are.
Here’s the thing that some of the other mutants, and the flatscans, don’t understand - passing doesn’t mean you don’t fear the Sentinels, who will find you even when Cerebro refuses to. Passing doesn’t stop you from hearing and seeing every terrible thing the flatscans say about/do to your people, doesn’t stop you from feeling so powerless because you’re not one of them, the Good Mutants, the ones with team names starting with X. Passing doesn’t mean that you don’t live in fear that one day someone might report you to the Purifiers. Passing doesn’t mean jack shit to the Purifiers, and you know this, because you live every single day hearing them and their supporters say, “the only good mutant is a dead mutant.” Sometimes passing - even when not by choice - feels more like hiding. And hiding never makes you feel any safer.
Passing isolates you, keeps you from finding other mutants, keeps other mutants from finding you. Sometimes it means that if you never say anything, if you’re always careful, if you always hide who you are, if you never explore your gifts, the Purifies won’t get to you. Sometimes it means statistically, you are less likely to die for merely choosing to exist.
But here’s the thing about being a mutant - sometimes you pass, and it feels like a different kind of death.
- Remember: Magneto Was Right
This is partly inspired by Jay Edidin’s zine how to be a mutant, but that zine is much more hopeful and takes things in a completely different direction. I guess the feelings here come from the grief I feel when I read/watch Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper, and books like Alex Gino’s Alice Austen Lived Here and Casey McQuiston’s I Kissed Shara Wheeler.
Mercury Retrograde ends around June 2nd for us if I remember right, so let’s hope for less anxiety and depression, lol. In the meantime, STAY SAFE!