By Dustin Staggs
When Q Inwood talks about their life, they say it really started for them when they were seven. Specifically, it was January 28, 2003, the day Q learned of their mother’s death—a memory they vividly recall.
While getting off of the school bus, the first stop of the route, Q witnessed their mother pushed into an ambulance on a gurney. They didn’t think it was their mom; they refused to believe it.
“I think [my story] starts there, because then what it introduced was a life of a lot of challenges that…” Q pauses and looks for the right words, “you know how when you hear the same song singing about a child being rushed to mature and then kind of desperately craving to get that back? I think I definitely locked the cliche of that narrative almost to a tee.”
Q Inwood, a non-binary individual, has navigated a life woven with trials and transformation, demonstrating that it’s not where we come from, but what we make of the cards we’re dealt. Their story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of self-discovery, showcasing that our path is never fully-determined. Inwood’s story is one composed of the unwavering pursuit of authenticity in a world that often seeks to confine us to narrow definitions of identity. Their journey serves as a touching reminder that true liberation lies in embracing the full spectrum of who we are, unapologetically and without reservation.
Inwood’s childhood was marked by upheaval, moving in with their grandmother, and navigating the complexities of a religious upbringing while grappling with their own identity. As the eldest of four, Inwood found themselves thrust into a custody battle at the age of twelve, ultimately choosing to live with their grandmother and seeking solace in the familiarity of her home.
“I became very much invested in a bunch of school clubs, I was really trying to make my way in church,” Q said. “I was super religious for a very long time. Like, one of those that you couldn’t understand how someone could be an atheist or you didn’t understand how you didn’t have that relationship with God.”
Nana’s house was the fun house, as Q would say. A place where they could watch Disney Channel, stay up late, and eat Fruit Roll-Ups until they got sick. It was also a home to Inwood and their siblings, a place always clean and always comfortable.
However, the semblance of stability shattered with the arrival of Q’s aunt, a once-revered figure in Inwood’s life that they found themselves looking up to, who now succumbed to the throes of addiction, turning their safe haven into an environment fraught with abuse and instability.
Inwood describes their aunt as a once wonderful human being who graduated top of their class at Arkansas Tech University, becoming everything they had dreamed of, and had succeeded to. It was an aggressive and abusive relationship that introduced Inwood’s aunt to drugs, shaping them into someone Q barely recognized.
Homeless and barely able to take care of their kids, Inwood’s aunt moved into their grandmother’s house, joining Q and their siblings. A house once a safe haven for them turned into a crowded household of 13, opening the door to a dangerous environment for the kids.
“When I think about it,” Q said, “she was my, ‘Who’s your superhero?’ And when I was first writing essays in third grade, she was my superhero. She went from being my superhero to someone who wouldn’t get out of bed.”
Inwood’s aunt took on the un-asked role of their recently passed mother, only to subject them too emotional abuse and forcing them to confront the harsh realities of their circumstances; they embarked on a journey of self-discovery, couch-surfing, seeking refuge in their faith, while also navigating the turbulent waters of adolescence.
During Inwood’s senior year of high school another role model re-entered their life: their dad.
Q was a drum major in their senior high-school band. A huge band geek, as they would say, playing the flute up until their senior year and then picking the instrument back up going into the college band. A dedicated experience that they found both challenging and rewarding.
“I remember looking up in the stands,” Q said. “After four or five years of radio silence, there was my dad. And he became my new safe haven. I ended up finally landing on his couch.”
Inwood didn’t recognize their dad at first. The last time they saw him, he was a 30-year-old fit cop losing his hair. Now, the person they saw was a sickly man. A man who wasn’t in good health and clearly lost weight during his years as a heart patient. Nonetheless, when recognition struck Q, they ran up into the stands and hugged their father. There was still an excitement there for Q, but the person they were hugging felt more hollow to them, than their muscle memory remembered.
The hug and the conversations after opened an opportunity for someone in Inwood’s life who wanted to put the effort in to show them love. Q took that moment to do the same, and return that love. Q described the moment as a whirlwind of emotions in ten minutes.
After seeing their father that night, it wasn’t difficult for Inwood to find comfort in having their father back in their life. Feeling more like a roommate and a best friend, Inwood’s dad became their biggest supporter through college, so proud of the road they were paving ahead for themself. He became their biggest champion at helping them understand how to make dreams a reality.
College brought both challenges and revelations for Inwood as they grappled with their evolving identity. At Arkansas Tech University, they began to stray away from their faith and meet new people.
“So that all kind of just comes up, you know, as it does as you experience life and meet different people and really start to understand who you are as an individual. I think that for me, is when I started kind of laying stones of like, okay, I am queer,” Q said. But they asked themselves, what does that look like for them?
At the time, they said they were attempting to be a sorority girl, an editor, and a writer. Even though Inwood didn’t feel that they were sorority girl material, they looked for a sense of community within it. College in a way felt more like an identity crisis for them.
While pursuing their bachelor’s in English, they found they had a knack for writing. At first they found the whole college process difficult and wanted to drop out early on, but it was one of their professors that convinced them to stick it out and grow this talent of theirs.
“At the time,” Inwood said, “I was just discovering what my amateur craft for writing looked like, and I realized that I could start processing some of the harder things that I had been through by killing off some of my favorite characters I’ve ever written.”
Inwood began to have a passion for wanting to be an editor. They thought of the occupation as the bridge between the author to the reader’s favorite final product in their hands. They wanted to be a part of that.
The creators of the pop culture movements at that time, such as “The Hunger Games” trilogy and the “Twilight” saga, inspired their dreams of wanting to help create something as impactful.
Inwood also found a group of friends in college that they were greatly thankful for. Q said the group taught them a lot of things, but they also broke a lot of things in them that they felt needed to break.
“As you’re growing in your narrative, you’re shedding one’s skin to grow a new one,” Q said.
Despite gradually distancing themselves from organized religion over the years, their spiritual connection remained steadfast. As they matured, they began to hate what religion does to the world. They didn’t like how it cultivated its way into society and controlled so many strains of it. Today, they maintain a personal sense of spirituality, focusing on channeling positive energy into the universe with the hope of it being reciprocated.
In 2016, during the presidential election, is when Q confided in their dad about their sexuality, putting their relationship to the test. It was after President Donald Trump was elected, that they told their father they were genuinely afraid for themselves and people like them. This was the first time they tried to be seen or heard by a parent in their life.
“So I started walking this line of what I really just wanted was someone to love me and see me for who I was,” Q said. “My dad was proving to be that person.” It was a comforting, and yet, surprising feeling for Q. “Whatever time he had taken to himself over those couple of years of radio silence, he was doing some work that happened to just kind of stick. And that I appreciated.”
After graduating with their bachelor’s from Arkansas Tech University, they went on to attend Sarah Lawrence College in New York City to pursue their master’s in writing. As Q describes it, it’s the one liberal arts school that every romantic comedy with the main character being a writer makes fun of.
“In my time in New York, I shed off my skin of my family and tried to figure out what the fuck independence looked like,” they said.
It was here that Inwood was walking through open doors, which they said little Q should have never been able to, such as working for Penguin Random House and the literary agency office of Neil Gaiman. Inwood was trying really hard to break into publishing while also trying to become an author, things that they feel like they’re no longer interested in now.
But it was in the bustling streets of New York City that Q found themselves on a transformative path, shedding the constraints of societal expectations and embracing their truth as a queer individual.
After growing up in a household full of military men and cops who wanted boys, Q feels that being the oldest of four girls they had tomboy-isms. The more they began to understand what being queer meant and the different ways queer could look, they started questioning who they actually were. It was in New York City that they had first heard the term nonbinary.
“It was one of those things that sits at the back of your mind and just kind of festers. And you’re like, ‘Why can’t I stop thinking about this? Maybe it’s worth a thought,’” Q said. “Then the thought became curiosity and then curiosity became androgynous and trying different clothing and being like, ‘Oh, I like myself in a suit more than I do a dress. This is interesting.’”
Inwood moved back to Arkansas in 2020 because of COVID-19 and to be closer to their father who was in bad health. It wouldn’t be until after they moved back and had the conversation with their husband, James Inwood, that they finally identified as nonbinary and felt at peace with their identity.
“The idea of society being a social construct is the fertilizer for everything I’ve ever planted in my existence,” Q said. “And so the idea and the conversations that kind of danced around that being that gender, in my opinion, is nonbinary. It’s just an expression to a degree, in my opinion.”
Now, feeling like the storm around them had finally calmed, they felt they didn’t have the emotional anguish to write anymore and turned away from the passion.
“I neglected my master’s program, and looking back on it, I wish that would have been my sole focus,” Inwood said. “It makes me wonder how much wiser or in tune with myself that I could be now if I had done that.” Q feels that their experience in New York City is what gave them the tools to start having adult conversations and communicating their feelings. “It was starting to break down, essentially like this childhood wall that I had built up,” Inwood said.
Inwood and their husband got married, and after buying a camera and having to return it because of finances in 2021, Q decided to give it another shot, and bought another one.
Like the open doors Q never thought they would step through, photography did that for them as well. It opened a world where there’s so much creativity and inspiring people to learn from.
For Inwood, this new form of creativity was hitting all the boxes they wanted.
“I think my purpose is just to be a person who creates safe spaces for people to be themselves or to create ideas. Like a birthing place for someone who might change the world and make sure there’s nothing that can stop them,” Q said. “I’ve realized I have searched for that my entire life, and I tried to find it through religion. I tried to find it, obviously, in the publishing community, but it was never aligning because I didn’t feel confident in myself the way that I do now.”