2005-03-26 - 7:35 p.m.
Truth in labeling

To the well-meaning people up here who seem shocked that I am literate and liberal, given the place I grew up: You are not being complimentary. You are being insulting. To me, to my parents, and to everyone not from wherever you're from.

To lots and lots of people in my life, to whom this will apply to varying degrees: I don't go around bashing on your dating and lifestyle choices. So leave me the hell alone about mine. Don't ask me where I'm going after graduation if you're not going to be supportive when I tell you I'm going home to live with my loved one.

To queers that I have been encountering lately, along the same lines: I find it very funny when your opinion of my plans changes, when the smile leaves your face, when I use the word "boyfriend" instead of "partner." Apparently moving to South Carolina is progressive, challenging to the status quo, and gutsy, as long as my "partner" might be female. But when it turns out to be a guy, suddenly moving to South Carolina becomes foolhardy and "Stand by Your Man"-ish, and I get advised--warned--to keep my options open.

I'm not straight enough for my boyfriend, nor am I queer enough for the rest of the world. None of this is based on anything overt, just on people's remarks and on looks I get sometimes.

I like "queer." It has a lot fewer syllables than "bisexual" and it doesn't commit me to binary gender fascism the way that "bisexual" does.

And maybe I never exactly lived as a lesbian. I just went to my meetings and wore my buttons, and read all the right books, and listened to some of the right tunes, and let people assume what they wanted. By no means does that mean I got a free pass on fear, and insults, and derision. I could tell you things from my junior year of high school that I have tried valiantly not to think about over the last 11 years, because if I were to think about them, it would be almost impossible to be on speaking terms with my family, and it would be definitely impossible to think about moving home. I got shit for the goddamn rainbow pin on my bookbag in college, for fuck's sake. My first roommate, who had been president of the Democratic group of her high school in Greensboro, North Carolina, pointed to it and urged me to trade it for one that said something about embracing diversity. Or else people would assume things, she said. (I wasn't about to say that I wanted people to assume things.)

And maybe this damage is what kept me from actively pursuing women, or from being involved in the Boston bisexual community. At the same time, I haven't pursued much of anything for the last three years, and I don't think it's fair to judge anyone too harshly based on their social life in law school.

And I would never say that my experience has been as hard as some people's. I know that it hasn't. I'm lucky I kept my mouth shut as much as I did, and that I didn't get kicked out like so many people do, and that my therapist, the one I usually refer to here as the Evil Therapist, was completely cool when I told her about the crush I had going on my new best friend.

When I was a senior in my undergrad dorm, it was obvious that in terms of sexuality, the incoming freshmen had grown up in a different world. It was so heartening to see that, and yet that didn't make it safe enough for me. Nothing did. At the same time, the one time it almost sort-of happened on its own, when I was living in a more-than-safe place, I was so obsessive about it that I ran it into the ground. And I actually gave her shit about not being out to her parents, if you can believe that.

I don't want to change my label from "queer" to "ally," even though I could get away with exactly that. Because I feel strongly that to do so would be to lie. I am about to move back to a place where being queer still means something scary to a lot of people. And in my experience it is being communicative that changes people's minds. So that will be part of my work down there.

woogie - woo