Probably the most eye-opening and ridiculous thing that
happened this pride was yesterday, when I became seriously concerned that I looked
like a straight girl. My worry was
that I looked too much like a regular girl, rather than a queer one. I had
jumped past worrying if people thought I was a trans or cis girl and was on a
whole different level. On the BART Saturday (on our way to dyke march), my
(complicated, non-monogamous) girlfriend Rach and I overheard these two queer girls complaining about how rainbow tutus actually identify you as a straight girl,
rather than a gay one (at Pride, many of the queer people just dress like
normal/queer people [which believe it or not doesn’t always include ridiculous
rainbow outfits]…it’s generally the straight people who wear all of the
cheap ridiculous rainbow outfits that you can buy at pride). Rach, who was
wearing a rainbow bustle that day was somewhat offended by this comment (after
all, she is queer) and we discussed
it for the next day or two. Essentially, Rach has a very “everyone should just
do whatever makes you happy” belief. I try
to always have that mindset and I managed to maintain it through Saturday.
However, yesterday (the main pride day) was probably at
least 50-60% populated with straight and cisgender people just there for fun,
while Trans March (Friday) and Dyke March (Saturday) both were probably more
than 75% populated with queer/trans people (and/or allies who were actively
fighting for the cause). Through Saturday, I had felt so comfortable and happy seeing all of these people. I found my
family! My people. I wasn’t alone. In fact, for that group, even with my homemade
rainbow fur vest, I blended in so
well! It was amazing. I loved it.
But then yesterday, there were enormous crowds, many of
which were largely filled with people who don’t at all identify as LGBTQIA etc.
or even as allies. There were too many unfriendly/ignorant stares and comments
for that entire crowd to be filled with (decently educated) allies. But for
once, I’m not trying to criticize these people. Unless they go (back?) to
gay-bashing today, who knows, maybe they learned a little and enjoyed a little
bit of queerness. Good for them!
My concern for not wanting to be seen as a straight girl
wasn’t because I thought it was bad to be straight. In fact, I didn’t really
care about the non-queer peeps much. I just wanted the other queer people (particular queer women and trans people of any
age) to know I was one of them. I wanted my family (LGBT people) to know that I
was an insider, rather than a once-a-year queer. I wanted to be proud and
ridiculous, but I felt like I was balancing two different identities. For a
long time after coming out, I felt that being trans was first and foremost my best identifier and
being a queer lady was a secondary one. But as I meet more and more queer
women, many (if not most) of which are actually way more masculine that me, it
seems so silly for “trans” to be a qualifier/identifier in every situation.
After all (for a few reasons), I have way more lesbian than trans friends (and
no, those categories are not mutually exclusive), so it makes sense that I find
myself more concerned with the thoughts of people in that group who are now
starting to define me (in a new, awesome way).
I kept wanting to buy rainbow stuff. After all, in regular
life, one or two rainbow items are a great identifier for queer people.
However, during pride, too many rainbows is actually an identifier of non-queer
people who want to celebrate (or parody) queerness, but aren’t in-tune enough
or comfortable enough with the real LGBT community to know how to present as
queer without a (figuratively) black-and-white color pattern. So, after I had
planned ahead with a few items, bought a few more, took off my vest (I started the day
with just a bra, my lace vest, and my uber-queer demin jacket), and inherited
Rach’s emergency rainbow tutu, I realized that I looked way more like all of the straight girls there than like any of my
(queer) friends.
It’s all about a sense of belonging. After all, day-to-day
(not in the Bay Area) being queer is often something that makes you not belong in a place. I wanted to
experience as much belonging as I could and it was frustrating that I fell into
this ironic and hilarious trap of trying to look too queer that I actually ended up looking neither trans nor queer.
That realization alone however made the struggle entirely worth it!
P.S. I don’t really like the well-accepted trans flag (light
blue, white, and pink), because it makes so much less sense to me than the alternative
trans symbol where pink fades to blue (through purple), plus I like the fashion
of rainbows better…hence my wardrobe choices. Happy Pride Everyone!
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