Originally published by the Trinity Queer Society:
http://www.trinitylgbt.com/my-identity-is-less-like-a-word-more-like-the-feel-of-sunshine-on-your-skin-by-kelty-kauffman/
This morning I buttoned my flannel shirt all the way up to my chin, pulled a beanie over my dykey short hair and folded my skinny jeans up over my Doc Martens. And I’m a femme, okay?
I started getting identified by queers and str8s alike as “A Gay” when I cut off all my bleach-damaged hair and begrudgingly started wearing pants to prepare for my move from Santa Barbara to Dublin. New city, new ultra queer identity, apparently. Girls with undercuts on the bus were suddenly making eye contact. Grannies sitting next to me at Starbucks were sneering. Boys were shoving me into bar stools as they elbowed past me to talk to my straight friends, and drunk girls I was kind enough to pay a compliment to were calling me a dyke while they climbed into their cabs. Ah yes, my straight passing privilege seemed to have disappeared on this soggy little island. I’m suddenly gay.
At first I was thrilled. I called my partner up at 5 in the morning California time to tell her that a girl had checked me out at school that day and that I was so excited. She mumbled that she was very happy for me but that she was my girlfriend and she would really prefer if I kept my stories about eye-fucking other girls to myself, and then fell back asleep without hanging up, and I listened to her even sleep-breathing contentedly. It was a whole new world! I was included when the queers on facebook discussed the “Gay Experience!” I was the faceless homo being referred to on the news when they mentioned the elusive “LGBT Community!” I was young, and gay and free.
For about one month. And then I realized that people were reading me as a lesbian, as a tomboy, as androgynous, as the perfect example of what girls who have sex with girls are supposed to look like. And all of my excitement came crashing down around me because no one knew my secret! Underneath my newfound boots-with-jeans-and-a-baggy-sweater exterior, I was, and am, a big pink, sparkly, sugary sweet femme princess complete with a tiara and perfect makeup. I’m sorry to let you down, everyone.
See, I didn’t know I’d have to give up all that sticky gooey cotton candy aesthetic when I turned up the intensity of my gayness by wearing fewer skirts! This had never been the issue before. I worked in a high end cosmetics store up until I moved here, where my hairy legs were always hidden by girly pastel stockings and my hair was bright pink and cut in a perfect bob. My nails were always freshly manicured and my eyeliner was better than any you’ve ever seen. I’m not bragging, it’s just a fact; I knew eyeshadow better than anyone (please stop buying the Urban Decay Naked Palette it’s literally just nude colors, you can get the exact same thing for a quarter of the price at any drugstore) and my taste in blush was exquisite (Mac’s eyeshadows are overrated but their face powders are hand delivered by the gods directly onto your now prominent, rosy cheekbones.) I was the human embodiment of Princess Bubblegum and just as queer.
When people (and by people I mean str8 ppl mostly, but your average gays as well) read me as “feminine,” my sexuality was this strange and foreign thing to them. I was this glittery slutty enigma that seemed both weirdly omnisexual and aggressively queer. I took a lot of selfies in which I looked ~ethereal~ and my best friend sweetly dubbed my style “grungey princess chic.” I was truly a mess of nail polish and frilly socks and heavily filled-in eyebrows and kissing girls on the mouth with tongue.
So you can imagine my disappointment right? You can imagine how terribly dull and verging on painful it is to suddenly have my beautifully messy identity stripped of the lace and rhinestones that I’ve been hand sewing around the hems of my gender expression since I first came out of the closet, uncertain if I was allowed to be gay and pastel pink fake velvet at the same time. I am starting to ache because of this strange gender binary that was created by cisgender heterosexuals but is so often embraced by queers. It that says I only deserve to have my identity recognized if I look and seem “gay,” and it’s tiresome. Because it is an invention of a heteropatriarchal system that wants to know if you’re a butch or a femme, are you a lesbian or bisexual, if you use strap-ons why not just have sex with a man, who is better in bed: men or women, who is the man in the relationship, how do girls have sex, what do girls do in bed, how can you do it with a girl, how do lesbians lose their virginity, what’s it like with a girl???
I don’t want to answer any of these questions because they are ridiculous and cissexist and most of all, boring. I can’t answer straight-people-questions anymore and I’m tired of being asked them. So why would I give anyone my identity in a word; or worse allow them to assume it for me? Why would I sacrifice the very thing that makes me queer so that I am easily understood by people who are not really trying all that hard to understand? It has taken me years to realize that the closest I can get to accurately describing myself and my sexuality is when my jaw drops open and paragraph after paragraph begins to pour out. Descriptions of the little hairs on the back of a girl’s neck, the way I take up space on public transportation, how I can’t sleep unless I’m naked, the way I own twenty two pairs of tights but only two pairs of shoes, how eye contact can act as foreplay, how much I love wearing my dad’s shirts, the way my favorite smell is orange rinds and my partner’s hair. All of this is my queerness. All of this is my identity. Why would I do you the favor of letting you understand me in one word when I had to fight against everything I have internalized for twenty years in order to know myself?
When my classmate laughed and told me I was butch after I cut my hair, I think inside my heart a small fire began to burn. When a friend called me an “obvious lesbian” she threw gasoline on the kindling and my blood began to boil. When my dad told me that my “new look makes sense since you’re gay now,” hot words started bubbling up and out of my mouth:
I’m like chewy bubblegum that sweetens your spit
I’m like my old boots stained with spray paint from protest signs
I’m like disappearing in your mouth like cotton candy
I’m like makeup applied so heavily that your mother tells you the boys won’t like that
I’m like smearing strawberry chapstick on everyone’s cheeks
My identity is a pretty pink question mark, please don’t disrespect me by not being confused.
http://www.trinitylgbt.com/my-identity-is-less-like-a-word-more-like-the-feel-of-sunshine-on-your-skin-by-kelty-kauffman/
This morning I buttoned my flannel shirt all the way up to my chin, pulled a beanie over my dykey short hair and folded my skinny jeans up over my Doc Martens. And I’m a femme, okay?
I started getting identified by queers and str8s alike as “A Gay” when I cut off all my bleach-damaged hair and begrudgingly started wearing pants to prepare for my move from Santa Barbara to Dublin. New city, new ultra queer identity, apparently. Girls with undercuts on the bus were suddenly making eye contact. Grannies sitting next to me at Starbucks were sneering. Boys were shoving me into bar stools as they elbowed past me to talk to my straight friends, and drunk girls I was kind enough to pay a compliment to were calling me a dyke while they climbed into their cabs. Ah yes, my straight passing privilege seemed to have disappeared on this soggy little island. I’m suddenly gay.
At first I was thrilled. I called my partner up at 5 in the morning California time to tell her that a girl had checked me out at school that day and that I was so excited. She mumbled that she was very happy for me but that she was my girlfriend and she would really prefer if I kept my stories about eye-fucking other girls to myself, and then fell back asleep without hanging up, and I listened to her even sleep-breathing contentedly. It was a whole new world! I was included when the queers on facebook discussed the “Gay Experience!” I was the faceless homo being referred to on the news when they mentioned the elusive “LGBT Community!” I was young, and gay and free.
For about one month. And then I realized that people were reading me as a lesbian, as a tomboy, as androgynous, as the perfect example of what girls who have sex with girls are supposed to look like. And all of my excitement came crashing down around me because no one knew my secret! Underneath my newfound boots-with-jeans-and-a-baggy-sweater exterior, I was, and am, a big pink, sparkly, sugary sweet femme princess complete with a tiara and perfect makeup. I’m sorry to let you down, everyone.
See, I didn’t know I’d have to give up all that sticky gooey cotton candy aesthetic when I turned up the intensity of my gayness by wearing fewer skirts! This had never been the issue before. I worked in a high end cosmetics store up until I moved here, where my hairy legs were always hidden by girly pastel stockings and my hair was bright pink and cut in a perfect bob. My nails were always freshly manicured and my eyeliner was better than any you’ve ever seen. I’m not bragging, it’s just a fact; I knew eyeshadow better than anyone (please stop buying the Urban Decay Naked Palette it’s literally just nude colors, you can get the exact same thing for a quarter of the price at any drugstore) and my taste in blush was exquisite (Mac’s eyeshadows are overrated but their face powders are hand delivered by the gods directly onto your now prominent, rosy cheekbones.) I was the human embodiment of Princess Bubblegum and just as queer.
When people (and by people I mean str8 ppl mostly, but your average gays as well) read me as “feminine,” my sexuality was this strange and foreign thing to them. I was this glittery slutty enigma that seemed both weirdly omnisexual and aggressively queer. I took a lot of selfies in which I looked ~ethereal~ and my best friend sweetly dubbed my style “grungey princess chic.” I was truly a mess of nail polish and frilly socks and heavily filled-in eyebrows and kissing girls on the mouth with tongue.
So you can imagine my disappointment right? You can imagine how terribly dull and verging on painful it is to suddenly have my beautifully messy identity stripped of the lace and rhinestones that I’ve been hand sewing around the hems of my gender expression since I first came out of the closet, uncertain if I was allowed to be gay and pastel pink fake velvet at the same time. I am starting to ache because of this strange gender binary that was created by cisgender heterosexuals but is so often embraced by queers. It that says I only deserve to have my identity recognized if I look and seem “gay,” and it’s tiresome. Because it is an invention of a heteropatriarchal system that wants to know if you’re a butch or a femme, are you a lesbian or bisexual, if you use strap-ons why not just have sex with a man, who is better in bed: men or women, who is the man in the relationship, how do girls have sex, what do girls do in bed, how can you do it with a girl, how do lesbians lose their virginity, what’s it like with a girl???
I don’t want to answer any of these questions because they are ridiculous and cissexist and most of all, boring. I can’t answer straight-people-questions anymore and I’m tired of being asked them. So why would I give anyone my identity in a word; or worse allow them to assume it for me? Why would I sacrifice the very thing that makes me queer so that I am easily understood by people who are not really trying all that hard to understand? It has taken me years to realize that the closest I can get to accurately describing myself and my sexuality is when my jaw drops open and paragraph after paragraph begins to pour out. Descriptions of the little hairs on the back of a girl’s neck, the way I take up space on public transportation, how I can’t sleep unless I’m naked, the way I own twenty two pairs of tights but only two pairs of shoes, how eye contact can act as foreplay, how much I love wearing my dad’s shirts, the way my favorite smell is orange rinds and my partner’s hair. All of this is my queerness. All of this is my identity. Why would I do you the favor of letting you understand me in one word when I had to fight against everything I have internalized for twenty years in order to know myself?
When my classmate laughed and told me I was butch after I cut my hair, I think inside my heart a small fire began to burn. When a friend called me an “obvious lesbian” she threw gasoline on the kindling and my blood began to boil. When my dad told me that my “new look makes sense since you’re gay now,” hot words started bubbling up and out of my mouth:
I’m like chewy bubblegum that sweetens your spit
I’m like my old boots stained with spray paint from protest signs
I’m like disappearing in your mouth like cotton candy
I’m like makeup applied so heavily that your mother tells you the boys won’t like that
I’m like smearing strawberry chapstick on everyone’s cheeks
My identity is a pretty pink question mark, please don’t disrespect me by not being confused.