2005
Tracking back.
I got sucked into reading Queer In America last night and managed to devour three chapters before realizing I should probably get some sleep or at the very least try to get some sleep. So far, I’m interested in the book, but also annoyed with some of the assumptions (that all closets are bad, that if you’re gay you need to be out and proud at all costs, etc.) I’m also a little put-off by the very male-centricity of the book. I know it’s that way because it is written by a gay man, but I think that my irritation with it isn’t so much the book itself but rather that there are precious few books that speak to the lesbian experience that aren’t histories, relationship books, or erotica. At least, I haven’t found many that fit into those categories (though I’m not sure how to classify the plethora of coming-out books.) The author makes a claim that baby dykes have it the worst of all because they are shunned by both little boys and little girls. I’m not sure that is entirely the case, at least not until we hit junior high/high school. Some days, I am terribly tempted to start work on a book that talks about the lesbian experience but I don’t half know where to start.
I started thinking a lot about an old friend of mine last night before I fell asleep. She was the only lesbian I knew growing up and while I took to the closet in high school, she came out. She didn’t stop being my friend, she just started maneuvering the friendship in ways so that should bullies appear on the scene, I wouldn’t get beating up for being a friend of a dyke. I also started thinking about the first time I was called a dyke, or rather, a queer. I was in the seventh grade. I was Not Girly At All in the seventh grade. I was also terribly into sports, which was a horrible place to be when all the girls around you in the locker room are running around scantily clad and sweaty. I was in the lunch line with my friend Amy (the one who would come out in a year or so,) and I was wearing these fantastic sandals, having my crunch earth girl moment, as was Amy (who was the most femme thing I’d ever seen) and we had our arms around each other, singing, being goofy. One of my male friends, Tim, came up to me, looked me dead in the eyes, and said “what are you, a fucking queer?” Without thinking, I didn’t confirm or deny. I just slugged him. One right hook to the jaw. I busted his lip. He never tattled, but I became intensely aware of being called queer. By eighth grade, I was into makeup, purses, and shoes to balance my sportiness.
I spent a few hours last night tumbling back over my life for evidence of queerness, revisiting old memories and wondering how my parents could have missed the signs. I had a couple of mild crushes on boys in junior high–but always the girlier boys. And in elementary school, I remember being fascinated with my friend Jenny’s lips. I was startled for a long moment last night when I remembered that in addition to my having a fascination with Jenny, we had also undressed for each other at a slumber party when I was ten (she had developed boobs, I hadn’t.) I thought about all of the times in childhood spenting holding hands with female friends, running around naked in sprinklers with them in the summers. I remember how it all came to a sharp halt when Tim called me queer at thirteen. I remember the resolute voice in my head that chimed in with “we are NOT queer” and how that rang out over and over again as I got older. I remember how miserable it was to sit quietly in high school while Amy got beaten up. I remember giving Amy all of my Melissa Etheridge cassettes upon realizing Melissa Etheridge was gay because if people knew I listened to Etheridge, they’d think me gay, too.
I look back now and I think about what a miserable experience that was.
They say that something like thirty percent of teen suicides are committed by lesbian and gay youth.
I wonder now how I didn’t end up a piece of that thirty percent.
By Nickie
