Being Visibly Queer: When Every Day is Coming Out Day

Okay, y’all: I’m gonna do something new.  I’ve never used National Coming Out Day as a vehicle for coming out before.  I tend to be pretty out in my life all the time, so while I appreciate this day (which happens to be today) for raising awareness of and prompting conversations about gender and sexual minorities, I haven’t personally observed it differently from any other day.  I had no plans to do anything special to mark today.  Then a conversation with Pandaqueer changed my mind.

If anyone is unclear about who Pandaqueer is, just know that he’s fabulous.  We discussed recent conversations he’d had about femmephobia as it is incorporated into notions of “visible queerness.”  Not sure what I’m talking about?  When searching for a queer community or queer friends, to whom do you look?  What signs tip you off?  What does it mean when you describe someone as “looking so gay”?

If your visions of queer people are exclusively

• thin, white, feminine men
• non-binary folks whose genders you can’t “figure out”
• androgynous and masculine women with “alternative lifestyle haircuts”

THEN YOU NEED TO FUCKING CHECK YOURSELF.  Wake up and open your eyes.

Who gives me a hard time about coming out?

I feel way more pressure to come out and to defend my gender and sexual orientation around queer people than around straight ones.  Non-homophobic straight peeps might not immediately read me as queer, but if/when I tell them, they usually just accept it without interrogating me.  This is probably due in part to their unfamiliarity with the nuances of gender presentation and identity labels within LGBTQ+ communities.  That figures.  At least I don’t need to defend myself at length (we’re not going into homophobic douchebags here).

Queer people are a totally different story.  Now, LGBTQ+ communities are many and varied, so these problems don’t occur in the same way across the board.  I’m speaking directly from my experiences in queer communities I’ve lived in and visited.

I’m speaking about queer communities that prioritize masculinity over femininity–that value studs, butches, androgynous folks, and masculine trans* people, over femmes.  I mean queer organizations in which masc-of-center folks are viewed as the best leaders, the most transgressive, powerful, and brave, the ones who really put themselves out there.  These are the groups in which I have to prove my queerness again and again.

• If I talk to you for an hour about queer theory, will you take me seriously?
• If my relationships look queer to you, will you understand that I’m not confused?
• If I plan LGBTQ+ community events, will you get that I’m here to stay?
• If I explain myself and my choices to you constantly, will you accept that I didn’t put on heels and lipgloss accidentally?
• If I write enough of these blog posts, will you see that I’m not helpless or unaware of patriarchal oppression?
• If I teach you the word femmephobia, will you recognize your own behavior?

Let me be clear: there are some amazing, transgressive, powerful, brave masc-of-center queer folks and they should be celebrated.  Gender non-conforming queer people (such as non-binary folks and masc-of-center women) face different challenges than those of us who are gender conforming (or perceived to be).  The problem is when the attention paid to them eclipses everyone else.  This happens particularly in the case of feminine-of-center and femme people.  (That I feel I have to justify writing about femmes and explain that I haven’t forgotten about masculine queer people is indicative of the problem.)

If you think “queer” and never think femme, that’s a problem.  Retrain your brain.  If you think “queer” and every image that appears in your brain looks the same (think race, gender presentation, age, ability, body type, class, nationality), check yourself.  Interrogate your assumptions.

Okay, Here We Go:

My name is Tamar and I am a pansexual, femme, cisgender woman.  I am not “hiding” in femme.  I’m here and I’m visible every day.  If you don’t see me, that your problem.

Phew–now that that’s out of the way, have a lovely video.

Pansexuals, Pansexuals Everywhere! We’re Taking Over!

Texas State Rep. Mary Gonzalez, a recently elected Democrat from El Paso, has just come out as pansexual.  HELLO TO THE FIRST OPENLY PAN ELECTED OFFICIAL IN THE USA!!!

HuffPo states that Gonzalez came out as bisexual when she was 21 years old, but later felt that this label didn’t fit:

“As I started to recognize the gender spectrum and dated along the gender spectrum, I was searching for words that connected to that reality, for words that embraced the spectrum. At the time I didn’t feel as if the term bisexual was encompassing of a gender spectrum that I was dating and attracted to.”

Feministing adds that Rep. Gonzalez initially was out as queer while campaigning for her State Rep seat, but the poor old news media didn’t know what to do with that information, so she stuck with the term gay (to which the media responded by calling her lesbian).

“During the campaign if I had identified as pansexual, I would have overwhelmed everyone,” she said.  “Now that I’m out of the campaign, I’m completely much more able to define it.”

HOLY SHIT.  Can we all just stop for a minute and realize that a politician just spoke openly and articulately about pansexuality?  She’s not dumbing it down and giving a news bite definition that rests at the lowest common denominator of understanding.  She’s actually discussing dating and/or being attracted to women, men, genderqueer people, and trans* people like they’re normal, acceptable parts of life…cuz, ya know, they are.  (Surprise!)  Also, mad props to her for raising the profile of queer Latinas and uncompromisingly being herself.  In case anyone is missing how big a deal this is, here’s a blow-by-blow of my response.

Me: Sees article on Facebook.  Headline = “Mary Gonzalez will be the first out pansexual legislator in the US”

Me in my head:  Oh my god.  Oh.  My.  God.  Oh my god oh my god oh my god.  I have to tell Pandaqueer!

(FYI Pandaqueer = one of the loves of my life, with whom I’ve had many a great gendery spiel.)

PQ: WHAT?!  PANSEXUAL REPRESENT?!

Me: HELL YEAH MUTHAFUCKAS!!!

Me: I AM HANDLING THIS MATURELY

PQ: YES.  OH MY GOD IT’S EXCITING.  I NEED TO MAKE US MATCHING PANSEXUAL FRIENDSHIP BRACELETS.

Me: YES AND WE WILL SEND HER ONE, ALONG WITH A LETTER PROFESSING MY UNDYING LOVE AND ADMIRATION.

PQ: MINE TOO PLEASE.

And then I devolved into an unintelligible mess because I had too many blog post ideas all at once.

In case this is not explanation enough, I will try to be serious for a moment.  I’ve often joked with my friends that I never expect to see anyone I identify with (especially in regard to views on gender/sexual orientation/politics) on TV or in the mainstream media and that if I do, I’ll assume something’s gravely wrong.  Let’s suspend reality for a sec and imagine me going into politics.  I’ve never been able to envision myself running for office and being totally open about my sexual orientation because, of course, that would necessitate explaining non-binary genders and assigned sexes and gender fluidity.  We all know that addressing those amid conversations of “American family values” would get me slapped with the “off-the-charts liberal nut job” sticker (which, let’s be real, is incredibly accurate).  Those terms would also be deemed too complicated for the public to understand and I would be pressured to “simplify” my identity and fit into a box that people are already familiar with, but to which I would have no connection.  Cue my endless frustration.

Bottom line: the notion that a political figure would actually use the word pansexual any time this decade–let alone 4 days ago–is stunning to me.  I will certainly write her that letter of love and admiration.

Psssst, Tamar! What is pansexuality?

I hear some of you wondering this across the vast reaches of the internet.  As much as I would like to release you to the wondrous world of the interwebs and tell you to get on Google and edumacate yourselves, in this case, that might lead somewhere unfortunate.  Periodically, I Google pansexual (as well as a slew of other gender and sexuality terms) just to see what would show up if I were trying to learn about these things for the first time.  The good news: in the last three and a half years (since I started doing this), definitions have expanded exponentially, thanks in large part to the blogosphere.  Now even Wikipedia is getting hip to the kids’ brand spankin’ new vocab words.  Still, I’m concerned about some of the “information” that’s out there.

According to Yahoo Answers’ “What is a pansexual?” page, “they are COOL PEOPLE.”  That’s lovely, dear, but not very helpful.  Other answers on this thread include “someone who’s unbelievably easy” and “sexually attracted to cookware.”  How I love the world today.

I cannot speak for all pan people–clearly, everyone experiences their sexuality differently–but here’s a good working definition.  Pansexuality means an attraction to people of many/all sexes and genders.  To clear up some common misconceptions: it doesn’t mean being attracted to/wanting to sleep with every single person all the time (how exhausting!), nor does it have anything to do with pedophilia or bestiality.  One phrase that I’ve seen tossed around a bunch is that pan people are “gender blind” and can’t see gender at all.  Excuse me, but…what??  To me, this sounds suspiciously like the people who claim to be “color blind” and unable to see race, when really they mean that they refuse to acknowledge it.  Am I attracted to people of many sexes and genders?  Yes.  Does this mean that I simply pass over these part of their identities and don’t notice them at all?  Absolutely not.  I just find different things to appreciate about various identities, so I’m not gonna discount anyone as a potential partner simply because of their sex or gender(s).  Everyone gets an equal chance in this regard.  If you can’t handle my obsessions with purple things and brie?  Well, that’s an entirely different story.

Who came up with these colors?

Greetings, friends and comrades.  Today I would like to discuss a very important and serious issue in my life: the pansexual flag.

Does it remind anyone else of Superman ice cream?  (FYI for  all you curious kiddies out there: I don’t recommend trying it–it tastes like blue and yellow.)

Given my penchant for being ever so slightly over the top, I would love to incorporate this symbol of one of my identities visually into my life and occasionally my wardrobe.  I would totally wear a pan flag to pride, if not for the fact that I would feel like a huge poof of cotton candy.  This is a problem.  It causes me great distress to know that I can never fully take this flag seriously.  Every time I start to feel a swell of pride, my mind and heart are derailed by memories of looking at this odd flavor in ice cream shops and wondering what it would look like when all the vibrant hues melted together down the side of my sugar cone.