What did you wish you knew growing up about
lesbianism or butchness?
I wish I knew that I did not need to cater to men, that I didn’t need to be attracted to men. Or that my love for masculinity didn’t necessarily mean that I had to be a boy. I wish I knew how freeing lesbianism is and how much comfort I could find in it. I wish I knew that I did not have to be afraid of my truths, to feel guilty for my being. I wish I knew simply that it was not a bad or immoral way to be or feel. I think this is probably true for a lot of people when you grow up, maybe it's improving now because of acceptance of the LGBTQ community is so strong and that wasn’t the case when I was a kid. There were a lot of us growing up where it’s not something you talked about and didn’t even talk about it on TV. I grew up with AIDS being the big conversation around the gay and lesbian community and how horrible that was and how that’s the last thing that you want to associate yourself with. So and again with that’s just about the gay community and about butch or any kind of lesbian identity most of it was just negative. Then college it kind of was about that turning point to start talking about. Even the community was kinda going through this whole thing; they hadn’t even included the T in LGBT yet so they were just starting to include the B. Feeling like you're supposed to like a man is a big part of the whole thing. For me it was I realize that I was attracted to women really early on that was an easy hurdle to get over like I figured that out like freshman year of high school I was like, oh OK women, but it wasn't until it slowly like from freshman year high school was slowly an evolution of leaning towards preference towards women until about two years and change ago, then it was nah it’s only women. I think having that; especially how insufferable straight relationships can be portrayed like there was supposed to be a certain amount of disdain I was supposed to have. I had way too many boyfriends for someone who ended up being a lesbian. I did too many of those. I wish I had seen more than just like two very feminine women in media because I feel that's the only big representation we get you know. I wouldn’t call Ellen a butch in any sense of the word. Ellen’s definitely lesbian, but Ellen’s definitely not a butch. She and Portia are two pretty feminine people. That it was not just like this one stereotype. It was not just like... I forget the actresses name but there's like this one is there that one stereotype that comes to mind and she's in Orange is the New Black, Big Boo yeah. She was like in one episode of Friends where there's this one lesbian couple and they have a wedding and Friends was like huge part of my childhood and she was there as one of the guests and she was exactly how you would imagine, that kind of predatory butch woman at the wedding hitting on straight women. And that’s exactly what I thought it was. Obviously it had so many negative connotations like that’s the thing you don’t be, that’s the thing that’s not ok, that’s the thing that no one finds attractive or likes, they’re like a joke. So I wish I heard from people who weren’t afraid of that and I think all that I heard was people who were so afraid of women who don’t conform and of course what you’re afraid of you only form the story according to your fears. I guess I wasn’t even this far, but also a preconception I had or not thinking about it until presenting like this in the world everyday, I didn’t know how hard it was. Like even though I knew growing up of course most people aren’t down with it, but how it actually feels on the receiving end of the bat. Do you know when you walk into a room and people feel uncomfortable with you? And you get a weird different receiving end of misogyny. And that’s OK. It’s not OK, but you’re OK. I kinda love it because no part of me cares about that gaze anymore. If you’re not OK with at, if that makes you uncomfortable, if that irks you in some way, there’s a problem with that person in how they’re not OK with themselves in a bad way. It’s a great lesson to learn about the world and learning how to guard yourself from that and move on from that. And in the end leave that behind. That there were more people that felt just like me. I wished I'd known at an earlier age that loving women was an option and where to find lesbians. I wish I had a role model, or at least access to information about people feeling the way I felt. Far easier than figuring it out on your own. I wish there was more information readily available. Now, info is everywhere, but before it was self-study. I wish I would've known that the option to be masculine was there. I never knew it was, I was just given femininity and thought that was all there was. I also wish I'd known what a lesbian was before 9. |
I wish I knew everything. Truly for all these phases you know I grew up in a small town in Canada and it’s like 120,000, but it was so isolated that nobody came and went. It felt like this really small town. I now see the queer community that is there but even so it's not as progressive and so like growing up I had no idea you know and so they were phases of like OK really wanting to fit in knowing I don’t. You have that feeling when you don’t fit right knowing I don't fit in but like OK I can do these things to fit in and like I'm just going through the motions because I don’t feel anything like I'm supposed to feel. I wish that there were folks who were out and who were like oh OK you like girls cool. I was thinking like I have loved girls when I was a young girl myself, but my whole life I love women but it's always just a different like growing up. I just knew like I just always wanted to play with this one particular friend, it was not sexual, it was nothing, I was just like I'm devoted to you. I will spend my time with you and I've always had that and then it was OK what does that mean as I got older and then to be honest I was terrified I was like oh I want to sex with women like this changes everything and then there is the coming out and then there was really like OK now who am I? I'm a lesbian, great, but what is that feel like, one look like to me, it was like 19 coming out to elements you know. And some were bumpier than others but I really do wish there were more folks. I'm talking about it you know when I get really inspired when I see younger folks like you folks take it on and you know work like this and wanting to have these conversations because that was nowhere in sight when I was growing up and it's so vital. I think that's one of the reasons now that is so vital for me to be in a place where I can show up authentically as I am day in and day out and unapologetically. This is who I am and if you're uncomfortable with it that's on you. That’s not on me. My job is to show up in the space as I am so that other folks can at least be like what she looks like she's doing OK so maybe I can be ok too. I knew relatively a lot about lesbianism. My family is very very firmly progressive and my mother would sing to me the Fred Small song “Everything Possible,” which has you can be anybody you want to be, you can love anyone you love, and be like some women love women and some men love men. I know a lot of people were like I didn't even realize it was possible, but I firmly had it in consideration for a very long time and I knew some lesbians. I didn't really know butches. I had my fifth grade teacher who is like reasonably butch. Not that it's a scale. But, I guess it took a while to understand like handsome women. I wish I had had known butchness was attractive because took so long to decouple femininity from attractiveness. Ok let’s do those one at a time. So butch identity, I guess that it was like a normal thing and it doesn't make you any less of a girl. There's nothing wrong with it it's just a way of expressing who you are. And that's something that I wish was conveyed to me. And then the other part was lesbianism, so I grew up in a white suburban Arizona and as a product of that was very homophobic because I mean I didn't know better. I just knew the gays. I remember it like in eighth grade we had to do a current event project and I looked at one “don't ask don't tell” was repealed and I was like “oh no those gays.” And then freshman year of high school I came to the realization, oh no I like boobs and like there was a lot of internalized shame and homophobia because all of that and a lot of just cognitive dissonance. And then one of the things I really wish was like knowing that gay is OK. I wish that I knew that this was an option, not that phrasing it like this was an option makes it sound like it was a choice that I firmly don’t believe that me existing this way is a choice. I think this is just how it’s going to be. I think I could’ve gotten here sooner had I had more community growing up. But I feel like that’s so hard because what parent is going to be like butch lesbian role models for their daughters. But I think that had I seen other people like me out in the world and known that didn’t have to be a certain way would’ve been really powerful. Because I couldn’t even tell you what I thought of lesbians as a kid. I feel like even though I grew up in a really liberal area, I’m from the Seattle area, and everybody is oh like liberal, utopia, whatever. But I do feel like my extended family is relatively conservative and the only context I ever heard gay or lesbian people being brought up around my family outside of my parents was in a negative context. I first cut my hair short when I was 16 and my uncle pulled my mom aside and told her that I shouldn’t be allowed cut it shorter or I would turn into a lesbian. So that was the kind of stuff I heard and it was never like positive lesbian role models, positive butch role models. It was neutral if leaning towards bad. That it’s okay to be a woman and be masculine, these things are normal and okay. Loving women and only women is okay and doesn’t make me restrictive or regressive. Being a lesbian is beautiful and whole and lovely and good. Butchness is not “manly/ugly,” it is strong and soft and powerful. I wish I knew adult lesbians and masculine/butch adult women. It would've changed everything to know that I could grow up that way, that I didn't have to change myself either to be very feminine or to be a man instead. |