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Dance-with-me · 10-11-2012, 11:14 AM

I first said out loud that I was interested in women in the spring of '78 - to my best friend who had just told me that he was bisexual, who became my lover within that month and who I married later that year because despite what I knew about myself, I still could not fathom not following the path that was laid out for me - I come from a culture where 16 year old girls get cedar chests from their Granny and household gifts from their other kin, to put the pressure to marry into perspective.

I came out as a lesbian in the fall of 1980. I have been blessed since then with the economic and personal privilege that has made it possible to be mostly out since then at work, in my neighborhoods, within my extended family, and in my personal life.

However, I acknowledge that there are different levels of being out. I really struggled on many levels when I have dated transmen or TG male-ID'd butches. If I referred to them as males in conversation, and allowed others to presume I was straight, I felt as if I were hiding behind that assumption of heterosexuality, and yet it was rarely appropriate to clarify. If I referred to them by pronouns that reflected their biology instead of who they really were, I was sacrificing their identity so that I could be more easily out.

I also am not widely out with regard to my primary identify as a queer femme, and instead allow the default assumption to be that I identify as a lesbian. Even lesbian is hard enough to explain at time - and queer femme is a struggle to explain even within the LGBT community and our allies (which is why this community feels so much like "home" to me - you get me, you really really get me!

).

10-11-2012, 11:14 AM	#17
Dance-with-me Member How Do You Identify?: Femme Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: earth Posts: 419 My Photo Gallery Thanks: 264 Thanked 1,926 Times in 378 Posts Rep Power: 21474849	I first said out loud that I was interested in women in the spring of '78 - to my best friend who had just told me that he was bisexual, who became my lover within that month and who I married later that year because despite what I knew about myself, I still could not fathom not following the path that was laid out for me - I come from a culture where 16 year old girls get cedar chests from their Granny and household gifts from their other kin, to put the pressure to marry into perspective. I came out as a lesbian in the fall of 1980. I have been blessed since then with the economic and personal privilege that has made it possible to be mostly out since then at work, in my neighborhoods, within my extended family, and in my personal life. However, I acknowledge that there are different levels of being out. I really struggled on many levels when I have dated transmen or TG male-ID'd butches. If I referred to them as males in conversation, and allowed others to presume I was straight, I felt as if I were hiding behind that assumption of heterosexuality, and yet it was rarely appropriate to clarify. If I referred to them by pronouns that reflected their biology instead of who they really were, I was sacrificing their identity so that I could be more easily out. I also am not widely out with regard to my primary identify as a queer femme, and instead allow the default assumption to be that I identify as a lesbian. Even lesbian is hard enough to explain at time - and queer femme is a struggle to explain even within the LGBT community and our allies (which is why this community feels so much like "home" to me - you get me, you really really get me! ).