Queer Tamar is still queer?

[tj_rowe]

Been reading Shakesville, and with there having been some comments (Man!Me) made last night... It's just got me thinking about queer spaces and gender presentation and how sometimes, who you feel yourself to be depends on who you're with and how they present, and also how you yourself can be sometimes reactive.

I mean, I pretty much opted out of the LBGT community at York when I got a boyfriend within two weeks of arriving at uni and got caught up in geekdom almost immediately. I didn't go in and introduce myself then to the society-at-large, the.... five? people I did know and talk to have drifted away (at least one of them graduated, IIRC), and now it just seems... Well, I'm not new to here any more. Also, there's the thing of expecting a 'yes, queer woman, but you're monogamous with a partner of the 'opposite' gender. GTFO'. So I continue to not go and introduce myself. They were doing a film night in Wentworth tonight, and I was intending to go, but... It's a group of people who I don't know, much, who I'm expecting resentment from because I would be wanting to be acknowledged as queer/bi, rather than going as a straight ally.

I'm at work still. It would have started about ten minutes ago.

Thing is, I've met plenty of brilliant, feminist and queer (in whatever sense) people through geekdom, too. I have friends. I don't need another community. I have women* to look up to and take lessons from, in both SF&F and Physics (and anime, though I don't see people there often, as such). I can talk to people who come at things from a completely different perspective and have us both come away respecting each other and happier for it. There are people with whom I share a fair amount of background, and can talk with and come away with things to work on and stuff to think about.

I think I'm happy, when I'm not sad. I like my life, even if I don't like some of my circumstances on individual days and weeks. I like being queer at the same time as being female-identified**, monogamous, and completely un-kinky. I wear skirts, though I've been sneered at for it, and I don't wear make-up (unless it's LARP). I like myself, as a rule, even though women aren't 'supposed' to.

...Yeah, I think that's enough said on that. Though.

Maybe it's a young person thing. Being impressionable. It kinda goes with my paganism, too - kinda thinking 'I wish I had more of these people around' kinda thing, because whoever 'these' are, you don't want to think you're doing it wrong, when in actual fact there are very few ways to 'do it wrong'. You work out your own way to be you, and having people to talk to about it can lead to false judgement as often as actual growth. (See: 'real pagans do/n't believe in x!' and the dismissal of anyone who doesn't agree as being a fluff-bunny.)

Now I really will shut up.


*(sorry lads, but appropriating the male gaze doesn't really help on the self-empowerment front. Y'all are great, though, in general, and I have learnt stuff about being an adult from you, too, just not in this context.)

**(I used to identify as a bi-dyke, but I think I'm too weedy at this point.)

Comments

[favouredenemy.livejournal.com]

"Maybe it's a young person thing. Being impressionable... thinking 'I wish I had more of these people around' kinda thing, because whoever 'these' are, you don't want to think you're doing it wrong"

I think it's perfectly natural to want to spend time with people you want to be like/be liked by. And I totally agree that who you are is defined by who you're with. Finding the right people to bring out the best in you is incredibly important: I have Gemma, and I have larp. I'm no saint, and there are plenty of things I wish I could do differently, but being with Gemma and running larp has definitely helped me be a me I can be proud of.

I do share your regret about only have so much time in my life to spend with a limited number of communities, though. Spending so much time creating plot and setting and rules and stuff means I don't have time to do anything else with my time or life - but at the end of the day, I reckon I probably wouldn't bother doing any of those things if I had the time.

Politics vaguely interests me, but not enough to follow it on my own. Philosophy vaguely interestd me, but not enough to research it on my own. Computer systems vaguely interest me, but not enough to play with on my own. Human rights and equality vaguely interest me, but not enough to campaign for on my own.

If I'd met different people, I'd be a different person myself. If instead of Gemma, I'd married someone interested in any of the above things, I'd probably have a load of fun with them doing any of those things. But my life's this way, I'm happy, and it's happening - so I'm going to enjoy it.