public post: do you think apples ask other apples what variety of apple they are?
So the story goes, yesterday night I was sitting in front of Casablanca when my housemate (who has been my friend for fifteen good years) asked if he could borrow my car to run some cupcakes into the univeristy union for friends of his in Women's Collective, because they're having a bake sale today. One of these friends is a trans guy, Ben, and my housemate (the artist formerly known as Sheila, as like to call it) is just beginning to look into transitioning, so they've become quite close -- Ben's taken T, and knows the right counsellors etc. not to mention has a personal experience to share. I understand it. (Plus he's a nice enough guy, it's just that we've never really bonded personally.)
So I've known Ben and Jaya since the beginning of the year through Queer Collective, but we've never really socialised outside of meetings. I like them both well enough, but I wouldn't consider us friends. And I was driving them home, we were stopped at a stoplight, when Ben asks "what kind of queer are you?" and normally this doesn't bother me, but for some reason, coming from this guy it really did. I'm kind of get used to straight people asking and a lot of the time I volunteer the information myself without too much fuss. I don't know. Maybe it was because I felt like it shouldn't matter to them? Maybe it was because I got the strong sense it was because I don't look like enough of a same-sex attracted woman for him?
(I feel this way with most of the collective really -- like beacuse I'm not actively dating a woman and I really enjoy having long hair and wearing skirts, I'm letting them down. Though I have occasionally started wearing oversized men's shirts. That gets me lesbian points right? Tbh sometimes I find the whole community fairly ridiculous on this point. With these guys I actually feel like we're competeing for gay of the year or something sometimes...)
Maybe I'm just sensitive about it.
In any case, it kind of made me take pause. I was actually fairly embarrassed. It felt a little like a call out. And while I'm sure it was meant with the best of intentions and possibly only a hint of curiousity, my instinct was still to scream fuck off. I'm more than willing to be honest about my sexuality, but I hate it when I feel like I'm only doing so because other people want the gossip. This is why I barely came out to anyone at high school. Who I am attracted to is not a talking point. I have always been firm on this. Anyway I just sort of babbled like a fish out of water would if it could talk for like five minutes and it was super awkward and I was like "housemate rescue me". And thankfully we could talk about other things for the rest of the car ride, while I kind of hoped I could fade into the seat and die.
So it's been bothering me ever since, and so I wrote the following. I'm thinking of submitting to Querelle, the zine produced by queer collectives around the country, but it's a little rough and also, I worry that because it's so personal (and so obviously about this interaction between Ben and I) that it might cause problems for my housemate. And obviously, I don't want to make things any more difficult for him at this point because transitioning is hard enough.
Do you think apples ask other apples what variety of apple they are?
“Hi, I’m a Fuji, what kind of apple are you?”
“Oh I’m a pink lady.” And she blushes.
Maybe they would if they could talk.
We do.
People do.
What kind of queer are you?
Put yourself in a box so I can put the lid on it and tuck it away in my mind.
(I know that’s not how he meant it but he asked just the same.)
But here’s the thing. I just am.
I don’t fit in anyone’s boxes.
E) All of the above one week.
D) None of the above the next.
(Besides, since when was sexuality a multiple choice quiz? Is there negative marking? Gosh, I didn’t prepare.)
I don’t hide it, but then, I don’t really believe in being ‘out’ either. I was never ‘in’, how could I be ‘out’?
(More to the point, who I sleep with and who I love is none of your business. When it is, I assure you, I’ll get drunk and tell you sloppily. You’re so pretty or I’m in love with you. I’ve never really been afraid of feelings. I’ve survived the pain of living, how could love even touch me?)
I just am.
See, my sexual orientation is the least interesting thing about me. I’m not like a lot of people, who feel that being gay or not-straight makes them different. It doesn’t make me different; it doesn’t set me apart at all. I feel uncomfortable in circles who define themselves by their non-heteronormative sexualities. I don’t. My identity? I’m twenty-one, I’m a medical student, I’m a scientist, I watch a lot of TV, I’m a writer, I’m a daughter and a sister and a friend and I’m a long list of other things. And then maybe I’m queer. Maybe.
It doesn’t define me. I’m kind of sorry if it does define you. There’s so much more to the world than sex. There’s even more to it than love. Who you love, who you fuck, who you sink your teeth into might all be part of who you are, but it doesn’t matter if that’s a man or a woman or if you’re a man or a woman or even if you’re neither or both. There’s a truth in living. There’s the leaves changing colour and carpeting the ground in the autumn, there’s the mist of warm breath against the inky depths of a winter’s night, there’s the stars, blinking their old light down so playfully they might as well be winking, watched by thousands of others like you and like me since the dawn of time. There’s the sharp pull of breath after running, there’s the relaxed beat of your heart that accelerates with a touch, just there, by just someone. All of this is universal. There are the words of writers throughout the ages, there’s the warmth of a bed, there’s the sound of rain against the roof and the way grass bends beneath the soles of your feet. It is infinite. And isn’t the point of all that activism that we are the same? That love is love and that a heartbeat is a heartbeat and that when it comes down to it, our cells, our blood, our bodies all hum and drum through each day in the same way?
I’m sorry.
It’s not something I’m going to list on my resume. It just isn’t.
And you don’t get to ask. Maybe if you knew me at all, I would be inclined to share. But you don’t, and I don’t and I’m sorry that it offends me, but to me you are saying I don’t care about anything but the label you hide yourself behind. And all I can think is there is so much more to me than that.
There is pain and there are scars and there is a story, and if that was what you wanted to hear then I would tell you.
As for what kind of queer I am?
I don’t know. Not a very good one this week, the lesbians will probably revoke my visitor’s privileges, I’ve been fantasising about witty repartee with a man over the rim of a wine glass. Ask me next week. Maybe then I’ll want a woman so painfully beautiful she makes my chest ache when she smiles. Or maybe not. It doesn’t matter, does it?
When he asked I checked my rear view mirror and shrugged but this is what I should have said: I am a work-in-progress. I don’t know yet. Maybe I never will.
So I've known Ben and Jaya since the beginning of the year through Queer Collective, but we've never really socialised outside of meetings. I like them both well enough, but I wouldn't consider us friends. And I was driving them home, we were stopped at a stoplight, when Ben asks "what kind of queer are you?" and normally this doesn't bother me, but for some reason, coming from this guy it really did. I'm kind of get used to straight people asking and a lot of the time I volunteer the information myself without too much fuss. I don't know. Maybe it was because I felt like it shouldn't matter to them? Maybe it was because I got the strong sense it was because I don't look like enough of a same-sex attracted woman for him?
(I feel this way with most of the collective really -- like beacuse I'm not actively dating a woman and I really enjoy having long hair and wearing skirts, I'm letting them down. Though I have occasionally started wearing oversized men's shirts. That gets me lesbian points right? Tbh sometimes I find the whole community fairly ridiculous on this point. With these guys I actually feel like we're competeing for gay of the year or something sometimes...)
Maybe I'm just sensitive about it.
In any case, it kind of made me take pause. I was actually fairly embarrassed. It felt a little like a call out. And while I'm sure it was meant with the best of intentions and possibly only a hint of curiousity, my instinct was still to scream fuck off. I'm more than willing to be honest about my sexuality, but I hate it when I feel like I'm only doing so because other people want the gossip. This is why I barely came out to anyone at high school. Who I am attracted to is not a talking point. I have always been firm on this. Anyway I just sort of babbled like a fish out of water would if it could talk for like five minutes and it was super awkward and I was like "housemate rescue me". And thankfully we could talk about other things for the rest of the car ride, while I kind of hoped I could fade into the seat and die.
So it's been bothering me ever since, and so I wrote the following. I'm thinking of submitting to Querelle, the zine produced by queer collectives around the country, but it's a little rough and also, I worry that because it's so personal (and so obviously about this interaction between Ben and I) that it might cause problems for my housemate. And obviously, I don't want to make things any more difficult for him at this point because transitioning is hard enough.
Do you think apples ask other apples what variety of apple they are?
“Hi, I’m a Fuji, what kind of apple are you?”
“Oh I’m a pink lady.” And she blushes.
Maybe they would if they could talk.
We do.
People do.
What kind of queer are you?
Put yourself in a box so I can put the lid on it and tuck it away in my mind.
(I know that’s not how he meant it but he asked just the same.)
But here’s the thing. I just am.
I don’t fit in anyone’s boxes.
E) All of the above one week.
D) None of the above the next.
(Besides, since when was sexuality a multiple choice quiz? Is there negative marking? Gosh, I didn’t prepare.)
I don’t hide it, but then, I don’t really believe in being ‘out’ either. I was never ‘in’, how could I be ‘out’?
(More to the point, who I sleep with and who I love is none of your business. When it is, I assure you, I’ll get drunk and tell you sloppily. You’re so pretty or I’m in love with you. I’ve never really been afraid of feelings. I’ve survived the pain of living, how could love even touch me?)
I just am.
See, my sexual orientation is the least interesting thing about me. I’m not like a lot of people, who feel that being gay or not-straight makes them different. It doesn’t make me different; it doesn’t set me apart at all. I feel uncomfortable in circles who define themselves by their non-heteronormative sexualities. I don’t. My identity? I’m twenty-one, I’m a medical student, I’m a scientist, I watch a lot of TV, I’m a writer, I’m a daughter and a sister and a friend and I’m a long list of other things. And then maybe I’m queer. Maybe.
It doesn’t define me. I’m kind of sorry if it does define you. There’s so much more to the world than sex. There’s even more to it than love. Who you love, who you fuck, who you sink your teeth into might all be part of who you are, but it doesn’t matter if that’s a man or a woman or if you’re a man or a woman or even if you’re neither or both. There’s a truth in living. There’s the leaves changing colour and carpeting the ground in the autumn, there’s the mist of warm breath against the inky depths of a winter’s night, there’s the stars, blinking their old light down so playfully they might as well be winking, watched by thousands of others like you and like me since the dawn of time. There’s the sharp pull of breath after running, there’s the relaxed beat of your heart that accelerates with a touch, just there, by just someone. All of this is universal. There are the words of writers throughout the ages, there’s the warmth of a bed, there’s the sound of rain against the roof and the way grass bends beneath the soles of your feet. It is infinite. And isn’t the point of all that activism that we are the same? That love is love and that a heartbeat is a heartbeat and that when it comes down to it, our cells, our blood, our bodies all hum and drum through each day in the same way?
I’m sorry.
It’s not something I’m going to list on my resume. It just isn’t.
And you don’t get to ask. Maybe if you knew me at all, I would be inclined to share. But you don’t, and I don’t and I’m sorry that it offends me, but to me you are saying I don’t care about anything but the label you hide yourself behind. And all I can think is there is so much more to me than that.
There is pain and there are scars and there is a story, and if that was what you wanted to hear then I would tell you.
As for what kind of queer I am?
I don’t know. Not a very good one this week, the lesbians will probably revoke my visitor’s privileges, I’ve been fantasising about witty repartee with a man over the rim of a wine glass. Ask me next week. Maybe then I’ll want a woman so painfully beautiful she makes my chest ache when she smiles. Or maybe not. It doesn’t matter, does it?
When he asked I checked my rear view mirror and shrugged but this is what I should have said: I am a work-in-progress. I don’t know yet. Maybe I never will.