October 16, 2010

• come (out) (with me)

  
  i am privileged. and i am queer. 

  what does queer mean, to you? weird, odd, strange- to some, maybe. and maybe i am… a little of all three. i would never want to be ‘normal’ that’s for sure, average… who wants to be average? always i’ve wanted to be exceptional. an exceptional person, an exceptional writer, an exceptional friend. and i guess now my person is a little exceptional, that is, i’m the exception to a lot of the ‘rules’, the ‘norms’. transgressing gender boundaries, blurring lines, shattering our glass boxes, blowing your mind (was it good for you?)… i live a life i want to live where those norms you write into law don’t dictate my life. some would say i’m the outlier in your standard deviation. i would say, fantastic.

  it’s never made sense to me to “come out”. let me right your wrongs, because that’s somehow my responsibility. just because my life may have been planned for me even before my birth doesn’t mean that i am not the one who has to live it. listen. i don’t want to be anyone’s perfect little christian girlwoman (seeking: man devoted to christ jesus (peace be with him)- must be avid church-goer, clean-shaven, tall, dark, handsome, desiring white-picket-fence, lots of children and maybe a cat and two-car garage). am i not allowed my own life, my own aspirations, my own fantasies?

  i want a big gay commune. a community of queers and active straights (i use all terms loosely) who share my interests and my beliefs- a world of lovers who love and negotiate boundaries and share their lives with each other. a family fronted by a group of people, with little or no regard to who is married or exclusive or just stopping by, where everyone’s looking out for each other and themselves and this big world that needs fixing full of hearts that need mending full of lives that need direction. i want to collect hugs and kisses- from lovers, ex-lovers, my lover’s lovers…. i define family as a group of caring people. anyone watching out for me is family. i don’t want to let anyone go. i don’t think i should have to.

  i’m trying to think of what to come out as, on this spectacular glorious day of revelations. because coming out isn’t really the issue; it’s what we come out as, to whom, and for what reasons. it’s about what parts of our lives we want to own and give a voice to, what assumptions we want to correct, what normative ideals we want to challenge.

  i’m a gender-indifferent queer guy with a female history. a male lesbian that sleeps with all genders. a feminine man with two x chromosomes. my parents’ daughter. my partner’s boyfriend. why are we not coming out as the intricate parts of our identities? why are we trying to mainstream ourselves? are we all lesbians who sleep with women and gay men who sleep with men? and are our identities even about who we’re fucking, or is it about who we love? what happens for those of us who can separate the two? if we all have these complex identities, why are we still using two (sometimes three) labels to describe ourselves?

  “i’m a straight man who fantasizes about sleeping with men.” “i’m a lesbian who once had sex with a man- and enjoyed it.” “i’m a polyamorous woman who feels pressure to only have one partner.” “i’m a straight woman who wants to have sex with another woman- but i’m afraid of the judgment i might receive.” “i’m a bisexual guy who has only had sex with men.” “i only sleep with other queer people.” “i’m a gay guy and all of a sudden find myself attracted to a woman.” “i am a heterosexual writer of gay erotica.” “i am a genderqueer lesbian attracted to masculine women.” “i’m bi-curious.” “i’m pansexual.” “i don”t give a fuck about gender.” “i just want to get laid.” “i want a long-term relationship.” “i want a big gay commune.”  “i’m not sure what i am.”

  furthermore, why is it our attractions that need voicing? why is coming out about sexual orientation, sexuality, gender identity, desire? we have childhoods to own, relationships that have succeeded and failed, religious upbringings, histories of abuse, mental illnesses, hidden scars, huge successes in our careers, children we’re proud of, weights, baggage, goals, dreams, desires, obstacles we’ve overcome….

  i’m a white, able-bodied, college-educated person from the middle-middle class. i grew up in a suburb of new york. i have been privileged to transgress gender boundaries in that, born the way i was born, i present masculine (though still androgynous) and have access to hormones and health care. i was born seven almost eight weeks premature and wore doll clothes for my first several months of life. growing up, i had a mom who ways always home for me when i came home from school and a dad with a high-paying job. i had books read to me and an education that was always supported. i’m an ex-christian. i was raised in fundamentalism, went to church 3x a week for four years, was in several ministries and proud of the work i was doing through age sixteen. i’m almost twentytwo. i lived my first nineteen years of life in agreement with the doctors who sexed me female at birth. i’ve had boyfriends and girlfriends and heartbreaks and fantasies of suicide and i’ve been bullied and harassed and i have scars all up and down my left bicep from all the years i thought i needed to punish myself. i’m on probation for a sex crime i feel i didn’t commit and the law says i can’t contact someone whom i still love. i have parents who don’t support who i am now but in their own way still love me, and i have professors, friends, family, families, coworkers, classmates, and partners from past and present who support me emotionally, intellectually, physically, financially….

  i just can’t stop coming out.

  life goals, i don’t have any traditional life goals. i want to speak and be heard. i want to keep on believing that the things i have to say are important and that i can with the help of others collectively and individually change lives. i want to write and publish and debate and expand hearts, souls, lifestyles, mindstyles, and form as many intimate relationships as time and energy will possibly allow me to. i want to do whatever i can to create space in this society for the marginalized and oppressed: women, feminine men, ethnic minorities, entire racial groups, speakers of various regional dialects, queers; anyone low-income, uneducated, illiterate, disabled, mentally handicapped, autistic, in an undesirable career, in an unhappy marriage, homosexual, transsexual, areligious, of a minority religion; people who have variant sexual practices, who have variant gender identities, who go to college at non-traditional ages, who date outside the male-taller-and-older sort of traditional pairing, who date outside their racial or ethnic group; minors, the elderly, and so on and so forth. i don’t want to catch myself up in the replication of age-old ageist, classist, racist, homophobic, heterosexist, and ethnocentric bullshit of our past.

  i don’t want to come out with an identity that could oppress someone else.

  but i do want to keep coming out.
  i want to keep fighting.

  challenge the norms. come with me.

  • 12:27 am
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