Naked Rage

When this topic was first put to me I found it hard to pinpoint an exact answer. “Queerness” is broad, and going with the literal and historical meaning of a person whose sexuality or gender doesn’t conform to the socially accepted status quo simply lacks the nuance and subtlety of their identity that many self defined queer people experience. Being put as “what queer means to me” was a wise decision, and I hope to be able to answer that here, though I am not necessarily able to answer that for anybody reading this.

Before it ever gathered it’s LGBT+ connotations, the term queer meant “strange” and strange is certainly how I felt growing up in a very small, middle class and Tory voting village in South Cambridgeshire. Maybe it was my many odd childhood obsessions, aircraft( I dreamt of being either a pilot or a stewardess) guinea pigs (which I unashamedly still love to this day), unicorns, the middle ages; or maybe it was my violent mood swings and seeming oversensitivity, but somehow I never exactly hit it off with other children my age. I was still keen for a close friend however and there were places where I’d feel like I was almost there in that longed for place of my own little gaggle of cheery chums, such as in the church choir where I sang on sundays, or at Brownies, or the football club where I discovered I wasn’t England material and probably was where my deep seated dislike of

sports began. I’d feel the camaraderie coursing through me as we sang “Lord of the dance”, practiced whittling, or kicked a ball up and down a muddy field and almost feel like I had friends. But then it would stop, we’d go home, or back to school, back to me being left out and everyone else settling into their own little comfy groups. I never felt quite right with any of them. Gender roles were firmly established in my primary school and generally speaking the girls had been taught to be quiet, sensible and organised, had well Co-ordinated scented gel pens, lots of hairclips and hair bobbles, and little sticker books full of sparkly stickers, whilst the boys were able to get away with being louder, get away with making poo and fart jokes, and were most certainly nudged down the route of liking football, and deviation from these left you firmly branded as “gay” or “lesbian” if like me you happened to be afab. I remember, from the age of 8 onwards, developing what I now recognise as crushes, on some of my afab peers, and at the tender age of 10 professed love and a desire to marry, one of the very, very few friends I’d managed to make at that point, a seemingly kind and gentle girl in the year above me. I thought I could trust her but the next day I was approached by gawping masses of children asking me “are you a Lesbian???” and I knew I’d been deceived. It was true though, I liked afab people a lot and didn’t start noticing others for a couple of years yet, when I was in secondary school aged 12 and found myself thinking how pretty the boy who sat next to me in history was. Despite having a crush on a girl I never really felt part of their group. My mother was always keen to do “girly” things with me, such as home spa days, days out shopping in town, trips to national trust properties where we’d have a cream tea, sacred rituals of “womanliness” that my brother and father, and post divorce, my step father were excluded from. Objectively, these activities were fun, but every time my mum, or anyone else for that matter used phrases like “girls night in” or “girly outing” I felt weird inside, like it wasn’t really for me if it was a “ladies beauty day” rather than simply being a “beauty day”. Liking and enjoying so called “feminine” things doesn’t automatically make one female, as I should definitely know.

At this point, aged 12, that weird apex age between childhood and early teens, what I knew about gender, learnt off of my TERF mother, was that fanny=girl/woman and willy=boy/man. I had no idea a person could be trans, let alone non binary, so I just put my feelings down to me just not knowing how to “girl” properly if that makes sense? So, in a way that was going to become pretty habitual for me, I subconsciously pushed it back and tried to focus on other things instead. But, not thinking about gender just made me think about my sexuality instead, and this was something where I had far more self awareness. One of my great uncles is gay, and I had pretty much known that all my life. He and my family didn’t hide this, although it wasn’t talked about much openly, and so I was fully aware that it was possible for someone to not be a heterosexual essentially. However, the only possible sexualities I knew were “gay” and “straight”, and any others were unknown to me. I was fairly certain I was neither and this was a perplexing matter. Thankfully the answer came to me in the form of David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust, and for some reason, as I am unable to remember the rest of the conversation I asked my mum if he was gay or straight whilst listening to Hunky Dory. She replied that he was bi. I asked what that meant. She told me and I went away to think. A few days later, in the car after school, we had a conversation that went as follows:

“mummy?”

“yes?”

“mummy, I think I’m bi”

My mum looked flustered

“you don’t know that.... you’re only 13..you can’t know that when you’re 13”

The statement, I now recognise, unbeknownst to my mother, was probably the thing that’s harmed me most out of all the things that have been said to me ever, and believe me I’ve been called a lot of things. She never intended it to wound. She genuinely believed that I couldn’t know I was bi at 14, but the effect this had on me subconsciously has profoundly shaped how I was in my teens and even into today. The resulting years of self doubt, lack of self confidence, combined with a very academically pushing family, high achieving secondary school and tendency to compartmentalise and suppress emotions did not lead to an emotionally stable adult me at the end. Of many things, I pretended I wasn’t bi, told everyone I was straight, for a long time, until aged 17 I had begun to accept my sexuality again after, bizarrely, going to church, the last place you’d think someone would come to terms with their non straight sexuality. I don’t want to sound like “one of those christians”(which is a warning that I’m probably about to sound like “one of those christians”), but going to church and focusing on my spirituality, gave me a sense of peace that led me go stop lying to myself about who I really was. If my peers and my family weren’t on my side, at least God was anyway. At this time I was beginning to learn about non binary genders, having by now learnt that binary trans people existed, albeit through my TERFy mother, so perhaps not from the best source. I was too scared to argue but I disagreed with her on many aspects of trans issues. The more I read about non-binary people though, the more I felt that it sounded a lot like me. I felt I couldn’t quite define what my gender was, if it was a gender at all, and settled on “agender” as the best way to describe it. So by this point I was by no means in a good place, I was still utterly miserable most of the time, still prone to outbursts of extreme emotions over the tiniest things, still self harming, but at least I was finally being honest with myself. In the end I told my mother I was bi, and although she accepted this time, I still feel like she doesn’t believe me and that she’s embarrassed by it (or bi it- pardon the pun). I won’t be telling her I’m non-binary for a while, not whilst she stays TERFy anyway, but I have some wonderful friends who I know I can depend on to listen to me rant and rave about my bloody family like a cartoon teenager.

So I guess, what ‘Queer’ means to me personally is acknowledging the truth, about knowing what I am and not attempting to battle it or hide it away in the dark dusty broom cupboard at the back of my head. And you are probably reading this and thinking “well, what kind of an answer is THAT?”

I spent years hiding

Behind “a crush on Natalie Portman doesn’t count”

And “everyone goes through that phase”

And “I just like to kiss girls sometimes”

Until I started to find myself.

But even then it was

“But your fingernails aren’t even short”

And “you’ve never watched The L Word”

And “you mean it’s your first time with a woman?”

My self assessment shifted.

I was straight

Then heteroflexible

And bisexual

And pansexual

And queer?

Queer? Am I queer?

A houseguest once came to stay with us,

Made some comment, qualified with--

“Sorry, I just assumed you were queer?”

Queer. The word felt comfortable.

An identity I didn’t know I had.

One I’ve never been brave enough to speak out loud.

But am I queer enough to deserve the word?

I scour the internet. I read articles, definitions, blogs, zines, confessions.

Size myself up; catalogue my proclivities.

Heart beats faster as I wrap my brain around the word.

Here a queer, there a queer, everywhere a queer queer.

Queer is in the heart. Queer as folk. Scissor sisters for life.

Now, I nurture a small flame of queerness in my heart.

No longer does my Q stand for Quiet. Questioning. Querulous.

Constructed from a potent cocktail of

“I like what I like.”

And nose pierced, undercut, black hair dye, red lipstick fab.

And a secret desire to bind my chest and wear a real suit

(a proper coat with tails, so dapper)

And slick my hair back.

Then bounce back to femme fatale, smile and wink.

Is queerness bestowed, earned, or inherited?

Doesn’t matter--either way, I’ve found it.                                                                                        

                                                                                                                                                         Michelle Waymare

This has always been a really hard term for me to identify as, especially as I was in denial about my own sexuality and faked it with the wrong person for an awfully long time which I feel reflects on me badly. But now, being in acceptance of who I am and who I love is an exhilarating feeling, I can actually display my true feelings for someone instead of awkwardly crushing on them from the side-lines. It really makes a difference from being shit scared of who I was and watching Rose and Rosie videos in my bedroom or the web series, Carmilla.  

Although I am fully aware of who I am and at total peace with that, I know my queerness does not define me as a person. Despite the new relationships I’ve developed or either lost due to coming out when I was 18 and a half, it is not me. Whom I chose to share a bed with at night does not define how I will live my life. For some people it’s a total deal breaker, identifying as queer can make or break that life due to the culture in their life. I’ve been really lucky considering. I have a supportive loving mama, her side don’t treat me any differently at all. My grandmother and her other son and her late husband would never treat me the same again if they knew. Sometimes it feels as though I’m living a double life with hiding my queerness to certain family members but openly gay to my friends and immediate family? 

It’s exhausting. Not being able to talk about a new girl in my life or being openly gay in public in my own hometown in case someone who knows the homophobic members of family sees and then tells. Being asked, “Have you got a lad yet?” every time my gran phones me tugs a little more at my chest each time she asks. I would love nothing more than to be able to tell her about someone new and exciting in my life but I am fully aware the fallout would never be worth it. I have a fear of not only being cut off financially but emotionally too, if I were to marry a girl one day and call someone my wife I know half of my life wouldn’t be there to witness this big step in my life and if you know me, you know I’m shit scared of commitment as it is from fear of being left. 

Despite the drawbacks my life has now come to face I am totally comfortable with being queer due to the positive people in my life. Thanks to someone I had the upmost pleasure of dating recently I felt comfortable enough within myself to come out to my friends before members of my family. Although that relationship has heartbreakingly ended I will forever be grateful for their impact in my life and I will always hold them close to me.

So, what does being queer mean to me? It means facing new consequences I didn’t have to worry about before and potentially losing people I once held so close to me. But, I now know they aren’t worthy of being in my life in the first place if they cannot accept a part of me which doesn’t define me? 

It also means finding new opportunities for love I never would have found before, new friends through coming out on Twitter who I now speak to daily and who have supported me during some of the hardest times of my life. I know if my family were to disown me I would have my second family to fall back on, sometimes I value them more than my relatives themselves. I feel there’s something important and beautiful through being connected through a community where you all have one aspect in common yet you find new similarities within each other. In short queer to me means being accepted and facing loss but knowing the new ties you find through this community can last a lifetime.