In no particular order.
1. Sarah Silverman:
coming out
Visible
Queer visibility is not the work of a moment. It’s the work of a lifetime — and every single day counts. Do I have the energy for this?
Everyone’s been asked The Question at one point or another. “If you could either be invisible or be able to fly,” they say, “what would you choose?”
But in reality, it’s not really a choice. Because even though I’ve always flown in my dreams, in real life, I’ve always been invisible. Specifically, an invisible queer person.
Mostly, honestly, this is fine. Not reading as queer makes me feel safe at rest stops and when traveling to new places. And during all of those years when I was in the closet, looking like a straight girl meant one less thing I had to worry about — at least nobody was accusing me of anything as I hid, trying to untangle the threads of my sexuality, desperately clawing towards a place where being queer would feel acceptable, feel a little more normal. At least nobody was calling me out. At least nobody saw me.
But that was a double-edged sword if ever there was one. Because: nobody saw me.
Quotable: Coming Out Stories
We all have closets. What’s in yours?
Awhile back, I wrote about coming out, and the response I received was really encouraging. A lot of people responded with their own coming out stories in the comments. They wrote about coming out about their ADHD, their miscarriages, their divorces: life events, hardships, or facets of their personalities they had previously kept secret. I was reminded that we all have closets, but the more that we can throw those doors open and be our authentic selves, the happier we’ll be.
First
There’s nothing like the first girl to ever break your heart.
I was on a date once with a girl and she asked me about my coming out story. I paused, blushed, took a sip of wine. She continued: “I mean, what was the first girl you dated? How did you get to that place in your life? I know it’s personal,” she said, “but I’d love to hear your story, if you want to tell it.”
I didn’t know what to say. She was my coming out story. She was the first girl I’d dated. If I told her that, would it all dissolve, would it be for nothing? I knew, from The Internet, that lesbians hated bicurious girls. What if I told her, and she thought that was all I was? “I haven’t really…put it into a narrative for myself yet,” I answered. She smiled, and we moved on.
❥ Days of Thanks: Suprises
I am thankful for the people who surprise us.
Last summer, we had a family emergency, and some first cousins I had only met a couple of times came into town.
These brothers grew up in Kansas, and in a very conservative church. But one night, when they came over to blow off steam and play video games, I invited my girlfriend too.
Future Fantastic
Sometime last summer, I was chatting with my aunt about my grandmother’s abusive marriage. My aunt once asked her mother why, when her husband was bullying the family, she didn’t just pack up and leave. My grandmother explained that she considered it, that she tried to imagine it, but “it just didn’t feel like an option.”
Getting to Queer
That time I sat down to write about labels and ended up with the story of my first thirty years.
When I was younger, and closeted, I was obsessed with labels.
As a kid, of course, I knew that gay men were sparkly, Puckish creatures, and that lesbians were
“Normal”
Are queer people different than everybody else?
Recently I was on a second date with a woman and I mentioned a wedding I would be attending soon. “I don’t know the brides well, but it should be fun,” I said.
“Oh,” she said, “so it’s a GAY wedding?”
I laughed. “Yeah. I mean, it’s a wedding. Weddings are weddings.” I was half-joking.
Three days later we were texting when she sent a follow-up question that must have been bugging her the whole weekend. “When you said what you said about that wedding…was that an attempt to have LGBT people blend in with straight people?” she asked.
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