HappyComeLucky

It’s Pride Month and that is really important to me. This year, instead of the normal events and face to face activities, my Pride is looking very different.

The externally visible parts of it has included designing and making Pride face masks. First for my family – it’s another of those important ways that the LGBTQIA members of my family feel actively recognised and validated without having to ask for it – then secondly for a whole lot of people who have requested them via twitter.

I have so much privilege that I can safely wear Pride themed items and it be safe. When I do, I sonetimes get people asking me if I am part of the community. Often though, people don’t ask whether it is for my identity or to be an ally – they are used to me being an ally, an educator and an advocate.

In private though, this Pride month has been an opportunity for reflection and analysis of myself and my identity. I’d like to say that this has purely been prompted by time but, unfortunately, it is in response to the outpourings of transphobia both in sex blogging and I’m the world at large. Today I am reeling again in fear for the present and future with the roll back of trans rights and the permission that these legal steps give to those who want to push their position of hatred and abuse.

I mentioned on twitter that my first reaction when Nillin announced One Rainbow Apart was disappointment that I couldn’t join in. That was wrong, of course. My bisexuality means that I can. The reaction that I had was a wake up call to some of my thoughts about how I identify.

Growing up, I rarely thought about labels at all. I had a reasonably gender neutral upbringing in some ways. Being the younger child in a family that often relied on jumble sales for clothes meant that a fair proportion of my things had been previously worn and owned by my brother. A lot of my toys were what would be considered female toys but that was also partly due to family circumstances. I got new toys at birthday and Christmas. As I already had access to the toys that my brother had, the toys I was given were those that did not double up.

None of that really matters for now but I do wonder if it helped to contribute to me never having a strong feeling of being female. I also wonder whether if I had known of the idea of non-binary whether that would have chimed for me. There are definitely times in my life when I think it would have done. However, I struggle with how to describe my sense of self now. I don’t identify with the way that woman is perceived in these times but I do identify very strongly with the older origins of the word cunt and the possibility that it describes woman and is tied to a life giving energy. That definitely works for me but is a hard identity to know how to label so I don’t.

Although I didn’t spend time thinking about my labels when I was younger, I did become passionate about LGBTQIA rights and inclusion. In some ways it makes me smile so much that it was Thatcher’s hated and hateful Section 28 that made me aware of the issues and made me so passionate.

I was 17 when Section 28 came in and right from the first moment that I heard about it, I knew it was wrong. It made me learn and understand about exclusion, homophobia and all the things that are associated with it. For the first ten years of my career, I had to be extremely careful in the ways that I promoted understanding and equal rights. I was able to do that because of my privilege is a cis white female who was perceived as straight. Keeping my personal identity invisible allowed me a freedom of action to make a difference in a way that I could not have done if I was out.

There is a long term, personal effect of that. Even in LGBTQIA spaces, I still present as an ally rather than a member. It feels like a default. I suspect it is partly linked to other aspects of my identity. I am known strongly as a parent of a trans offspring and a bi offspring. I think a lot of people default to assuming that my investment is due to that rather than because of my own identity. They might be right. I push harder to make the world a better place for others than I ever do for myself.

After all of this musing, I come to the word that made me really question my ideas and where they may come from. Am I queer? I know that some people gate keep terms like this and others are welcoming. I know that by a lot of definitions, my bisexuality makes me queer. I know that for some, my not straightforward identity does make me queer. But, for me, I don’t claim the label queer.

I have challenged myself a lot about this. Is it some internalised prejudice that makes me feel that I am not queer? In deeply analysing myself, I know that, due to experiences, I default to doing other and not belonging. Claiming a powerful label like queer is a huge part of declaring belonging. I worry that this is part of why I don’t think I am queer.

It may also be because in my mind, the word queer is associated with someone who is visibly out. Although I often wear Pride symbols, I am not visibly out in very many spaces. I still use that privilege that I mentioned earlier to get my voice heard in spaces that would be less open to listening if they associated me as being queer and therefore having a queer agenda. I hate that this is still true in 2020 but unfortunately, I doubt that any of us are surprised. I know some people will see.my working in the system like this as treachery and they are entitled to that opinion of me.

More importantly, on a personal level, I am not queer because that label does not feel like it fits me for whatever reason. Labels are a useful shortcut but they have to work for the labelled as well as the reader of the label. There is a label that currently works for me. I am an amazing bisexual cunt.