Missed Her, page 6
I was so mad, I seriously considered a stern letter. The subtext of her words stung my eyes and burned in my throat. Apparently, according to this genius, regardless of my politics or attitude or tactics, I was an extremist, by virtue only of my appearance. Nothing of who I was or what I might contribute to my community mattered, because of what I looked like. In order to be acceptable to the good citizens of Winnipeg, we needed to put forward a more “mainstream” face to the general public, liberally laced with professionals. I wondered how this line of reasoning was going to go over with the many perverted transsexual leatherdyke lawyers from working-class backgrounds I am lucky enough to know. Apparently this woman hadn’t read that part of queer history where drag queens and butches started the whole thing, by finally standing up and rioting in response to police persecution and brutality. And now she didn’t want us at her parade anymore. We weren’t family friendly enough. Then I wondered what exactly this meant for those of us with families.
Then recently, I heard a rumour that the younger queers don’t like the word butch. This makes me wonder: if I were twenty years old right now instead of forty, what would I call myself?
I grew up without a roadmap to myself. Nobody taught me how to be a butch. I didn’t even hear the word until I was twenty years old. I first became something I had no name for in solitude, and only later discovered the word for what I was, and realized there were others like me. So now I am writing myself down, sketching directions so that I can be found, or followed.
If the word for you is butch, remember this word. It will be used against you.
If the word for you is butch, remember. Remember that your history is one of strength and survival, and largely silent. Do not hide this word under your tongue. Do not whisper it, or sweep it under the basement stairs. Let it fill up your chest, and widen your shoulders. Wear it like a sleeve tattoo, like a medal of valour.
Learn to recognize other butches for what they really are: your people. Your brothers, or sisters. Both are just words that mean family. Other butches are not your competition, they are your comrades. Be there when they need you. Go fishing together. Help each other move. Polish your rims or your chrome or your boots or your knobs together. See these acts for what they really are: solidarity.
Do not give your butch friend a hard time about having a ponytail, a Pomeranian, nail polish, or even a smart car. Get over yourself. You are a rare species, not a sterotype.
Trim your nails short enough that you could safely insert your fingers into your own vagina, should you ever want to.
Scars and purple thumbnails are a status symbol. When attempting to operate, maintain, or repair anything mechanical, always remember the words of my grandmother: “The vast majority of machines are still designed, built, driven, and fixed by men. Therefore, they cannot be that complicated.”
Be exceptionally nice to old ladies. They really need their faith in the youth of today restored. Let them butt in line at the grocery store. Slow down and walk with them at crosswalks so they’re not the only ones holding up traffic. Drive your grandma to bingo. Shovel her driveway. Let chivalry live on.
If you’re going to be the kind of butch who is often read as a man or a boy, then be the kind of man or boy you wish you would have slept with in high school. Be a gentleman. Let her finish her sentence. Share the armrest. Do her laundry without shrinking anything this time. Buy her her very own cordless drill.
Open doors for men, saying, “Let me get that for you.”
Carry a pocket knife, a lighter, and a handkerchief on your person at all times. Learn flashy lighter tricks, how to tie a half hitch, a slip knot, and a double Windsor.
Learn how to start a fire with a flint and some dry moss. Then use lighter fluid or gasoline, and a blowtorch. Burn most of your eyebrows off lighting the barbecue with a birthday candle, and then tell everybody all about it.
Wear footwear that makes a clomping sound, as opposed to a tick or a swish.
Let the weird hairs on your chin and around your nipples grow unhindered.
Learn how to knit, quilt, crochet, or hook rugs: women appreciate a fellow who isn’t afraid of their feminine side.
Practice saying you’re sorry. This is one activity where you should not use your father as a role model. Fonzie was an asshole. If you are too young to remember who the Fonz was, then YouTube it.
Locker room talk? A sure-fire way not to get laid a second time.
Learn to recognize other butches for who they really are: your people. Your brothers, or your sisters. Both are just words that mean family.
Hats Off
To all the beautiful, kick-ass, fierce, and full-bodied femmes out there, I would like to extend my thanks to you. It is for you that I press my shirts and carefully iron my ties. It is for you that I make sure my underwear and socks match. It is to you that I tip my cowboy hat. It is for you that I polish my big black boots.
I know that sometimes you feel like nobody truly sees you. I want you to know that I see you. I see you on the street, on the bus, in the gym, in the park. I don’t know why I can tell that you are not straight, but I can. Maybe it is the way you look at me. Please don’t stop looking at me the way you do. All of my life I have been told that I am ugly, I am less than, I am not a man, I am unwanted. Until you came along, I believed them. Please do not ever stop looking at me the way you do.
I would never say that the world is harder on me than it is you. Sometimes you are invisible. I have no idea what this must feel like, to pass right by your people and not be recognized. To not be seen. I cannot hide, unless I am seen as something I am not. This is not more difficult, it is just different.
I know those shoes are fucking killing your feet. I want you to know how much I appreciate that you are still wearing them. You look hot. I love you in them. They look great with that dress. If it makes you feel any better at all, the boots I have on right now weigh approximately twelve pounds apiece and they make the soles of my feet burn like diaper rash in a heat wave and it feels like I’m wearing ski boots when I have to walk up stairs. But I wear them for you. Even still, my new boots are velvet slippers compared to your knee-high five-inch heels. I notice, and I salute you.
I promise, I am not just staring at your tits. I am trying to look you directly in the eyes, but you are almost eight inches taller than me, please see above note regarding your five-inch heels. At the same time, I would like to mention that while I was trying to look you in the eyes, I couldn’t help but notice your lovely new pendant. I am sure it really brings out the colour of your eyes, if I could see them.
I want to thank you for coming out of the closet. Again and again, over and over, for the rest of your life. At school, at work, at your kid’s daycare, at your brother’s wedding, at the doctor’s office. Thank you for sideswiping their stereotypes. I never get the chance to come out of the closet, because my closet was always made of glass. But you do it for me. You fight homophobia in a way that I never could. Some of them think I am queer because I am undesirable. You prove to them that being queer is your desire.
Thank you for loving me because of who I am and what I look like, not in spite of who I am and what I look like.
Thank you for smelling so good.
Thank you for holding my hand on the sidewalk during the hockey playoffs. I know it is probably small-minded of me to smile wickedly at all the drunken dudes in jerseys smoking outside the sports bar in between periods because you are so fucking hot, and you are with me and not them, but I can’t help it. That’s right, fellas. You want her but she wants me. How do you like them apples?
Thank you for wearing matching bra and panties. I don’t know why this makes my life seem so perfect, but it really does.
Thank you for reaching out in the dark at the movie theatre to grab my hand during the scary parts. It makes me feel like I am strong, that I can take care of you. Even if there is no such thing as vampires, and you do so much yoga that you could probably easily kick my ass.
I want you to know I love your crooked tooth, your stretch marks, the missing part of your finger, your short leg, your third nipple, your lazy eye, your cowlick, your birthmark shaped like Texas. I love it all.
I want you to know that I know it is not always easy to love me. That sometimes my chest is a field full of landmines and where you went last night you can’t go tomorrow. There is no manual, no street map, no helpline you can call. My body does not come with instructions, and sometimes even I don’t know what to do with it. This cannot be easy, but still, you touch me anyway.
Thank you for escorting me into the women’s washroom because the floor of the men’s was covered in something unmentionable. Thank you for asking me if I had a tampon in my purse so loudly that the lady in the turquoise sweatshirt did a double take before gathering up her daughter and hitting me with a pool noodle. I can’t say for sure whether that is what actually would have happened, but thanks to you, I didn’t have to find out.
Thank you for wearing that dress just because you knew it would match my shirt. Together, we are unstoppable. When seen through your eyes, I am beautiful. Turns out I was a swan the whole time.
Straight Teens Talk Queer
Recently I had the pleasure of being a teen mentor for a group of nine youth at the Vancouver Public Library’s annual book camp. My kids were almost frighteningly smart, and savvy, and hilarious, and of course, well-read.
I decided I was going to put all that intelligence and potential and Internet virtuosity to work and get them to write my column for me this month. We set out to write a piece about homophobia from the point of view of a group of predominantly heterosexual youth. As they were a rather studious lot, we started off by not only defining homophobia for the reader, but by including a historical overview of how definitions of the word homophobia might have changed over the years. Turns out that in 1958, there was no such word as homophobia listed in the Comprehensive Word Guide; all the kids could find was a definition of homosexuality listed under “certain specific sexual aberrations, perversions, abnormal practices, etc.” alongside thirty-nine other practices which included bestiality, auto-fellatio, cunnilingus, and coprolagnia, which none of us had ever heard of, but we looked it up. Look it up. I dare you.
We all found it notable that a mere fifty years later, Webster’s defined homophobia as “the fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay men, or behavior based on such a feeling.”
We then came up with a list of questions, and everybody took them home for homework. This was followed the next day by a rather raucous and ridiculously funny discussion resulting in all of us being resoundingly shushed twice, because we were, after all, in a library. Here is a list of the questions and a sampling of their answers.
Do you think that homophobia still exists in our society?
Sarah, age sixteen: It may not be as harsh as it was in the past, but it is still there. People in the gay community are not always beaten for being who they are but they are definitely not always welcomed by all the people around them.
Wednesday, seventeen: Being a high school student myself I can safely say yes, it does. I do believe that acceptance is a lot more common than it was twenty, or even ten years ago. Things are definitely looking up. I see straight boys with their arms around each other as a sign of affection, I see boys wearing pink and not getting called the F word. I see girls holding hands and no one is writing accusatory labels on their lockers.
Why do you think homophobia still exists?
Megan, sixteen: I blame religion, or, more accurately, religious fanatics.
Sarah: Not all cultures suppressed it for thousands of years. In Greece they used to wrestle naked. That’s how the Olympics got started.
Olivia, fifteen: People prefer the ordinary.
Annalise, fifteen: Some people are closed-minded and not accepting of what is different and strange to them.
Kylee, seventeen: It’s all Adam and Eve stuff. People are afraid that if they allow it to happen God will be angry and bring damnation or something down upon them.
Wednesday: I’m not sure that there is only one thing or person to blame, unless you can blame the entire human race and call it a night. But that won’t bring back the numerous suicides, and it won’t make things any better.
Julian, fifteen: Some bigotry is rooted deeper than just in ignorance, but hopefully those people will eventually succumb to the inevitable and keep their mouths shut.
Do you want to end homophobia, if indeed you feel it still exists? Why?
Sarah: Of course I want it to end.
Neil, seventeen: Why should straight people care? Why do white people care that we are mean to black people? It’s a moral issue and we have accepted that it is not okay to discriminate … period.
Does homophobia impact your life in any way, or anyone who you know or care about?
Sarah: One of my best friends felt so afraid of what would happen to him in my town that he felt the need to move. I haven’t seen him in over two years.
Lisa, sixteen: I’ve grown up in a family that says they find nothing wrong with it, but have some serious issues, and I feel embarrassed. I meet these truly interesting and inspiring people, and it hurts to learn that they have been treated wrongly, especially when I hear the slander coming from the mouths of people I respect and trust. What if, somewhere down the line, I realize that I’m not heterosexual? I won’t have a problem with it, but what of my friends and family? Will they be supportive or turn their backs?
Give an example of ways we could change things.
Sarah: My school tries to stop people from using the term gay in a derogatory fashion by making the student who uses the word write a 5,000-word essay on why the use of that word could be offensive. But I don’t think this works because it is hardly ever done or checked up on.
Julian: The fact that Gay/Straight Alliance groups can exist is a sign of the times. Fifty years ago, such groups would have been counterproductive: instead of a safe place, these groups would have been bull’s-eyes.
Annalise: Set an example of not being homophobic, and not making homophobic remarks, and hope that others take on that acceptance too.
Megan: My school has a program on sexual orientation; they mix it in with sex ed and suicide awareness. The leaders asked us what we would do if we found out one of our friends were gay. If you were okay, you went to one side of the room; if you weren’t, you went to the other side of the room. Only one person stayed on the not okay side.
So. There you have it. I think there is only one right thing to do with our society. We have to turn it over to these people. Which is great, because eventually this is going to happen anyway, whether the rest of us are ready for it or not.
Some of My Best
Friends are Rednecks
A friend of mine stopped me in the street the other day to tell me a story. This is not uncommon; in fact, I consider random story stoppings to be a job benefit, kind of like healthcare for storytellers, or at least heartcare. Except I didn’t like the story he told me. Didn’t like it at all.
I guess I should start by describing what this friend looks like, not because it matters at all to me, but because it matters to the story. My friend has long brown hair and a kind of bushy beard. He is from a working-class coal mining town in the southern US. He looks like a bit like a good old boy. Like a redneck straight white guy, to use his words, not mine.
He had been riding the good old Number 20 Victoria bus downtown a couple of days ago, reading a book. To be more specific, because it matters to this story, he was reading one of my books. As in a book I wrote, not just one I owned and then lent to him.
So he notices kind of by accident that there is a young woman sitting right across from him, in those seats that face each other at the back of the bus, and she is glaring at him. Staring and glaring. He ignores her for a bit, hoping she will just go away, or decide to stare at someone else, but she just keeps right on, laying the old stink eye on him.
Finally she breaks the silence. She asks him why he is reading that book.
He tells her because he likes to read.
The exchange that ensued goes something like this:
“Do you know the author of that book is a lesbian? Why would someone like you want to read a lesbian book? What is in it for you?”
I should mention at this point—not that it really mattered to my friend or myself, but the story requires it—that this young woman had short hair and was dressed, well, kind of dykey. Not that one should assume anything about a perfect stranger, but it is important for the narrative here that we all understand that my friend figured it was more likely that she was taking issue with his choice of reading material for some sort of political reasons stemming from the fact that she was queer herself, rather than her being a right-wing evangelical Christian who objected to apparent straight guys reading queer books on public transit for religious reasons. Just so we’ve got that part straight, at least.
So my friend answers her.
“Well, I am reading it first of all because I like the writing, and second it is funny, and if I am getting what you are getting at here, then yes, I am reading a book written by a lesbian because I am learning something from it, and it challenges me. Isn’t that a good thing, that a straight guy can read a queer book in broad daylight on a city bus without even thinking about it? Because I didn’t think about it at all, until you brought it up. I mean, isn’t that the kind of world we are all wishing for?”
But she was like a dog after a bone.
“It challenges you?”
“Yeah, it makes me think about stuff in a different way. Also, Ivan is a friend of mine.”
She snorts. “Oh, of course. Ivan is a friend of yours.”
This is where my buddy started to feel a little defensive. They trade a few more clipped sentences. Then she says:
