Part 1 of a 3 part series, originally published in 2011 on a now-inactive personal blog.
As I start this, I’m on my fifth flight in two weeks, flipping through Micah Bazant’s powerful TimTum: A Trans Jew Zine, and I can’t stop thinking about what is feeling like a theme developing from the last few weeks. There are these snippets of moments that I’m trying to string together to create something cohesive and whole. I’m not sure yet what that whole looks like, but I’m pretty sure it’s about femme identity & chosen queerness, about visibility, passing, and safety. It’s about what liberation looks and feels like, and – appropriately – it’s about pride. This will probably be more than one post, because I’m wordy and because why not kick this blog off with a bang?
Visbility
My partner (M) and I flew to California (where I grew up) and drove to Arizona for a wedding. The marrying couple were two good friends, one of whom has been one of my best friends since the summer I turned 15. I was excited to be present for such a meaningful and significant moment in the lives of people I love. I have a lot of ambivalence around marriage – and yet some of that ambivalence faded away (although not the critique beneath it) because for this wedding, there is no doubt that it is right for them.
My queerness felt very present this weekend, mostly in affirming and chosen ways. We were one of, I think, 4 queer* couples at this wedding. One of the others is the groom’s mom and partner – who feel, in many ways, like my own family. Then there are the older gay men who are, I think, cousins. Finally another close friend from high school youth group and her partner, both of whom M & I have grown close to - individually and together - over the last 9 months or so they’ve been sweeties. We were sharing a room with the two of them, and it felt a bit like we were a team of trans/queer/butch/femme/genderqueer superheroes bringing a bit of queer glam, finely appointed accessories, fabulous ties, and great shoes to Scottsdale, Arizona.
Every day, and that day in particular, I relish the way that our dates bring queer masculinity into such sharp relief with the awkward constraints of compulsory gender. My high school friends couldn’t stop telling me how fabulous M is, how she’s such a great dancer, and looks so good in a suit. One friend almost says “even for a…” and stops himself. No qualifications needed – she just looks damn good. (For a what? How would he describe her, had he continued? I don’t know.)
This is my favorite thing about gender play. How for those of us who consciously choose it each morning, we get to make it shine. Sometimes it takes some more finessing, because it’s hard to find that space in between what is limiting about compulsory, normative, gender expression and what’s liberatory about chosen, taken on, bringing-out-your-full-self gender expression. But when our double windsors are neatened and we pull on that impossible-to-find-but finally-perfectly-fitting-suit-with-narrow-shoulders-and-just-short-enough-sleeves; when we slip into and buckle the fabulous heels that we wear not because we need to but because we stand taller knowing how great our calves look, when we slide on mascara so our lashes go on to eternity and brush on our blush not because there is something wrong with our faces, but because we like the aesthetics of decoration – in that moment, our genders shine. They shine not because we’ve managed to “successfully” fit ourselves into someone’s box, or because we’ve done it “perfectly”, but because we’ve managed to mold and form those boxes into fabulously, imperfectly sleek suits that flatter (or hide) our favorite curves and edges – because we can be more ourselves for the tools at our disposal, rather than less for rules imposed on us.
Safety
Two days later, M & I are sitting in my grandparents’ house. My grandparents - who donate money to LGBT organizations, who shove the twin beds in the guest room next to each other when M & I come to visit, and who have never for a moment led me to doubt their love and acceptance. My grandfather asks me about work, about whether or not I’m developing expertise in anything, and I try to explain that yes – I’m actually feeling really good about my work. I love weaving together my organizing and education. I love making the world safer for queer and trans people, and building on some of my best skills and assets while I’m at it. Educate. Agitate. Organize. Repeat. This is how change happens, and most days I feel pretty good about it.
“That’s great, but your work is so limited, you should at some point focus on something with a more general appeal.”
“But grandpa, everyone has a gender and sexuality – so really, my work has universal relevance.”
“Well, I suppose, but you don’t want to be too pigeonholed. Also, your hair has gotten shorter. It’s so short, everyone will know your preference.”
I don’t quite know what to say in this moment. Do I explain that the slightly longer faux-hawk I was sporting the last time he saw me is actually read as way gayer than my current pixie? How do I talk about femme (in)visibility, and how important it is to feel seen?
“Huh. You know, a lot of different kinds of people have this haircut. Also, I like it this way right now. I don’t want it long again at the moment.”
“Well, then. If you like, you like it, and that’s what matters.”
We have some variation of this – or similar conversations – most visits. And though they aren’t easy, and I still struggle to say what feels truthful and loving to myself and my communities, I also always see them against the backdrop of his story. I see his questions as they bubble up from his experiences of being visibly other: of being a Jewish child in early 1930s Germany, of being taunted and assaulted by his peers. Of being cast aside and marked as outside, other, wrong for reasons he couldn’t comprehend as a child. I see the pull of history, the stories of individual and collective trauma, and internalized oppression; I know that there is a safety and also a risk in fading away, in invisibility.
As Micah writes in “TimTum:”
Yes, there was (and is) anti-Semitism all around us, but in the U.S. it is mostly subtle, not the immediate life-threatening kind. This kind will kill you too, but slowly, gently. It kills cultures, the soul of a people, through assimilation, not through actually destroying their bodies. When we have been made so afraid, so ashamed, that we cannot even raise our voices to explain our traditions to our children, then we have taken in the enemy.
Queers and Jews know a lot about in/visibility and safety. As a Jewish queer person who can – if I work at it just a bit – probably pass as a straight Christian (I've got the Lord's Prayer down pat), I know that I am already risking my safety less frequently than my gender variant friends and community members, less frequently than fellow Jews who take on traditional, external markers of Jewishness; less frequently than the people who can't - without deep emotional risk and denial - step away from their visibility as other. And I also know that the moments in which I feel safest and most present are those in which I know I am seen – authentically and accurately. We’re all making our own calculations of safety, risk, visibility, and authenticity - daily. I can’t fault my grandfather for the lessons he’s learned and internalized about what it means to be visibly other, for his surviving – even with all that it has cost. But I can choose whether or not to resist internalizing the same.
Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here.
*These people might not all identify as queer, but I'm using it for the sake of brevity, as an umbrella for their identities which, I'm pretty sure fit beneath it. My use of queer is more particular throughout the rest of the post.