Happy End of Pride Month!
Have you ever wondered if I'm a lesbian? Yeah, me too.
We’re wrapping up Pride Month, and I, for one, have been thinking more about my sexual orientation than I have in a long while.
Truthfully, I’ve never felt quite at home under the umbrella of heterosexuality. I’m far more comfortable standing beneath the vibrant, rainbow-colored LGBTQ+ canopy.
Feelings of confusion and conflict about heterosexuality are nothing new to me. Loving “the wine and not the label” has made sense to me long before Schitt’s Creek came around. One time in high school I told my mom I was a lesbian. Her response was a short, “No, you’re not.” It wasn’t what I needed to hear, but she was kind of right. I love men far too much to be a lesbian. I’m married to one who is open-hearted, wonderful, and supportive (even though he gives me shit for liking women’s soccer so much more than men’s). That doesn’t stop people from assuming I’m a lesbian. When I told a high-school friend that I was marrying a man, she said, “I didn’t know you were bi!?” I even get hate for it. On more than one occasion, I’ve been called (yelled) “fucking dyke” by angry passers-by.
I’m not surprised, though. Looking at my typical wardrobe, I check off most boxes for lesbian stereotypes. Consider my go-to work uniform: Dr. Marten’s steel-toe boots, Carhartt leggings with a chain (securing my arrow key) clipped to a utility loop at my hip, a men’s ribbed undershirt tank top (aka a wifebeater/guinea tee/whatever horrible name you use) beneath a loosely-buttoned flannel, little-to-no makeup, and a ponytail tucked under a trucker hat. Yeah, maybe I look like a lesbian. I think I look cute as hell. Whatever — the two are not mutually exclusive.
Anyway, I am not a lesbian. But I have wondered if I am. At one point in my life, I called myself bisexual, but even that felt too confining when I developed a mutual crush on a transgender person while Couchsurfing in Olympia 10+ years ago.
Around that time, I stopped trying to define, label, or explain my sexual orientation to anyone I wasn’t involved with. I remained deliberately ambiguous and let people guess or make assumptions. It was fun!
Then I met Jason, thus entering a monogamous relationship with a straight, cisgender man, and the question of my sexual orientation became a non-issue…
…until I started applying to jobs this year.
These days, I guess for DEI reasons, everyone wants to know your race, ethnicity, gender, disability status, veteran status, and whether or not you identify as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Am I missing something? I feel like maybe I am. The list of demographic questions is long, my friends.
Anyway, the questions got me thinking about it again, and this time I’m forced to choose a label. Even though I’ve been in a heterosexual marriage for over 5 years, I felt a deep surge of conflict when my cursor hovered over the straight/heterosexual option on those surveys. Maybe I’m not a lesbian, or even bisexual, but I’m not straight, either.
So I did some soul-searching and decided that, if I must label myself, queer feels most comfortable. It feels like a good fit. It has enough space for the feelings of love and attraction I’ve had for a vast array of beautiful humans. The fact that I will probably always sometimes dress in men’s clothes and giggle when people take a minute to realize I’m a woman. The way it feels right when my dude friends call me bro even though I’ve never, ever wished to be a man.
It makes me feel extra grateful to have a super cool husband who buys me rainbow Swatches for my birthday and joins me at Pride events even though I sometimes get mad and say I’m leaving him to live on an island of lesbian nuns (you can blame Tom Robbins for planting in my mind the idea that some such place exists).
My point is that if you’re a middle-aged person still navigating the twisted paths of sexual orientation, you are not alone.
If you’ve never felt like you fit under any one particular label, you are not alone.
If you find yourself asking questions after having seemingly made up your mind, you are so not alone my sweet baby angel.
Even though Pride Month is almost over, let’s continue to celebrate love in all its many, diverse forms. May we all open our hearts to love and accept who we were in the past, who we are now, and who we have yet to become.
I LOVE YOU!
Lauren
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