Coming Out the Daily Struggle
I rarely leave my comfort zone but unfortunately with my graduate degree and work schedule, I am pushed often to make contact with the world. Truth be told, social gathering and networking are the most anxiety provoking experiences I have to endure and I hate making conversation.
Usually it has nothing to do with the people or the fact that I am a gay woman, it is due in most part to the fact that I feel either invisible or like a fraud.
Straight women will have difficulty understanding this concept and there are a lot of gay women that won’t ever feel this but when some of us venture out we look indistinguishable to our own and it can be very lonely.
This week I have been away in Santa Barbara for my PhD Orientation. I was thinking, this will be an amazing opportunity to meet my academic peers and also to meet fellow LGBT following the same career course. I also made the assumption that because I was in California there would be a wealth of my community running around.
That was not the case, and in fact there were some truths I learned that hurt and that felt unfair. First I was reminded that just because I am gay, most often gay women will stay away. I am still trying to figure that out, because it could be my own lack of interpersonal skills that drives them away but I have often found that gay women have straight friends and/or girlfriends whom at some point were ex-girlfriends or friends with benefits where funds have dried out.
This truth for me is really upsetting and also annoys me because I feel pushed aside by my own community due to my sexuality, not to mention the assumption that I would ever want to have sex with you just because your gay. I have basically been discriminated against by the lesbian nation before they have even come to know my nature and decided that I must be a sex hungry girlfriend stealing woman.
I have become so jaded and disappointed that friendships are not formed due those assumptions, and that they are formulated by insecurities and past hurts. Then again I might be just that annoying and boring that they are just turned off by the mere sight of me. I really do not know what else I could attribute to my lack of lesbian friends.
The second truth I learned is that I really do not look gay and that people will never get over that fact and that there will always be shocked faces when I say it. It is so freaking frustrating to have to state that part, of which you are, (and most butch and androgynous women will not have to endure this invisibility cloak) but for me it is a daily battle.
I was even told this week “I would have never guessed,” and although it was said in a polite and playful manner it was still a reminder that there is a part of me that I love and want to share with the world that is hidden.
Now you might think, Alex what’s the big deal and who cares, just be happy with who you are! The truth is that I am very happy with whom I am but I am often unable to fully demonstrate it. Seeming straight often puts you in the predicament of not being taken seriously as a Gay woman because overt discrimination is something we may not face. We get hit on by men who may assume that we are playing hard to get or think that saying we are a lesbian is a turn on, and worst of all it is really freaking hard to get a date with a woman!
Even this week I went to three gay bars and in all three I got hit on by men and not a single woman… in a freaking GAY CLUB! My childhood best friend was laughing so hard I thought she was going to wet herself. Even she agrees that looking straight in a gay world is a disadvantage or that maybe I need a make over.
I just wish for one day I did not feel like I have to come out and say “Hello, I am Lesbian, that wants to be seen for who I am.” I don’t feel like a butch and do not want to have to change my shell to fit a mold, but sometimes, most times, I just want to be seen in my community and not walked past. Maybe it is this craving that drives me to connect with the LGBTQ world and advocate for our needs as often I feel mine are unmet. Okay I know I am being a big cry baby, but I do really want to know how do you feel?
~The Lesbian Guru
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I think that woman of the lesbian community face issues with their identity in many different ways. It all depends on who you are and how you are seen by the community you live in. You feel like you are unnoticed because people don’t realize you are gay by your looks while others face large amounts of discrimination based on the fact that they do look so obviously gay. I feel neither issue is bigger or smaller then they other but unfortunately happens. Embrace the fact that you are a beautiful, talented lesbian loving woman and relish in the fact that you can still attract not only the ladies but also the men…just set them right when you need to and remind them that not all the femmine beauties in the world walk the straight and narrow road. It’s people like you that help to break the common stereotypes that our community has always had to endure and helps to show that lesbians come in all shapes. sizes, colors, and physical features….So thanks again for helping the community, and in case you didn’t realize, you did it by people NOTICING your looks first and then UNDERSTANDING, even if not right away, that being a lesbian isn’t set by any particular prototype or standard….:):):)
I send you my best regards. The whole waling-around-feeling-like-a-fraud thing is interesting, and gives me some things to think about.
One question — I understand that you have some social anxiety and so perhaps going out to a gay bar in the first place is very discomfiting, but I’m wondering why you are upset that none of the women came up to speak to you, and only the men did, when it’s clear that you are a human being with legs and a voice and the power to use both — why did you taker the position of “I’ll just show up and wait for them to respond” and why did you not identify among the crowd the people you would most like to meet and go up and introduce yourself to them? Seems like a challenge for any of us, but something we all need to take responsibility to do.
I offer this in support, not criticism — and look forward to your thoughts.
Best,
Tan (in Berkeley, but I’m from Camden SC — your hometown neighbor!)
Dear Tan,
Well sweetheart you have definetly called my out on my shit (in my defense I did say I was being a big baby) and your are completly right (love this part because I rarely utter the words.) It is definetly a two way street and I am a great believer in going after what I want. However, with that said I am terrified in social situations, going up to a woman and saying “hi” is the thing my nightmares are made off. I loved your comment and I definetly did not take it any other way then for what it was “an observation” and curiousty. I will have to challenge my fears a little better and maybe write something about it. How about this I am going out tonight and I will attempt to approach a woman (and record my experience). Who knows you might have just set me free!
Now your turn, do you live up to those same standards, am curious?
Alex
Hi Alex –
Yes, I DO! And I can’t know how many women might have wanted to talk with me but waited, month in and month out, for me to make the first move, before they moved on. I’ve heard this before and it saddens me. I move forward to the people who, upon first notice, strike me as interesting, but there are MANY interesting people in the world, and someone I might not have noticed at first might be someone with whom I could share an enormously rich connection — SHE saw it first, SHE was moved to know me, but she sat and waited and gave up. What a shame.
I’ve recently moved across the country, and so I’ve met a lot of new people. Most of my life is peopled with new friends, rather than old ones, as I only had a few friends here from my earlier life. I’ve been bemused by how many times someone has said, “Oh, you’re SO good at making connections, you’re so social, before you arrived I knew no one and I’ve been here in grad school for three years” etc etc — it’s just odd to me. Is this a femme thing? A lesbian thing? A grad student thing? A California girl thing?!
All of which is meant to say that I don’t think you’re alone, Alex. So I’m glad you’ve brought this up. So GOOD ON YOU! You’re taking yourself on tonight! Let us know how it goes.
Meanwhile, I must say that being someone who is not shy to initiate conversation with strangers, it OFTEN happens that when the strangers are lesbian or male, ESP. if they are the shy and retiring type, they ASSUME that my interest is erotic/romantic/potentially date-like, which always offends me. And you have intimated that you get that kind of energy back from people sometimes too. Don’t you hate that shit? It’s like WHERE THE F&^% do you get off thinking I want you? I was just being nice!
Mostly, though, it works out happily and to everyone’s advantage. People enjoy sincere interest, espeically when it is devoid of weird energy.
Best of luck tonight. Peace.
I wouldn’t mind feeling invisible for a while. Its not the fact that I’m easily recognised as lesbian that makes me feel this way-it’s more the fact that I keep been mistaken as a teenage boy. I can accept that fact that I fall into the androgynous category but why do people have to make assumptions about my gender and age?? Makes me want to scream!!!!!
That is interesting.