The Crying Bisexuals

Ok. So. Like.

I'm kind of embarrassed to be asking this publicly.

Because it's such a masturbatory just-came-out-and-is-being-way-too-much-about-it-and-annoying-all-the-elder-queers question, but, like...

What is "Queer Community"?

Specifically, what is "Queer Community" when you pass as straight and/or cisgender? 

Here's what I understand Queer Community to be when you're Visibly Queer: It's people who form their own adopted family for each other because their families of origin and their immediate mainstream society has said "You are not welcome here." They say, "You do sex wrong, you do gender wrong, you are weirding the rest of us out." And then Queer Community is like "We got people here who do sex like you do and who do gender like you do! Even the people who don't do it like you, they still got room and understanding for the way you're livin' your life. So if you wanna make friends or find partners to fuck or spend your life with? They're in here. And if life knocks you on your ass? We're gunna raise money for your hospital bills, we're gunna bring you soup when you're sick, we're gunna let you crash on our couch when you need a place to stay and we're gunna hook you up with this friend of my cousin who's looking to hire someone who can do a job that you can do. We got your back."

When you can blend in with the dominant culture... when you have access to all the community resources that entails...  You won't be excluded from social events or excluded from community gatherings or turned away from social services because of who you fuck or how you present your gender. I mean, there's other reasons you may feel unwelcome. But it's not because of your sexuality or gender, you know? Mainstream community is open and available to you if you look like you fuck and dress "normal."

So, I get it. I get why "The Queer Community" gives side-eye to us normies who show up being like "I'm one of you!" 

"You've got the whole rest of society to take you in, why are you taking up space from an actual weirdo who needs love and resources?" They say with their eyes. "When's the last time you were denied service because of the way you look? How coldly did the county clerk deny your application for a marriage certificate to your partner? How many days has it been since a stranger came up to you and your partner to ask how you possibly can have sex with each other? Go on back to your polite society that was built for people like you, we've got real work to do for the people who actually need it over here."

Once in college, my girlfriend and I were talking to our friend who had just come out as a gay man a year or so ago. "I don't like bisexuals," he told us confidently. "They have a choice. They can choose to be in an opposite-sex relationship. I don't have that choice. I will never be able to blend in like that."

"I don't have a choice," my bisexual girlfriend replied without anger, because our friend clearly hadn't realized he was talking to one. "When I fall in love with someone, I fall in love with them. I don't have a choice about who it is."

She and I were denied service at a salon together. "We don't cut hair like that." the stylist told us, when we asked for a buzz. We were denied service at a copy center. They didn't even tell us why. The clerk looked at us and wouldn't serve us. We had garbage thrown at us from cars and groups of men following us yelling "FUCKING DYKES". Strangers asked us how we fuck, who's "the boy." My mother held up a photo of me as a toddler after I came out and angrily informed me, "THIS? THIS girl is NOT GAY."

I haven't experienced anything like that with Matt. 

We slipped through customs checks by giving honest answers ("I'm here to visit my boyfriend."), we got legally married without inconvenience, we completed the immigration process, we got health insurance, we bought a car, a house. There were hurdles at points, but none of them because of our genders and our relationship. We've never been turned away for service at shop because of how we look together. 

I crave queer community. 

I see the visibly queer and I recognize my people. 

I walk by the Queer Resource Center or I see a poster for Pride or a queer meet-up and my stupid heart thinks "Oh! They're inviting me in!" 

But, of course they're not.

These are spaces for the people who don't have a choice but to stand out. This is community for the people who don't have access to Normie Community like I do. 

"You see, bisexuals take up too much space under the umbrella", another bisexual woman told me once, referring to the Queer Umbrella that covers all queer identity. I am paraphrasing here, but she basically said 'Bisexuals have to make every thing about their issues. Bisexual issues distract from the REAL issues that are life and death for queer and trans people.' Which... ok. Yeah. Life-and-death issues are more pressing than the common bisexual refrains of 'gays r mean to me :c' and 'people think i'm straight :c' I can't argue with that. 

....but....

like.

I dunno.

For the last ten+ years of selling my books at comic conventions, I have at least one woman (sometimes two or even three) come up to my table and just burst into tears as she tells me she's bisexual and she has a boyfriend or she's never had a girlfriend, so does she even actually count? Is she lying to herself? To cut back the inevitability of me getting sick from conventions, I have a strict no-handshakes policy-- except for people who cry. For my crying bisexuals (And they're always bisexuals), I come around to their side of the table and I hold them while they shnurfle into my shoulder and they say aloud all the hurts I carry around in my heart about not being a part of the Queer Community, too. 

Why do we even want that? 

We have access to all the other communities we could want, why do we crave acceptance and community from that one? Why does it hurt so fucking much?

  "Anybody who is a dick to you for not being queer enough," I tell them. "is saying WAY more about their own  insecurities than they are about you." When I tell somebody else that, for a minute I can believe it for me. "Fuck them." I tell them but really I'm telling myself. "Fuck them and find the people who make you happy."

Since I fell in love with a man and I've experienced a thousand tiny paper cuts of pain from The Queer Community about it, I've convinced myself I'm not welcome there. Queer Community isn't for me. 

...And yet.

When I am prickling with bitterness, I have to be honest and tell myself.

I do have a queer community. 

It's not the uppercase, official Queer Community with its resource centers and parades and sponsored dances.

I found my lowercase queer community person by person, one at a time. 

I met one in the lobby of my pole dancing studio, I met another over a research interview. I met one through her webcomic. I met one when she interned at my office. I met one at the backyard BBQ our apartment complex held one summer night. I met another when I dropped off my boots at her shoe repair store and invited her to get a cup of coffee (with the disclaimer, "I'm not hitting on you, I just really enjoyed this conversation." and now, three years later, we each have named some of our plants after each other)

When I think about my closest friendships, my chosen family members, almost everybody is some kind of queer. 

WHY DOES IT MATTER. 

Why does it matter if my community is """"Queer""""???? 

I DON'T KNOW. 

Here's what I do know:

The people I am drawn to tend to be queer. 

The people I love tend to be queer.

The people who are drawn to me and love me back? They tend to be queer. 

We share resources with each other, we provide housing and food and funds when one is in need, we send cat pictures back and forth, we help each other set up dating profiles, we watch movies together, we love each other, we drive each other crazy, we're ten different micro-communities overlapping against each other and aside from, like, literally three people, we're all some shade of queer. (And those three people? They feel queer, whatever the fuck that means)

Ok, look. 

I'm not going to proof read this. 

I wrote this stream-of-thought and I think I said a couple things that other people can relate to and I most definitely said some bullshit. 

Please don't chew me out about it if I pissed you off. Like. Obviously, feel your feelings. For sure. When you're writing to tell me how blinded by privilege I am, pretend you are looking at a quivery naked baby bird who had to cancel its plans two days in a row because it is weirdly Unwell and had to basically be unconscious for the last 48 hours and doesn't quite have a fever but is weirdly hot.

But really, the thing I MOST WANT TO HEAR from my fellow normie-passing queers is WHAT IS THE QUEER COMMUNITY TO YOU? What does "Queer Community" MEAN? Why do us normie-passers crave to be included in the "Queer Community" when we can just go be included in Normie Community? WHAT DOES "QUEER" EVEN MEAN WHEN YOU PASS AS NOT-QUEER?