The Fanstastic Ms. Fox

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(What I didn't write was - Xtra West - perhaps you could hire some more people who do not identify as cisgendered homosexuals?)


A lot of homosexuals forget that the word "Queer" was coined in part to unite the wide range of ways of living outside the norm - undoing some of the damage wrought by psychiatry, which defined homosexuality as an illness, distinct from breaking other gender norms. And I know many one-woman/one-man couples who are definitely Queer.

Some are gender-variant, and when not holding hands (and sometimes even when they are), get read as gay or lesbian. If one of them acts gender-normative, and the other does not, the "normal" one may still be ejected from the hetero club on account of hooking up with a swishy dude who might be mistaken for a woman, or a woman who's too butch, and who may be mistaken for a man.

Sometimes one or both are bisexual. If they're both bisexual, one of the things they have in common is constantly taking flack from hets for being too homo, and flack from homosexuals from being too het - homosexuals who refuse to date them, and then who condemn them for sleeping with the other sex rather than choosing a life of bisexual celibacy.

Sometimes, one or both people are transsexual. Your relationship might be hetero, but bigots won't see it that way. Remember Pvt. Barry Winchell, murdered by his coworkers for going out with a transsexual woman?

Or they could be poly - many forms of which are still illegal in Canada.

Or they could be more than one of the above.

All of the people in these couples can be targeted by anti-queer laws, slurs or fists, just as much as anyone in a same-gender relationship.

Think also of norms of dating based on race, religion, ability, class and age.

What unites us as Queers is breaking with the assumption that everyone should be heterosexual, cisgendered, and live in a suburban bungalow with 2.5 children.

To the interior designer from the company with a name that sounds kinda gay:

You saw me covered in powdered drywall, wearing a filter mask while sorting through wires. I saw that you were very tastefully dressed - which is appropriate given your occupation.

Our only social interaction today was me saying "excuse me" as I walked past you, while you and my superiors were going over the layout. And you helping me when you saw that I couldn't figure out how to open the jammed sliding door. Still, you seemed unusually friendly to me.

Before you left, you were sure to specifically let me know that you'd see my later.


Oh yes, this was definitely worthwhile.

The Cass identity model of coming out.

It's somewhat outdated, culture-specific, and doesn't apply as much to transgendered people (i.e. both transsexual and gender-variant), but it's good.

I just sent this email off to a queer speed-friending/dating site.

.......................................

I would love to know how you solved the combinatoric/organizing problem inherent in queer speed friending/dating. I've filled many a piece of paper trying (and failing) to figure it out and present it in a simple form so that participants could follow instructions.

Hetero speed dating is fairly simple - everyone in group A (i.e. women who like guys) has to meet everyone in B (i.e. guys who like women), but neither A nor B is to meet anyone in their own group - you just form an inner and outer circle and one rotates. There are n people; n/2 in A and n/2 in B and you have n^2/4 meetings with n/2 happening at per turn with n/2 turns.

Same-sex speed dating is a more complicated as it requires n*(n-1)/2 meetings and the double-circle method fails to introduce everyone to everyone else. How did you do it so that everyone meets each-other without making the instructions too complicated for participants to follow? Did you group everyone into groups A and B, do the double-circle for one complete rotation then subdivide A and B and repeat with two double circles, repeating until done?

I could see it work if you had 4, 8, 16, 32 and so on people and could give everyone a slip of paper with who they need to talk to next, or a number slightly below an exponent of two, with a few people sitting out each round

I'd love to know how you did it - and I'd like to attend the next 19+ Rhizome event too,

- Amy

Going to Chicklets with April, as well as my newly-moved cousin and her girlfriend was not just fun, but felt like a coup. I don't entirely understand why. It may be the combining of queer events and family that I like. Indeed.

Music: up and down, widely varying themes, some awesome top 40 and 80s including a lady sovereign mashup that should have been left as-is, but also repetitive dance, some tunes semi-undanceable, inconsistent volume, higher tones and high hat often painfully loud

Crowd: sparse until 10:30 then increasing until 11:45, very gradually diminishing thereafter. Ages range from legal drinking to mid-fifties, with the median age being perhaps early thirties? Mostly White, but many more Black and Latina women than I am used to seeing anywhere in the city. Some Eastasians. No Southasians or Aboriganls as far as I could tell in the dark without my glasses. Pants near-ubiquitous: some shorts; no skirts. Guessing 90% women; 6% trans; 4% men sticking to their female chums. Women tended towards the gender-variant. A shorter crowd than I would expect - I was one of the taller non-male people.

Entertainment: two excellent aerialist acts turned the head of the entire dance floor; go-go dancers pulled off 1960s fashions well, but looked vaguely out-of-place. Screens overhead cycled through different videos, some visually cool and appropriate, others a bit sleazy, some just pretty and abstract. Pretty L.A.S.E.R.s and fake smoke abound.

Staff: friendly all-around, from door to staff, to bartender and attentive waiters.

Space: good size; some bumping getting into and off of the dance floor. Smoke room. 90% wheelchair accessible when not crowded.

Drinks: mostly ice

Personal and Social Context:
Running opposite HerShe may not have been a good idea, but it drew a packed house eventually.

Since this was the first time that I'd been to a Queer lasses' event (unless you count the three-and-a-half months of the 2004 course "Queer women's autobiographies"), I am unable to reach any strong generalizations. The social spacing and eye contact indicates that this particular event was a "take your  friends and dance together" rather than a "have a few and hook up" kind of thing. Is this generalizable to other dyke nights? if so, it could contribute to the pronounced difference between the number of gay clubs (a lot) and lesbian clubs (maybe one and they don't have a webpage).

I must say that I enjoyed the space. It had the queer of out-on-campus, and a lesbian-normative atmosphere, but it's also all-genders-welcome which makes this radical warm and fuzzy, instead of awkward and guilty.

If anyone has the goods on Lick (such as "where can I find out what they host over a given week, as - they don't seem to have a webpage") I'd like to hear it.
- Amy

Athen's Boy's Choir    -    Awesome.

Team Gina   -   ...usually entertaining.

1. Out-Out Campus is doing super-cool Queer awareness week stuff. There is a drag show on the 16th. You have to go.
I mean that you actually have to. You don't have choice - we passed it at forum last week. There will be drag kings with fedoras, painted-on mustaches and tommy-guns arriving at your place of residence shortly. Sorry.


2. This gay marriage ad campaigns point out the obvious: a lot of gay couples are pretty straight except for the gay part. Turns out that it had already been done in Canada (it's on the left side of the screen when you scroll down). These ads are funny and accurate and I like them but fall short in two areas.

  a. Gay marriage bills can fail in some areas because gay is seen as a White issue.
  b. Many people, of any sexual orientation, find something alarming about being in a conventional marriage.
(IMDYINGINTHISMIDDLECLASSVANILLAHELL)

I still like them, but I would like to see a multiracial genderfucked six-person bloodplay and the tagline:
Don't worry, you don't have to be a part of this...
but you're thinking about it aren't you?

Just sayin'


3. A few people have been a bit surprised by my gender issues. I've heard that many people don't find me to be that feminine, and that this acts as a source of confusion. Cool.           (and long live Eris, goddess of dischord!)

Here's the short of it: much as trans folk aren't necssarily straight, by which I mean "attracted to the gender opposite their preferred one" (in fact, I think that trans folk are more likely to be non-straight than cisgendered folks), gender identity doesn't always square with mannerisms. There are nelly transguys, who may be gay, straight or bi. I know of one butch translass.

Furthermore, Transgender shit is an intense process of self-blah-blah-blah-blah. In this, and often in transsexual cases of doing awesomely psycho shit to your mind-body with hormones (we must be mentally ill if we want to go through puberty again), people often find that they don't wind up where they expected. There are even trans folk who were homosexual in their old gender and still are in their new one

Changed sex, still queer, sorry dad.

So's you know.