Feeling “Other”

As a queer girl living in NYC, I’m a bit out of place in certain situations, but I usually feel relatively at home. When I’m alone, like it or not (and that’s a not for me), I pass as straight and so I’m viewed as “the norm”. But when I’m with a butch lover or friend, I’m suddenly aware of a change in the way people look at me. It’s an odd feeling- suddenly I’m gay by association. One night while dining with a butch lover in my neighborhood (which is pretty liberal), I overheard a woman at the next table say, “Lesbians?? All the way up here?” (Apparently we should stay below 14th street.) I suddenly felt embarrassed that my out of town friend was being subjected to this and angry that this woman had made both of us feel uncomfortable. We had just as much right to be there as she did.

More recently I was hanging out with my sister, who was visiting from out of town, and some of her straight friends and one girl said, “I heard you’re a lesbian”. I said yes…and she just looked at me and smiled- no follow-up question, causing me to again feel uncomfortable- not about being gay, but about her strange othering of me. I felt like I was supposed to tell her all about it. I was suddenly not a part of their group of friends in the way that I felt I was at dinner- I was an oddity…amusing and exotic. And then yesterday I was laying by the pool near my parents’ home in New Jersey and I looked around at all of the married hetero folks and felt it again. I wondered what would happen if I brought a butch girl I was dating here- I think jaws would drop. And these are the type of relatively educated folks that would never say they were homophobic or racist- but you just kind of feel it. They live in a bubble- a white upper middle class hetero bubble. 

At one point I started wondering why I even cared that I felt like an other among these people. I certainly don’t want their life. I tried to calm down and tell myself I was being judgemental. Who cares what these people think? And maybe I was making unfair generalizations. Perhaps I was othering myself and assigning them a role. And then it happened. A Chinese family (who were…GASP…speaking Chinese) entered the pool area and walked by this same group of people I was just watching. All of a sudden they were quiet and then I saw them laughing a bit and my blood started to boil. As if this family didn’t probably feel a bit out of place already, being the only people of color there, now they were subjected to this. I hoped I was being paranoid and then I heard part of a comment that contained the words “egg roll” and my suspicions were confirmed. I was just so angry and embarrassed. I wanted to march up to them and shout at them- tell them that not everyone is like them and that that’s ok and to tell the family that I too felt out of place.

I think in all of these situations, it’s an issue of respect. Why do people of one group feel that they can judge another group? And as I examined myself, I realized I was guilty of it too. Granted, my suspicions proved true, but I made the generalization- I made that leap. I think at the pool I felt complicit in a way. It’s the issue of passing- the Chinese family were being judged based on their race, something observable. I’m queer, but femme, so they don’t know that I’m also an impostor. It’s such a strange feeling sometimes- like I have this privilege that I don’t want, but I don’t know what to do about it. And the other issue is that I always try to have compassion for people. I think this person doesn’t hate me because I’m gay or wasn’t trying to be homophobic, maybe they’re just ignorant or insecure themselves- they have wrong view and that’s too bad. But at what point are you just excusing behavior if you don’t speak up? Anyway…just what’s on my mind this evening. Perhaps I’ll plan a lesbian pool party in New Jersey…ha. I am curious what other people’s thoughts are on this- how other femmes deal with these feelings/situations…