Pronouns, Unexpected Crushes, and the “Repressed Lesbian” Cliché

by Lindsay Miller

I’ve got a problem, and I don’t know how to put it without possibly being offensive in some way. I’m seventeen and I’ve discovered that I like ladies. However, through circumstances (mostly religious ones), I’ve never actually spent more than five minutes in the presence of another lady-who-likes-ladies. And from what I’ve read, lesbianism as a culture is just as much a performance as gender is. There’s no biological hardwiring that gets lesbians liking Indigo Girls or Tegan and Sara or motorbikes or whatever. So my question is this: as someone who has no access to a queer community (for the time being — hopefully, in a year or two I shall get out of here), how do I learn about how I’m suppose to act, what I’m supposed to like? Is it okay if I don’t like motorbikes? Is it okay if I’m femme and don’t much fancy butch women (I could of course be wrong on that point, but even so)? I feel a bit like everyone else got How to Be a Lesbian in the post one day and the postie couldn’t find my house.

Yes! The answer to every question you have that starts with “is it okay if…” is a total, unqualified yes. It is okay to present any way you want, and it is okay to dig whatever kind of girls you dig. No one is going to kick you out of the gay club for not liking motorcycles. (Okay, but what is it with you people and motorcycles? Every time somebody wants to explain to me that she’s not a Big Dyke Stereotype, it’s always “blah blah and I’m not into motorcycles blah.” I just, obviously it’s kind of a cliché, but motorcycles and the women who ride them are objectively SO AWESOME that I don’t even know how you arrive at a point in your life where you look at a chick on a Harley and go, “meh.” SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS.)

Here’s the deal: everything you associate with lesbianism and lesbian culture is totally optional, except for liking women, and you’ve got that part covered. If you don’t give people the standard visual/behavioral cues that tell them to read you as a dyke, you might not get hit on a lot, because people (even queer people) tend to assume that everyone is straight until proven otherwise. So you’ll probably have to make more than your fair share of the first move. But other than that, this is not going to be a big problem. And once you make some queer friends, they’ll be able to help take some of the pressure off by introducing you to their cute single coworker/neighbor/ex.

As you become more familiar with the wonderful world of being a homo, you’ll be able to pick out what parts of it resonate with you, and what you can do without. You don’t have to do anything just because all the other queers are doing it, but you also don’t have to close yourself off to experiences you’re curious about because you’re afraid of being predictable. Approach queer culture with an open mind, and you may end up totally enamored of something you never expected! Like motorcycles.

By the by, it sounds like you’re just ridiculously together for a seventeen-year-old lesbo with a conservative religious upbringing and no access to a queer community. Obviously how you come across in an email is largely under your control, but if you’re even this good at pretending to be ridiculously together, I have high hopes for your future. Move to a big city, make some friends, get laid, have a gay old time. Don’t forget to wear a helmet.

Queer Chick, please help me! I have a pretty unusual (I think) problem that’s slowly making me miserable.

I had my first crush on a girl when I was in middle school. At first I identified as bisexual, because I had crushes on boys, too, but over time I started to identify as a lesbian. I’ve never dated a man, or had sex with a man, or anything — all of my romantic and sexual experiences have been with women. So “lesbian” seemed like the right label. I was in the closet for a long time, but now, in my early twenties and freshly out of college, I’m finally out to all my friends and my immediate family, and I’ve been lucky enough to have everyone be totally supportive and cool with it.

But here’s the thing: lately I’ve been feeling really, really attracted to men. More attracted to men than I am to women. And I’ve started to wonder if maybe I’m actually … straight? But then I think, I still love women, and I don’t want to give up sleeping with women, so maybe I’m just bisexual — maybe bisexual closer to the straight end of the scale, but still bisexual. Or maybe I’m heterosexual but homoromantic. Or homosexual but heteroromantic. What about all those women I’ve dated and slept with — wasn’t I attracted to them? Maybe I’m just sexually fluid and in a period of attraction to men. In truth, though, the more I think like this, the more I feel like a cliché of a repressed lesbian in denial, only in reverse.

I think that if I could act on my attraction to men, I might be able to figure out what’s going on here — am I straight, am I bisexual, whatever. But I find myself unable to do anything about it, for a couple of reasons: a) I’m afraid of what I might find out, and b) I don’t know how to explain my sudden interest in men without making everyone I know hate me.

The thing is, even I hate myself for feeling like this. I’ve always been the one to criticize Chasing Amy for its offensive depiction of lesbians. I know full well the way lesbians feel about gay women who “go straight,” because that’s how I feel about gay women who “go straight.” I feel like if I start dating men, I’m going to be confirming every terrible stereotype about how lesbians just need to find a good man, and I hate myself for that.

I love queer culture, I love women, and I especially love lesbians. I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life immersed in queer community — first only online, when I was a teenager and too afraid to tell anyone, but now in real life, too. I love that and I don’t want to lose it.

I hate that I’m in my 20s and still figuring out my sexuality. I hate that I’m probably going to have to come out to everyone I know again. I hate that I might potentially have to lose my community in order to have a relationship with someone I’m sexually attracted to. I hate that I’m writing you this letter with a problem as stupid as being attracted to people of the opposite sex, when there are queer people out there with real problems. But I really feel like this is driving me crazy, and I can’t talk about it with anyone I know.

How do I explain to everyone I know that I might be interested in dating men? How do I go about dating men without making everyone in the queer world hate me? How do I do it without hating myself? I know how this letter sounds, and I’m sure that if I were reading it instead of writing it, I’d be rolling my eyes, too, but I’m desperate for some advice — please help me!

Oh, girl! You hate that you’re still figuring out your sexuality in your 20s? That’s what your 20s are for! It’s an entire decade of your life set aside for the specific purpose of learning Important Lessons by having sex with inappropriate people!

I understand that this is a whole lot easier said, but you need to stop beating yourself up for not having all the answers. You’re super freaked out about what other people will think if you start boning guys — you spent like a third of your letter apologizing for it to me, and I’m just some random Internet person — but I don’t think anybody in your life is going to judge you as harshly as you’re judging yourself.

Which brings me to my next point: you seem to think that before you can go out and bang some dude, you’re required to take out a full-page ad in the paper that says “[YOUR NAME] hereby renounces dykehood forever, and will be accepting applications from all wang-bearing suitors. Also, does anybody want these Melissa Etheridge tickets, obviously I’m not going to be using them.” This is just plain unnecessary.

You have this thing going on where your sexual identity is really, really entangled with your sense of community. And that’s fine — it’s awesome, even. The queer community is, for many of us, a wonderful and welcoming place to grow up and come out, and it allows us to celebrate something that we might otherwise have swallowed and allowed to turn rotten and strange inside us. But if your social circle revolves around who you do and don’t like to bone, something can happen — something that’s not necessarily bad, but is definitely not helping your situation: you start to think that your entire community deserves to know every detail of your sex life.

I am here to tell you that it’s okay to keep some secrets! It’s okay to sleep with that dude from your gym, or from Craigslist, or whatever, without immediately texting all your friends and telling them how it felt different from a strap-on. Because you need to figure out some things about yourself, and it’s going to be a lot easier to pull that off if you’re not also providing running commentary about exactly what you’re doing and what it meeeeaaaans. You can figure out what it means afterward. Right now, give yourself the space you need to experiment.

So, step 1 is go ahead and bang a dude. There’s just no other way you’re going to resolve this. You need to figure out if the attraction you feel is a real, essential part of your identity, or if it’s just like how every once in a while you get a craving for Cheetos, even though Cheetos are super gross, so you eat two bites and go “Oh, right, I actually don’t like those at all,” and then you’re fine for another year and a half. Be safe, and be nice — don’t tell this guy that you want him to be your boyfriend when you’re actually just doing a genitalia taste test. If you’re into it, feel free to do it again, either with the same person or with someone else. If you’re not, no harm done, and sometime later when you’re drunk at a party you can be like, “Did I ever tell you guys about the time I hooked up with a dude?!” and everyone will shriek incredulously the way drunk people do and you’ll be the center of attention for the next three minutes.

Let’s say, though, that you discover you’re right — you really do like boys better, and they’re the only people you want to see naked from now on. While I will offer my condolences (seriously, boobs are so great), please remember that this is not the end of the world. Yes, you will probably have to go through the coming-out process again, which is a huge pain in the ass, but at least you already know how it’s done, right? And you don’t have to give up all your friends, or stop hanging out at your favorite gay bar. I know some rockin’ straight people who have mostly queer friends and are totally into queer culture, and it’s fine. You like what you like — if that means making out with a dude, then combing out your mullet before you go to the softball game, more power to you for fucking with stereotypes. Be an awesome dykey straight chick if you want. Just make sure that when a girl hits on you, you let her down easy, okay?

I’m a 27-year-old queer woman. More specifically, I’m bisexual and homoromantic — I’m sexually attracted to men and women, but I only fall in love or connect emotionally with women. I’ve had two very intense and meaningful long-term lesbian relationships, and I still have fond feelings for both women. Feelings of longing, actually.

I recently decided to start dating men purely because the emotional stakes are so much lower and I didn’t want to be heartbroken again. Being heartbroken is exhausting. Sex with men is easy and fun for me, and on one level it feels refreshing to be so detached, instead of constantly on the verge of losing myself so entirely and irreversibly to someone else, which is what it’s like with women.

I’ve met some men who are truly decent and kind to me, who have said “I love you,” and I don’t know how to explain to them that I don’t have the “wiring” to reciprocate romantic love, even though the erotic/physical part is very fulfilling. Saying that makes me feel like a monster or a sociopath. It makes me feel like there must be something psychologically “unhealthy” about my orientation. Especially because the flip side, the way I relate to women, seems so all-consuming and heightened, and I essentially lose my independent identity in lesbian relationships.

Basically, although I know that being queer doesn’t make one “defective” in general, it feels that way for me — I feel like a heartless, sex-crazed ice queen when interacting with men, and in my dealings with women (but not in other areas of my life) I fit many of the criteria for “dependent personality disorder.” I see myself in the awful stereotypes of the pathological or mentally-ill bisexual.

I know I can’t change the fact that my orientation is more complicated than average, but I’d like to experience it as something positive and affirming, rather than dysfunctional and ultimately destructive. I don’t know if my problem is one of internalized phobia, or if there really is something else wrong with me. I do know that I feel alone; although I am out and participate in LGBT life, I have yet to meet a single other person who is my particular version of queer/bi.

I have seen some therapists who have unfortunately treated my sexuality like a disorder. I’ve also seen gay-friendly therapists, but in their zeal to convince me that I’m “just fine the way I am” they’ve refused to acknowledge how much my romantic and sexual feelings make me unhappy. (Just one example: When girlfriends have broken up with me in the past, I’ve been so distressed that I self-injure and ideate suicide, things I never do in any other life circumstance.) How do I get rid of the sense that I am broken and maladaptive?

All standard disclaimers about how I am not a mental health professional, etc., apply times one million to the following answer, but here we go: yes, it sounds like there is something screwy in your brain’s wiring, something that you need to get looked at by an actual brain-wiring expert. But the thing is, it’s not because you’re queer. Will you do me a favor, and go back and read that last sentence again? It’s not because you’re queer. Your sexual orientation is a whole ‘nother thing from your possible mental health issues.

Self-harming behavior and suicidal thoughts are a sign that something is wrong — you already know that. But because they only surface when you get dumped by a lady, you’ve decided that liking ladies is the problem. Your super-intense relationships and super-painful breakups are obviously triggers for whatever problems you have, but I don’t think they’re the cause. And I also don’t think that having emotionally detached orgasms with dudes for the rest of your life is going to make you happy — hell, it doesn’t sound like it’s making you happy now.

I really hate to tell you to keep shopping for a therapist, since you’ve obviously had such awful luck in that arena in the past, but … I think you need to keep shopping for a therapist. One who is capable of separating your depressive episodes from your lady-lovin’ ways, and will treat you for one without trying to “cure” you of the other. Call around first and talk to several therapists before making an appointment. Be upfront about what you need, and if the doctor you’re talking to doesn’t seem compatible with those goals, thank them for their time and look elsewhere. You deserve the chance to have a physically and emotionally satisfying relationship, and to get there you’re going to need assistance from someone who has better credentials than “says ‘vagina’ a lot on the Internet.”

In the meantime, feel free to keep banging guys — just because you’ve got Some Issues doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue getting off in a way that is safe and fun for you. But steer clear of dudes who are looking for a girlfriend, because you already know that that way lies awkward conversations. The fact that you don’t have romantic feelings toward guys doesn’t make you defective, it makes you a perfect catch for someone who, like you, is interested in companionship and hot sex without emotional entanglement. If you find yourself involved with someone who wants more than you can give, it doesn’t mean that you’re wrong as a person. It just means that you two are wrong for each other. Shut it down gently but firmly, and try again with someone new.

I’m a very pro-Queer cissexual straight lady. I have a very good friend and former college roommate who is a lesbian and the best person you’ll ever meet. She recently moved to the town I live in — yay! She’s living with her partner, and I can tell she’s madly in love, and I’m so excited for her. The question/problem is, her partner is a pre-op transman who hasn’t yet changed his name. Partially because of the feminine name, and partly because I’m used to her dating ladies, it’s been hard for me to refer to him as a him. My friend is very understanding, and I really am trying, but I only get things right about 50% of the time. I think maybe I’m overthinking this, but how should I fix/handle this? Is this super offensive to get the pronoun gender wrong, or is it worse if I apologize and call attention to my awkwardness?

You know what, I’m glad you’re overthinking this! When it comes to treating someone else with kindness and respect, I would always rather you try too hard than not hard enough. And it’s so nice to hear that you’re making an effort, as opposed to being one of those juiceboxes who’s like “Well if he really wants people to see him as a man, why doesn’t he work a little harder to look like one,” ugh, fuck those people and their awful gender-policing faces, never be like that. Unfortunately, there’s no quick fix for your situation — all you can do is keep trying to use the correct pronoun for your friend’s partner, and trust that the more you practice, the easier it will get. At some point in the future, you’ll hear someone else accidentally refer to him as a her, and it will sound super weird to you, and then you’ll know that you’ve got this.

If you screw up, and you realize it right away, it’s fine to say “Oops, I mean ‘he,’” and keep going. No need to make a big deal about it — just correct yourself, like you would if you made any other misstep while speaking. On the other hand, if it dawns on you all of a sudden that you used the wrong pronoun fifteen minutes ago, then I think let it go. It’s only going to be more weird and awkward if you derail the whole conversation to go back and apologize. Your friend’s partner is probably extremely used to people getting his pronoun/gender wrong, and doing and saying way more offensive shit besides, so my guess is that if you’re obviously trying and you obviously respect his gender identity, he is not going to get upset over the occasional “oops.”

For what it’s worth, I am speaking as a cis lady, so I don’t really have firsthand knowledge of what The Pronoun Thing feels like from the inside — jump in if you think I fumbled this one, trans ‘Pinners!

Previously: Yoga Sirens, “Starey Dinners,” and Gay Teens on TV.

Lindsay Miller knows everything. Do you have a question for A Queer Chick? (300-word max, please.)

Photo by Anna Sedneva, via Shutterstock