This in itself is complicated then we might dare to take into account what of us we want the world to see, what makes us feel comfortable and confident and empowered. If we’re ‘too gay’ – that is, too masculine – we raise to alert the straight world, putting ourselves at a disadvantage or sometimes even in danger. If we’re ‘too girly’, we risk being overlooked or even rejected by our own communities. Ultimately, hearing someone ask ‘who let the hetties in here?’ at a queer party carried some of the same implications as what I heard at twelve did.įor queer women, self-presentation can be a calculated performance of balance and duplicity.
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I know that I’m gay! I’ve known for nigh-on a decade now. The frustration in adulthood so far has been the perception that I’m ‘not gay enough’. A handful of bad haircuts and questionable fashion statements later, I feel like I’ve melded my ‘out-of-place’ masculinity with a type of femininity that resonates with me, and I’m thoroughly proud of my sexuality. I used to hate wearing anything girly – now, my friends comment that they’ve hardly ever seen me in jeans. Femininity in adolescence felt to me like a hand-me-down jumper – something that I could wear, should wear, but was never really my own.įemininity in adolescence felt to me like a hand-me-down jumper – something that I could wear, should wear, but was never really my own. In that context, the space I inevitably took up didn’t feel so obvious to me, and I assumed that it didn’t seem so to others either. I didn’t really have a close circle of female friends until Sixth Form. It was often easier to hang out with boys. Being tall, being overweight, being bi, I found it hard to connect with what it means to be a woman (or a girl). In a system of heteropatriarchy, we also see the act of liking women as being a masculine thing to do. Masculinity is traditionally associated with the idea of ‘taking up space’, of physical presence, and femininity with a lack thereof. Reluctantly playing hockey for the first time, I remember hearing another girl ask with indignant sarcasm, ‘who put him on our team?’.
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I was certain that others picked up on it – and as the saying goes, kids can be cruel. This out-of-place feeling was compounded by the fact that even then, I was pretty certain that I liked girls more than I liked boys. Neither of those things made it easy for me to blend into the background, and so the whole of my time at school was dominated by the distinct feeling of being out of place in no positive way. I was considerably overweight until I reached my late teens, and taller than even most of the boys in my year group. Anyone who’s been the ‘new kid’ knows that in the package of the experience is an obsession over the things we think make us weird. When I was twelve, I started at my relatively small secondary school, after moving with my family down to Newcastle.