Look we've seen this kind of thing before.

[raybear]

Hello, I am a bad queer, as I attended no "pride" events this weekend. I wish it was so simple as being jaded and bitter, in that attempt to be cool and aloof way.

The past two summers I've been at grad school during these weekends, feeling no remorse or sadness in missing the hot hot heat and sun and crowds and crowds and crowds. Instead I was hanging out in my writing bubble. [Note to self: look at why you love the bubbles, the alternate universes, the compartamentalized existence.] There is a way, I admit I sometime feel "over" being queer, but mostly its just that it doesn't seem like a big deal to me, which is a pretty spoiled way of looking at things. I mean, there's nothing wrong with the fact that I exist in my daily life pretty much out about everything and pretty much feeling fairly safe about it. But it's maybe wrong to forget that other people are on different steps and don't have the same freedom of movement. It seems to silly to be waxing so seriously about rainbow floats, and really what I've been thinking more about is transness and trans identity and being "a good tranny" and what that means for me, what ethical responsibilites (if any) do I feel I should perform. It's cocolola's fault really, because I participated in a workshop with her theater group last week and then I led another one today, both about masculinity and performing and gender (and monitoring/policing gender¹) and it was interesting to be in that headspace of thinking about where I was, how I got here, what's the story I always tell and is it still accurate, true, important. unscrambled said something else this weekend that's rattling around my brain, we were talking about something else entirely, my nervousness as a child and how that translates into my nervousness as an adult, and it's a theme in conversations about ways that I seem to be frightened of people at times, as if I somehow am NOT surrounded by some pretty amazing, loving, open, accepting people, which I am, but instead it's as if I've sustained some sort of deep intense trauma that I've forgotten that informs all these interactions, and so I'm saying this and then they said, "well, I don't know, maybe not getting to be a boy for 20something years is kinda traumatic." Hm. [Note to self: cancel appointment for regression hypnosis.] I think this is just one of these things, like other things in my life lately where I'm looking, these stories of saying, and thinking, about how I'm so well-adjusted on this area, so 'done' and finished, isn't this great? nothing to see here, let's move along to some other issue in my life that has NOTHING to do with this, I'm sure. But hi, guess what.

I don't mean to imply that this journal will take a long trip back to the Freudian narcissism phase of transitioning, so don't worry if that's what you're thinking, and by 'you', I mean 'me' because I don't really want to go there at all -- a necessary step on the path, for sure, but not one I care to repeat for the sake of my loved ones. But still. Still, there's something maybe there, in the period right after that I have not yet named loosely on a psychogist's theory of development. Maybe Maslow? No, I think maybe Erikson instead. Though I do love me a good Skinner box.

Sorry. Reel it in.

It's pride weekend. I saw none of it. I maybe feel proud. I mostly feel tired and happy to be home and glad it's not 1000 degrees and sort of wishing that maybe I had taken tomorrow off because I'm feeling a hint of depression about this Sunday night and having to go to work on my birthday to a place in a corporate building doing boring work where I don't really know any of those people. Maybe I should come out to spice up the day. Hey, I'm 29! And I wasn't born a guy! What's up with binaries and our brains needing them? Have you ever thought about making a switch? I'll type up that dictation in the next hour.

Or maybe I'll just wear my lovely new green linen shirt and eat cupcakes at my desk.

________


¹: Johnny T. and I invented a new euphemism for masturbating after a misheard bit while conversing and retelling this part. It's "pleasing your gender."

Comments

interesting

[keetbabe.livejournal.com]

i too did not attend a single pride event and feel you on being 'over' being queer/gay/lesbian/bi and all other letters of the alphabet. in a strange way, i felt very detached from the whole weekend -much like i feel like the original sentiment behind pride is now detached from its current purpose. or myabe there are bigger fish to fry, like why can't there be affordable housing in nice neighborhoods for everyone and what about the chicago public school system?

[louche.livejournal.com]

i've been thinking about that whole "i'm so well adjusted" line lately, too. and realizing, well, yea not so much.

but listen, hey, you're downtown working for some lawyers on your birthday today huh? are you having a birthday lunch at least?

[twostepsfwd.livejournal.com]

Happy birfday to you, happy birfday to you,
happy birfday dear raybear, happy birfday to you!

[little-octagon.livejournal.com]

I wish it was so simple as being jaded and bitter, in that attempt to be cool and aloof way.

From a New Yorker cartoon a few years ago: "We're here, we're queer, we're over it."

You know, some easy questions.

[unscrambled.livejournal.com]

For me, I think it is about occupying a more privileged space than I did when I wasn't over it. When you don't have to live in your hard stuff every minute of the day, it's easier to forget about how hard it was.

That is, until it isn't.

Also, I wonder about who you need to be good for? All these entries about being good, but why, for whom.

Also, I wonder about not only why the bubbles are, but also what the bubbles are, why you choose those things. Of course, there's my own interest here, but isn't there always.

Re: You know, some easy questions.

[raybear.livejournal.com]

i can answer part of this now.

1. yeah, definitely. even though one could describe my own current states as "over it", i wouldn't say that about myself, and i cringe when i hear it elsewhere, because i still understand in the big picture scheme of things, even unconsciously in my own state of not being in the hard stuff, the world is not over it.

2. generally, when i speak in simple terms of being a good _____, it's about examining what is my own sense of ethical obligation to my self and who i want to be in the world and how is that perhaps different/changing from other people, or other people's expectations, or even who i was before in this life. so there's a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek in my phrasing, but also not. i think about ethics and Ethics a lot, or rather it's often rattling around in myhead in bits and pieces, or even as a framework to view things in, i just don't always use the fancy language of the discourse in my ramblings. nor have i written the manifestos, but that's on the lifetime to-do list.

3. thoughts on bubbles still forthcoming.

[gotmce99.livejournal.com]

I didn't really do anything this year either, chosing to watch the World Cup and do laundry instead.

And love the "pleasing your gender." Lovely.

[lizinator.livejournal.com]

Yeah, yet again I am at opera camp in BFE and did nothing for Pride. And I thought about that. And I thought, shit, I am who I am every day of my life, and floats and alcohol and parties don't make that much of a difference. Does that make me over it, too? I think maybe.

[iamthesphinx.livejournal.com]

So, obviously I have a sort of different relationship to my queerness (like a 'does it even exist or not' type relationship) than you do... but I was also feeling like a "bad queer" this weekend for not attending any pride events. But, and I think most under-the-radar or part-time queers would agree with me here, I always feel REALLY out of place in that environment, like I'm getting mistaken for a fag hag (which, of course, who doesn't love fag hags... it's just that I'm not one, you know?) rather than any brand of queer.

I did kinda want to go, though, just to purchase one of those "I can't even think straight" T-shirts, so that I could paint or have screen printed on the back "...or gay either." I guess it's just the old bisexual chip on the shoulder rearing its head again. :-)

P.S. Happy birthday! Can't wait to see you, Liza, et al. on Friday at Sidekicks!

[swampgirl.livejournal.com]

happy happy happy (late?) birthday!!!!