dwyn is contemplating cultural narritives and how much it irritates her when someone assumes she is other than she is

So today, I get to my critique class early and I'm sitting in the room with two folks, one of which I had class with last year (We'll call her CM), the other who I've just met this year. (We'll call him NG) We're chatting about music and NG is playing a Lady Gaga song on his ipod. I ask him if that is Lady Gaga and he tells me yes, yes that is her. We proceed to launch into a discussion about Lady Gaga as an artist and all of that. He tells me and CM that he knew about her way back when, before she was popular. I vaguely nod. I still don't know very much about her work as art, I mostly know about her from feminist cultural criticisms that I've been reading lately. So yeah. Anyway, he says to me and CM that the gay community always knows about people like Lady Gaga before straight folks do. At this point, when he makes this statement, he addresses me and CM as straight folks as distinct and not part of the queer community.

Now here's a funny thing: I don't know what the deal was but all of a sudden I felt myself bristling, like he'd been slinging around insults or something. I found myself wanting to stop the conversation right there and go "hey, I know you don't know me all that well but it seems like you're the only one who doesn't know: I'm queer, down to the bone. Gay as the day is long. Dykeasaurus Rex." There really wasn't a great reason for me to have this reaction. I'm not a hugely confrontational person, I don't like to worry too much about what people see me as, I tend to be surprised when people guess that I'm gay. I don't think I'm that flamboyant or anything. I don't hate straight people, it's not an offensive idea to be considered one of them. But there I was, sitting in my classroom, finding myself bristling at the assumption that I was straight.

Why was this going on?

Well, upon thinking about it, here's what I think was going down in the head of the Dwyn: When we meet new people, we have a certain number of assumptions we make about them, based on cultural narratives we are taught from birth. We assume people will be cisgendered, that they have traditional sexual expressions, things like this. Unless our assumptions are right away disproved, we continue in whatever relationship we have to this person with our assumptions intact. One of these assumptions most people seem to make? That people we meet will be heterosexual. This assumption? Clearly incorrect. It's also why when people must come out as queer, not as straight. Haven't you ever wondered why coming out only exists for queer folks? Well, this is the cause. The norm, the assumptions we make of the people around us mean that we will assume if we have no other knowledge of a person, that they are heterosexual.

What to do then? We must agree to the following thing: We cannot have this set of assumptions about what people should or should not be like. It sets up a particular identity as the norm. It sets up heterosexuality as the normal thing and queerness as the other rather than both things just being various stops on the vast scale of human sexuality. It means that when I came out, I had to deal with my sexuality as being a deviation from the norm, rather than just another faucet of my identity. It's hard to understand who we are as people, it's harder when we are understanding our sexuality as something that is not normal or allowable in the same way heterosexuality is.

The challenge is this then: When meeting new people, you must force yourself to think before you assume. Perhaps outwardly, they appear to be straight, white, middle class, cisgendered folks but you must stop and consider. What do you not see? What is there that you do not know about? And instead of viewing these things making this person non-normal, we must see them as simply human. We must challenge ourselves to assume neutralness rather than a gendered state when we meet someone who appears masculine. We must challenge ourselves to assume nothing about sexuality when we meet a new person. Heterosexuality no more equals neutrality or normalness than does queerness. We must meet people and work from an assumption of neutrality. Only when we do not assume folks are heterosexual will coming out become irrelevant and antiquated.

So of course, back to my story. Why was I angry? Why was I frustrated? Because I, as a queer woman, have had to fight to claim my identity. I have had to hear my existence as queer teenager who just wanted to take a nice girl to prom denied over and over. I had to feel awkward and weird when the only topic of conversation that was acceptable was attractive boys, while bringing up attractive girls made the conversations with my peers stilted and strange. I had to feel uncomfortable when family and friends asked about boys. Trying to not come out during a family event just to have a big discussion about my sexuality is more of a hassle than I think most folks realize. I've spent too many hours trying to figure out what was the right way to avoid the topic if it came up with family who might not be as cool about the gay thing. And no, it's not fair that my sexuality was assumed to be heterosexual, that I was made to feel boxed in and uncomfortable because telling people that actually no, I'm not straight, this causes often huge discussions. And then people see me not as Dwyn, the woman who happens to be gay but as that gay lady, Dwyn. And I like being Dwyn first, gay lady second.

I know lots of people like to defend the idea of norms, of assumptions but the truth is this: The norm fits so few people and ends up making most of us feel weird and uncomfortable and wrong, so why keep it?

A challenge for the heterosexual folks here who might not have this experience of having this kind of assumption made of them. Consider how you would feel if everyone you met assumed you were queer. Would you feel offended? Confused? Angry? What? I don't know what the answer is for you, so think about it and let me know. I think the discussion about what is considered normal and how cultural narratives about what we should assume about other people is important. What are your thoughts? Comment or post a blog on your own place and link it here!