I noticed how I am getting more comfortable with shopping in the men’s section the more I do it.  I know this has got to be easier for me than my male friend shopping for women’s lingerie, but, well, we all have our fears and insecurities, especially when we act outside of gender norms in public.

I used to go shopping for women’s lingerie with my male friend who preferred to wear such items.  We would pretend we were a couple shopping for me.  The first time I even held the money, and the panties, and made the purchase.  Over time, he has become more comfortable with this, and as I have been transitioning to more masculine dress as of late, he sometimes accompanies me into the men’s section too.  It’s quite a fun little escapade.  Sometimes we sneak each other a peak of our transgendered underpants waistbands at a stop light on the way to the movies.  That’s truly what friends are for!

I was at the mall last night and I happened into Express, for me a pubescent butch’s wet dream (I’m actually in my thirties, but as I come out a little queerer, a little butcher, I feel as though I am going through another sort of puberty).  They were having a sale, and I finally got to buy a sweater!  I have been attracted to the sweaters of some of the men at work.  I compliment them on their sweaters, and even go so far as to ask where they get them.  One very sweet man kindly motions for me to check his tag every time I do this.  He has quite a collection from Banana Republic.  I poke my head in that store from time to time, but find the prices overwhelming and the sale racks usually slim pickings.  Long before I started even coming out to myself as butcher than I thought I was, I have been drawn to the gorgeous colors and crisp attire in the men’s department at Express. Which reminds me…I must get myself to a Structure, if that still exists.  I used to date a guy when I was in my 20’s who had knit boxers from there.  I loved them.  I pretty sure I loved them much more than what was in them.  It’s exciting letting myself do what I want, and buying new knit men’s boxers!  They feel so good in my big baggy Lucky jeans.  My crotch just feels so comfortable and free, like I am in pajamas!  But back to Express - what a display they put on - what a palatable palette!

I noticed last night that I entered the store and shopped in the men’s section with slightly less insecurity and self consciousness than I have thus far.  I remember some times throughout my teen years, and even perhaps my early 20’s, when I shopped shamelessly in the men’s sections.  Somehow there were threads of style fads back then in the 80’s and 90’s that made it cool for women to shop for the men’s boxers to wear as sexy little summer shorts, or big flannel shirts to look a little grunge.  Car-harts were also quite acceptable amongst hippie, artist, and outdoor leadership crowds (all of which I frequented at some point or another) in those days, and probably still today.  In the fluctuations of my fashion sense over the years, I have certainly owned my share of men’s department clothes.

I have always felt a certain satisfaction in going right ahead and doing something generally assigned to the gender other than which I was assigned at birth.  I liked to beat the boys on the soccer field (I grew up in the early 80’s, and before high school, for me there was no such thing as girl’s soccer).  I instead was one of three 9th grade girls on the primarily 7th grade boys’ soccer team.  I always wondered if we truly were good enough for varsity, but didn’t make it because we were girls.  Even on JV the coach kept us (the 3 older girls) on the bench most of the time. In any case, whether at a team sport or out at recess, I prided myself on doing not only what the boys could do, but for trying to do it better.  When my younger preteen brother started using foul language in front of (and perhaps with?) my father, I followed suit, even when it was met with shock by my father.  When I have to go to the bathroom and there are single room separate sex toilets, I will head straight into the often empty men’s room.  I kind of like the confused face I might see on the way out.

So why, after all of that, do I still feel shy in the men’s department?  I still feel shy there, because I still feel shy claiming a butch identity.  For a long time (most of my early “out” years), I shied away from butch and femme culture as I saw it re-enacting the hetero gender binary.  I also didn’t think I fit into either category, nor was sure I was more attracted to one than the other.  It has only been in the last year that I have really let myself even begin to transition into a more butch identity.  Sometimes I wonder if I am really butch enough to be butch. I wonder if I deserve to be butch.  I wonder if there is some definition out there of butch that I don’t fit into clearly enough, and am afraid to name myself as butch.  I wonder sometimes if I am butch then will I only date femmes?  Will those I am attracted to be attracted to me?  Will other butches ever be attracted to me and want to date me?

All of these questions and all of these insecurities line my identity, and somehow make it even harder to buy a sweater.

I had some very interesting discussions tonight, with a barely out bisexual woman and a radical lesbian separatist feminist activist.  The barely out woman has this activist on such a pedestal, because she brings to light such interesting discourse and conversation that jolts the foundation of her sheltered reality, in a very good way.  The younger bisexual woman hangs on the older woman’s every word, as if what she breathes is gospel.  I care for and respect them both.  I do have a lot of fear, however, for people who I feel nearly demand by the intonation in their speech that I of course must agree with everything they say.  While I dearly respect this activist and her process, I am afraid to bring up certain topics in her presence, because I don’t want to be judged, and I am scared of feeling uncomfortable or argued with.  It’s interesting to articulate the level of fear that I have with this woman’s politics.  They’re too extreme for me.  I am a liberal queer woman, who has experienced and witnessed discrimination within queer community.  That is where some of this fear lies.

Throughout my life it has been the words and actions of those who came before me that have often opened my eyes and heart to new ways of looking at issues, or even new ways of being that I never dreamed possible.  In high school I had an out lesbian teacher, who was pivotal in my growth as a human being raised in a heterosexist, homophobic, sheltered, bigoted American suburb.  Growing up in such a fashion ingrained in me all sorts of stereotypes that literally fell away the moment I met any real human beings of any sort of label I had been raised to think was a certain way.  The more I read about and listened to and made friends with people who were queer, the more I was able to come out.  I spent so much of my life dating men, even after coming out, that I held onto the bisexual label quite closely, though a good friend had reminded me that labels are for other people, not for me.

In any case, existing in the world as bisexual identified, I noticed that mainstream pop culture often portrayed bisexuals as something very different than what I meant by the label.  The local radio station would have “bi-day” where they would have hypersexual ditsy sounding women call in and recap their multipartner sexual exploits, in such a way that painted a picture of bisexual women as women who will let another woman into the bedroom for a fun menage a trois with their boyfriend.  For me, bisexual meant that I was attracted to people, regardless of their gender.  And though I am open minded and have tried all sorts of things and ways of dating and being, I find that I am pretty monogamously inclined.

Something else I noticed as an out bisexual woman was that regardless of my identity, it felt as though the world treated me a certain way depending upon who I was dating. If I was dating a man, society saw me as hetero, while holding a woman’s hand, I was a lesbian.  I thought about these things often, wondering about what else I could do to be seen as more of who I was.  Coming out and holding a woman’s hand and kissing a woman in public were certainly much scarier and triumphant acts than PDA with a male.  Heterosexual PDA is expected.  Homosexual PDA may or may not be, depending on the environment or the community.  Dating women, I often thought about and wondered about safety in ways that had never occurred to me when I was only dating men.

Which brings me to a concept that I have conflicting emotions about: heterosexist privilege.  I once had a radical lesbian separatist roommate who used this word in regards to me and it sounded like an accusation.  I remember thinking that I certainly didn’t date men on purpose to have this privilege.  I did notice, however, that I felt somewhat on the fringe of this little circle of friends that I hung with, purely because they were all lesbians and I was the token bisexual.  Interesting to me as well was the fact that many of these women had dated men, but just not at that time.  I even dated a woman who went back and forth dating men or women kind of like me, but “politically identified as a lesbian.”  I think she got some sort of lesbian privilege that way.  There was actually an lesbian artist’s group that many of them were in that I was excluded from because of my identity.  I kissed men sometimes.  In both the hetero world and the lesbian world I felt like an outsider.  I didn’t really know a bisexual world, except for the one I heard on the radio, besides just one friend and one lover.  What really got me was that an already marginalized and discriminated against community could turn around and discriminate against me.

Throughout the past decade I have dated men and women, and more recently, less men and more women.  Pretty recently (the last 4 years or so) I have dated primarily women.  Dating a woman for 3 years was a far different experience than shorter term relationships, in that I existed in a relationship that on the outside is labeled lesbian.  I even started to use that term more.  We were so serious that I didn’t really think about what the gender of my next partner would be, because I was in that relationship for the long haul (at the time).  That in and of itself did an interesting thing for my identity.  I liked identifying as lesbian.  In fact, I think over time I tried the word on more and more and just got used to it.  Once in a while we went to lesbian events and hung out with other lesbians.  I met more and more lesbians.  I felt like I belonged a bit more and more to my idea of the community that had once marginalized me.

Since that long term relationship ended, I have been more consciously examining my sexual identity, which is about a lot more than who my partner is, I think.  Even outside of that relationship, I heard myself identifying as lesbian.  I hung out with a couple ex-boyfriends in the wake of my heartache, but it felt weirder than it ever did.  Partly because they were ex’s and I had grown more confident about standing up for what I did and did not want.  But also, I think, because they were men.  I noticed that I was attracted to more and more women than men.  I still find men attractive.  I find women incredibly attractive.  Sometimes I look at men and I feel so gay.  I just think something related to something I thought as a child, “How is it that moms grow up and find these dads attractive?  Will I have to?  Is that part of growing up?  Why do women find Magnum PI attractive?”

In examining my sexuality, I’ve been noticing the types of people I have been finding attractive.  While I certainly love to ogle the bosoms of straight women, I find myself more and more attracted to butch women and trans men.  One of my closest friends is trans, and incidentally has been discriminated against by the lesbian separatist feminist activist I mentioned at the top of this post.  Which brings me back to the fear I was mentioning earlier, of the activist woman.  While I respect a great deal of the work that she does, I am shocked and appalled by the way her opinions and her politics ostracize many of the friends and loved ones and members of just that community for which she has a voice.  She identifies so purely lesbian that she has been labeled “trans phobic.”  After listening to some of her politics and to the friend of mine who she very blatantly discriminated against, I feel that that phrase may accurately describe her.  I hate to see such schism and discrimination within an already marginalized community.  In fact, the barely out bisexual who puts the activist on a pedestal divulged to me later that she was afraid to mention that she was bi, or to refer to the man she was dating.  Isn’t this just the same sort of fear lesbians want to break free of?  I have played the pronoun game to not divulge my identity both to heterosexuals and to homosexuals, lest either think I was “other” than they, especially if it came with discrimination.

I know for myself that I have broken through personal concepts that I now regard as ignorant through the boldness of individuals who are “out” whatever it may be that they are “out” about.  Perhaps it would be beneficial of me to speak up to this separatist when she says things I find ostracizing, rather than shying away and hoping for the conversation to end soon, the way I just laid back and waited for some unwanted hetero sex to be over.  Or perhaps there are other venues where I feel safer that are more appropriate to be out.  Like with my friends and in my relationships.  It is very empowering to say, “No, I don’t like/want that.” And it could be eye opening (and has been) to others when I do speak up and say what I really think and feel, whether I out myself in the process or not.

I like mrsexmith’s discussion of multiple meanings of trans… transitioning, transcending the gender binary, etc. I started this blog as an aid and as a documentation of my current coming out process. More than 10 years ago, when I was first coming out, I told a lesbian friend that I was bisexual. At the moment, I was feeling pretty proud of myself enough to be able to slap on a label. She promptly responded, “Labels are for other people, but not for you.” While her statement was so profound I am blogging it over a decade later, at the time I was disappointed. I think I wanted to just settle on a label & move on; stop trying to “figure things out.” Right now, I am noticing that the figuring out of things can be so wonderful & freeing and beautiful in and of itself. I am so shy and self conscious lately. And at the same time I feel bold & sexy. It’s true that I get used to the way the world outside me reacts to the me I present. I recently cut my hair short, in my first “butchy?” haircut I have had in 10 years. Only a few months ago I had long flowing red wavy locks just about nipple length which attracted lots of attention and compliments. Sometimes I forget why the world outside reacts differently and then I remember that I look different. I was walking out of my office building by some male construction workers the other day & I noticed something strange. They didn’t notice me at all. For quite some time I had kept my hair long because I was comfortable fitting into what I think an American standard of beauty for an office woman might be. It was just easier. I felt like a little girl playing dressup. If I dressed the part, I felt like people would take me more seriously. I didn’t want it to be like that necessarily, but it seemed to be working at the time. It’s a bold move to step out in a new way, whatever may be new, a haircut, a new style, bolder makeup, etc. What makes me so extra self conscious is the conscious reflection and reaction from people outside of myself. The bolder the change, the more the reaction (or lack thereof). I’ve been wearing butcher pants lately. Somedays butcher shirts, but not everyday. The other day I showed up to work in more feminine slacks & a top (something I’ve been doing a little more lately in conjunction with my shorter hair). A coworker (a sweet, flirty, supportive perhaps-gay one that has encouraged me to “let my butch flag fly”) noticed and said “those aren’t very butch pants:)” to which I replied, “I’m just me. Did you think I fit into boxes?” of course not. Tomorrow we will go out to lunch. I bet we’ll chat about sexuality & gender…maybe a little gossip… Maybe I’ll try and make out with her while we’re away from the office ;)