The other night, I attended a volunteer orientation for the Frameline queer film festival. (You get a voucher to see a film for every volunteer shift you take.) There were probably a hundred fellow volunteers, and most of them were men. But when the volunteer coordinator stepped up to address us, I was surprised – because the volunteer coordinator was a woman. A queer woman. As in, asymmetrical haircut, half a shaved head, totally tatted, hip young San Francisco queer woman. And after a few moments of being surprised, I became perplexed, because after all, it is a queer film festival. So why the surprise at the volunteer coordinator being a queer dyke?
It reminded me of the feeling I got when I first visited my women’s college campus as a junior in high school. Until I visited, I had been pretty vehemently opposed to attending a women’s college. I had thought it would lack diversity (which in retrospect seems laughable). But when I visited, I was suddenly struck – wow, this all exists for the education of women. The male professors and campus police and facilities staff etc., despite being men, were working at an institution that educated women. Women matter! Holy shit! And it dawned on me that it had been so internalized in me that women don’t matter that I was actually surprised and delighted to be confronted with evidence to the contrary.
And I got the same feeling at the very first Dyke March I ever attended in San Francisco, in 2006. I was with my ex-girlfriend at the time, and I remember holding her hand, processing down Valencia, feeling giddy from all the solidarity and empowerment I felt, due in no small part to the fact that there were gay men hanging out of windows, waving rainbow flags and hoisting banners that read “FAGS <3 DYKES” and the like. And I was all, “omg! Gay men love us! They care! Whoaaaaa!”
And somehow I got the same feeling while at this orientation – because here was a group consisting largely of middle-aged-ish white gay men and they were all paying attention to this queer-as-fuck dyke, who, by the way, was absolutely hilarious and cute and rocked her job. I felt somehow vicariously visible. And it struck me again, as it did at my first Dyke March and when I first visited my women’s college, that I’m so accustomed to women being invisible to men in any way that’s not sexual. And it’s so consistently ingrained in women that we’re only useful to men as sexual objects that it surprises me every time I find myself in a situation in which I’m being genuinely appreciated, as a woman (or in which women in general are being genuinely appreciated), by a man for a non-sexual reason. And it makes me wish that it would happen more often. Not just to me, on an individual level, but publicly, and in media, and in culture-at-large.
You see, gay men and gay women are natural “bedmates” (har har).* We are among the few combinations of adult human beings that (in general) have a non-romantic/non-sexual connection. And there’s something really special about this bond, I think, that goes largely ignored. And it’s different from the relationship between gay men and straight women, which, if judging by the connotation lent by the term “fag hag” alone, is largely a mutually objectifying relationship (and, yes, that’s a gross oversimplification, but fag hags are not the topic of this post, and the relationship between gay men/straight women has been addressed again and again elsewhere). Maybe I’ll write about my thoughts on that some other time.
No, the point is, I wish the common bond between gay men and gay women were more acknowledged and respected. When I went to Berlin’s pride celebration in 2007, I was struck by how different it felt from San Francisco’s pride. In San Francisco, there’s Dyke March of course, and then Dykes on Bikes lead the main parade the following day. In Berlin, there’s neither – and without the women-centric portions of the celebration, I realized how gay-male-centric the whole celebration felt and was. Specifically, how middle-to-upper-middle-class-white-gay-male-centric. At the time, I remember having conversations with the folks I went with (a mix of genders and sexual orientations) about how these men were taking up all the “space,” probably without even realizing it. Gay pride parade means gay (male) parade. Gay bar means gay (male) bar. Gay issues are gay (male) issues. Gay white men are the default Gay, just like straight white men are the default Human in our society. And obviously, yes, gay men’s issues are super important. Of course they are. It’s just a matter of gay women’s issues also being important. And being similar, yes, but also largely different. The problem is, though, that there have been so few studies on lesbian/queer women’s issues specifically that we don’t even know what our issues are and what distinguishes them from gay men’s issues. And this, of course, isn’t the fault of gay men individually or even as an entity. It’s the fault of a society that naturalizes maleness as the default human, and that renders women a sub-category of human. (Same goes for queer people of color – their issues are woefully under-studied too, and POC are always just sub-categories of a humanity in which White is default and “normal.”)
So, right, individual gay men are busy taking up their own issues and fighting their own battles and taking care of their own survival, which completely totally makes sense. And yet I think it’s really sad that the bond between gay men and gay women is so often overlooked, or dismissed, or undervalued. I think it has tremendous value, as we are perhaps each other’s best natural allies. Sex and romance doesn’t get in between us, not personally and not in terms of prescribed roles. When I see a gay man, I see someone who both understands what it feels like to be queer in this straight world, and who will relate to me inherently free of any sort of sexual tension or sexual judgment. We understand what it feels like to be otherized. The homophobia we each experience often looks and feels different, sure, but when all is said and done, it’s the same animal. We can learn a lot from each other. I have learned a lot from my gay guy friends, and I count one of them as among the best friendships I have. I hate this phrase, but it just is what it is. There’s nothing underneath, no undercurrents, no invisible social glue that’s trying to glue us together in awkward ways. We just get each other. And I wish this were more typical, not just on an individual level but on a socially recognized level. Because then, maybe I wouldn’t be so surprised by gay men holding “fags <3 dykes” signs, or laughing at a queer gal’s jokes.
Has anyone else felt this way? Or is this peculiar to me? Maybe in other communities, gay guy/gal crossover is much more common. But even if that’s the case, where are our friendships ever portrayed in the media (TV, books, news outlets…)? Right, exactly. Never. And why do I not know a single gay male blogger? Where are they all? I just want to be friends, guys!
What’s your experience?
*In this post, I’m addressing specifically gay cismen and gay ciswomen — and yeah, I know that leaves out a lot of people, including queer but not-gay-identified folks, as well as genderqueer and trans people… Sorry about that, this is just what’s most familiar to me.
wordpress thinks my long comment is spam.
stay tuned for a response in the form of a new post….
Because I’m queer and not a lesbian or a straight woman, I’ve very easily moved between the gay male commununity and the lesbian community. I’ll be honest and say that gay males have been more accepting of me, though, as lesbians have that weird thing about chicks that date dudes and women. But what I have noticed is that the communities are very separate. Many of my gay male friends dislike lesbians. The two communities don’t often interact. Not only that, gay males very much have a distinct culture, as do lesbians, and they differ very much from each other.
If it weren’t for the pursuit of equality and rights that both groups are denied, I have to wonder if the two would have any reason to interact at all.
Yeah, I totally understand the not-being-accepted-by-lesbians thing. Ugh. I’m not even bi and I, as a femme, often feel the need to “prove” myself as an “authentic” lesbian. Again, ugh.
That aside, though, I guess it think that gay men and gay women DO have reason to interact, and it’s really, really sad to me that we often think we don’t. It actually hurts to hear (and I’ve heard this before too, not just from you) that there are gay men who actually “dislike lesbians.” How can you dislike a whole entire group of people? It just doesn’t make sense to me. It reeks suspiciously of sexism. Or at the very least, prejudice based on stereotypes. (“Lesbians are no fun!” “Lesbians are unattractive!” “Lesbians hate men!” etc.)
I think your post makes a lot of sense Alpha. I have to agree with Britni’s comment to. It’s funny because in the support groups & gay/lesbian organization at school we all seem to get along. Outside of it though there’s just not a lot of mixing. Not sure why.
I think I’m going to have to host a few parties now so I can get us all to mix in a fun setting :) Kara XOXOXO
YES DO IT! I wish clubs around here would host more guy/gal mixers!
I have only one gay male friend that I truly feel like not only does he appreciate me as a woman, but he appreciates what I can bring to the tale experientially as a queer/lesbian woman.
Most of the time I feel that there is a very clear and quiet contention between gay men/women. Back in the day when I was first coming out and still super duper femme-y, the gay men I hung out with at the time had an easier time with me somehow. Now as I teeter on the brink of femme/tomboy-ish I can feel how the energy is different toward me when I meet gay men. I volunteer at my local gay and lesbian community center and I feel it every day that I am there. Most of the time it’s ok, but sometimes I can just feel them coming in, armed and ready to treat me with disdain.
I don’t understand why we aren’t all on the same team?!
I completely agree. I adore gay men and in some respects feel more “at home” among them than I do among lesbians/queer women.
It’s shocking to me how divided the blogosphere is. Maybe we need to do outreach?
xo
SF
I was told I was spam too. I wrote this really awesoem (hey, you’ll never see it, so I can say it was that good) comment, and it didn’t let me post it. Twice. I shall rethink and rewrite tomorrow.
But in the meantime, brilliant post, well written, and SO much to think about.
Oh no! Grrrrrr! That’s so frustrating! I’ll try to figure out what’s up; I’ve never had that happen before. But I’m dying to hear your thoughts on this, so please recover tonight, ready to comment anew in the morning!! ;)
I think the cultures of gay men and lesbians are very different, so I’m not sure how much that plays into it. But really, don’t we all want the same things?
I’m fortunate in that I’ve had some great gay male friends in the past few years – one in Memphis, and now my best friend at work. We get along great, and I’m extremely grateful for that. Like Sublimefemme said, I often feel more at home with them than I do among groups of lesbian women.
I do follow one male blogger, and I appreciate his point of view. But yes, maybe some outreach is a good idea.
I’m a fag with a super close dyke friend. We met about four years ago, and our friendship has remained strong for that whole time. It has remained strong because we have compatible personalities and styles of sociability, share similar interests, and have worked hard to stay friends. That sounds like pretty much any friendship, regardless of identity or politics. We became friends in the first place, however, because we share certain interests in cultural politics, feminism, sex and academia. Without that initial jumping off point, it’s unlikely that our friendship, which continues because we get each other, could have formed.
And so I think that may the root of the friendship issue. We, those who experience homophobia, are natural bed mates because we know we won’t, for the most part, have to put up with annoying homophobic shit from another person. We also appreciate, and to a certain extent crave, recognition and solidarity. So the friendships are more likely.
I also think that there is a certain level of abstraction involved when we form these friendships. Because for us, queers, relationships are never (really) just between two free floating minds detached from social baggage. Because of who we are, we are forced think about ourselves both individually and socially. So our bonds might be all the more powerful because they rely upon an objective (in the Marxist sense) consciousness.
@gay boy It’s great that you have a such a close relationship with your dyke friend. I treasure my friendships with gay men.
2 theoretical comments: First, I certainly agree that there’s a specificity to queer consciousness and queer sociality is a part of that, but this doesn’t mean that queer identities/relationships are more socially constructed than, say, those of straight people. Second, it’s not clear to me what you’re trying to say about “objective” consciousness. Certainly in the Marxist tradition economic & social relations are objectively present in consciousness; however, this is true for everyone (not just the working class). After all, our social location gives us a “queer” standpoint but we still have to struggle to pierce the ideologies of heteronormativity, right?
I’m not trying to say that queer identities are more socially constructed, but rather that we may just be more attuned to their constructedness (or whatever you want to call it) than ostensibly straight folk. Indeed, whatever issues there may be with the term queer, I think it does at least point to a recognition of the ideologies at work in society. And it is in that sense that I might say that queers have an objective standpoint that straights do not. Marx’s (well, to be fair, Lukac’s) point was that working class consciousness was the only one that could understand society as it was, not through the guise of ideology. And while nowadays we are rightfully suspicious of such claims to totality and the binary logic on which those claims operate, I think there is something to that.
To bring this back to the friendship issue, I was trying to say that heteronormative types try to privatize sexuality, so that it supposedly has nothing to do with us as social beings (and therefore cannot be a basis upon which we launch political movements). But because queers might be more accustomed to understanding themselves as social beings, gay boy/gay girl friendships might function better and be more powerful because we know our relationships are both socially and individually significant, in spite of what heteronormative ideologies might tell us. We are friends/comrades, not just friends.
this was on afterellen dot com today and i thought of your post!
http://www.afterellen.com/blog/trishbendix/video-lacey-jessica-lesbian-love-episode-33
YES YES YES YES. AGREE. AGREE. AGREE.
And now after that outburst- when I was in middle school I dated this boy who I really liked and who really liked me, but who told my friend kissing me felt like kissing his mother and who I dumped twice because even though I liked him he didn’t give me butterflies in my stomach (like- ehem- my best friend Ruth did). Big surprise- we both turned out gay and are best friends now. Our friendship is really special because we are both simultaneously the same creature and different creatures. We are both queers and effortlessly relate on that level but I still giggle and make throw-up noises when he talks about giving some guy a blow job and he still doesn’t quite understand the whole butch-cock thing, and why I’m attracted to it. It may be the perfect friendship- no sexual tension, no competition, so many things that you don’t even have to say to each other because you both just intuitively know it, and yet so many new things to understand and learn. I love my gay best friend :)