a fair bit of the time, actually. Somewhere around here I have a button I had made up at a con that reads "Just because I'm monogamous... and involved with a man... doesn't mean I'm straight." I run up against it a lot in the Toronto bi-community, enough that I stopped hanging out there much - it was like I had to prove my street cred somehow, but 15 years of active bisexuality, activism in bi, SM and poly communities and all that crap means nothing here because *here*, I'm involved with a straight, vanilla, white male. I drifted back into poly for a bit, but it really wasn't suiting my primary relationship with Chris and I won't do it again.
End result; I get treated like I'm a poseur or something here in Toronto (which has the worst queer community I've lived in for this sort of assumption), while drag kings in Atlanta hit me up for web dev on queer activism sites, and the Bi-Resource Center in Boston has been contacting me about designing the new resource guide (woot! design with an ISBN on Amazon!). Here, though, I'm somehow not 'queer' enough. This has made me think, a lot, about the fact that I do probably look straight to anyone who doesn't want to look any closer; they're going to assume that I'm running the default OS in here. And while that's likely to my advantage, I don't particularly want the 'privilege' (I don't *not* want it; I actually just want it not to be there at all).
I admit to being young, white - for that matter, tall, leggy, and blondish, and femmy too, for all that it matters. The dual advantages of being conventionally pretty attractive and being femmy mean that I can do anything Nicole Kidman can do.
Of course, getting respect from anyone for having brains takes a little more effort. And, on the other side of the coin, it's harder to break into the communities that I would like to be in: because obviously young leggy blonds shouldn't have a thought in their heads or capabilities beyond "looking good."
Gender priveledge for women is a hard thing: On the one hand, transgressive gender is hard: on the other hand, the experience of male priveledge at any point in your life, or the ability to present as, if not male, then at least as "not your average woman" lend advantages to gender-queers that I really envy.
It also makes breaking into queer communities hard. There's enourmous temptation to date men more often, hang in het S/M communities, and restrict my bi interations to folk I know, just because they are 'easier' social situations for me. Not that I know what that means.
on the other hand, the experience of male priveledge at any point in your life, or the ability to present as, if not male, then at least as "not your average woman" lend advantages to gender-queers that I really envy.
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Date: 2004-06-30 10:34 pm (UTC)End result; I get treated like I'm a poseur or something here in Toronto (which has the worst queer community I've lived in for this sort of assumption), while drag kings in Atlanta hit me up for web dev on queer activism sites, and the Bi-Resource Center in Boston has been contacting me about designing the new resource guide (woot! design with an ISBN on Amazon!). Here, though, I'm somehow not 'queer' enough. This has made me think, a lot, about the fact that I do probably look straight to anyone who doesn't want to look any closer; they're going to assume that I'm running the default OS in here. And while that's likely to my advantage, I don't particularly want the 'privilege' (I don't *not* want it; I actually just want it not to be there at all).
*nods*
Date: 2004-07-01 01:04 am (UTC)Of course, getting respect from anyone for having brains takes a little more effort. And, on the other side of the coin, it's harder to break into the communities that I would like to be in: because obviously young leggy blonds shouldn't have a thought in their heads or capabilities beyond "looking good."
Gender priveledge for women is a hard thing: On the one hand, transgressive gender is hard: on the other hand, the experience of male priveledge at any point in your life, or the ability to present as, if not male, then at least as "not your average woman" lend advantages to gender-queers that I really envy.
It also makes breaking into queer communities hard. There's enourmous temptation to date men more often, hang in het S/M communities, and restrict my bi interations to folk I know, just because they are 'easier' social situations for me. Not that I know what that means.
Re: *nods*
Date: 2004-07-01 08:45 am (UTC)That's a really interesting point, and well said.