Sexuality Happens

Today I went to a friend’s holiday party, and I was hit in the head with reality.

Ouch…

Between school, and work, and this blog, and my wonderful, kind, and loving friends, it is easy to forget how hard it can be in the “real world” to be sex positive, or even just to be queer. I forget that.

So first of all, for all those people in the world that identify as anything that isn’t in the sexual mainstream; gay, lesbian, bi, trans, kinky, BDSM, queer, genderqueer, pansexual, poly, etc, I admire you. It is pretty fucking hard. It is hard to come out to anyone; to people you care about, or to strangers. The ones that matter, you have to deal with everyday. The ones you don’t know are so quick to judge.

Here I am at this party, and as far as I know, there are straight people, and there is a lesbian woman (well, in the kitchen…then in the other room, there are all 3 students from the Human Sexuality Education program and their partners…but I’m alone in the kitchen with these people from the “real world”) and somehow my identity comes up.

“Pansexul-ism. What’s that?”

“Pansexuality, actually…well, my PERSONAL version of it, because I don’t want to define it for anyone other that myself, is that I am attract to people and their personalities, rather than their sex, gender or genitals.”

Pandemonium ensues. One woman says that she thinks I’m cool, and she’s like to get to know me. One woman says something about how you have to know what is between a person’s legs before you can truly like them. Discussion continues. I am a the circus freak of the day.

Now I am carrying on two conversations; one with two therapists about class issues with working with trans youth clients in the foster care system while one woman keeps butting in about surgeries(“but doesn’t every tranny want to have their genital operated on? I saw this TV special…” Oh god…another TV special watcher. And no, as I said before, there are pre-op, post-op, and non-op. Many people decide for a variety of reasons that they don’t want to have operations) and a totally different conversation about identity. Now it’s morphed into validating identities. Somehow, I mentioned a woman I know who is dating a transman, and yet identifies completely as 100% straight. This woman at the party is incredibly offended by this, and has now gone into a rant about men who go after transsexual prositutes in the back of the paper who identify as straight, and how that’s just not ok, and how can I validate their identity…

All of this because I identify as a term that they’ve never heard before.

Earlier in the night, I was privy to this gem:
Me: “And it’s geared towards the queer community -”
Some woman: “Don’t use the term queer. It’s like saying retarded or something, very offensive.”
Me: “Um, as a member of the queer community, and someone who identifies as queer, I would say that it has become acceptable in our society. I wouldn’t ever use it as a derogative term, but as a descriptor, it’s definitely ok.”

But then I remember telling J how many people in Colorado don’t use the term queer (or didn’t when I was there), and how my sister’s high school has a Gay Straight Alliance because the term queer is still considered hate terminology (and therefore they can’t have a queer straight alliance).

I left the kitchen, and apparently the talk about trannies and pansexuality continued on and on and on for quite sometime (albeit without my side of things, according to the one or two women who actually seemed interested in wanting to genuinely hear what I had to say, rather than wanting to argue with me, or ask me questions about the state of my previous partners’ genitalia).

It was just so surreal to me. I’m so used to identifying as queer or pansexual and having people say “ok” or at the most, asking me to explain a little more, and then just accepting that for what it is. When I was with J, sometimes people wanted to know a little more about what genderqueer was, but never in a hostile manner. Tonight was the first time in years that I felt attacked for my sexuality, and it wasn’t even in a threatening place; it was a holiday party in Philadelphia. I can’t imagine what it would be like to grow up trans in Arkansas or lesbian in Iran. I count myself as so lucky. It’s not like my family has been incredibly supportive, but they haven’t been unsupportive either. I am so thankful for my friends, and coworkers, and everyone around me that makes my world such a wonderful, sex-positive, queer friendly place, so that I never feel that I have to question my sexuality, that I truly can just be who I am.

Thank you for that.

And again, to everyone that has to struggle, or has had to struggle, or will have to struggle; my thoughts are with you. Be strong. Stand up for yourself when you can, protect yourself when you cannot (and know that one day you will be able to come out and be your true self), and know that there is an amazing place out there where people don’t realize their privledge in getting to be themselves, sexual orientation and gender wise, not until they are confronted with it in another situation.

My “Christmas wish” is that everyone will one day get to experience the safety and warmth of getting to be out, safely.

But after tonight, I guess I’ll probably be more careful about who I out myself to in groups of strangers…because damn…45 minutes of direct hostile conversation, and 3 hours of indirect arguments and conversations that stem completely from your sexual identity? Well, that’s a lot for one pansexual young femme to handle. Good thing I didn’t mention I was non-monogamous or kinky…goddess knows what would have happened then!