by Annie Muse

In our TBLG community (yes, TBLG — let’s get the initials in the right order for once, shall we?) we really do want to “get” each other. It’s just that there are some places we, ourselves, cannot go. And that’s Okay. We just need to be very careful to be aware that our own orientation is not the only “right” orientation. We need to be very careful not to be mean.

I feel that two of the deepest human needs are to know someone and be known by them.

But for some of us (all of us?) this has not been easy. Especially for those of us I’ll call “The Comingouters.” You know who you are.

The Comingouters are not just particular people — they are particular people in a particular time. With a particular orientation.

It seems there comes a time when we reach that critical juncture and we know we have to make that enormously frightening step of self disclosure.

I’d like to spin out a couple of theories of mine and would you let me know if I’m close?….

I have a hypothetical friend.

… okay, first let me back up and just say, if when you read my descriptions of people, and they sound an awfully lot like you, I want to assure you that they are not you. My hypothetical people are purely hypothetical. If my descriptions are hitting close to home it is because there are more of us than you can even imagine. You may feel like you are alone… but we are everywhere….

So, back to my hypothetical friend. Let’s give her a name: let’s call her Mary. Mary is the most wonderful person. She was married to a guy while in her early twenties and now, in her early thirties, she has a young daughter and a beautiful girlfriend. Let’s call the girlfriend Beth. Beth has been dating girls since she was seventeen. And when Mary and Beth met… mmmmm — sparks! Beth and Mary have commited to each other. Their desire is that they would stick together come what may.

Now in presentation, at least as long as I’ve known her, Mary’s been pretty butch. (Don’t you just love butch women? I know I do! Yum… oh, sorry, I’m distracting myself…)

A few interesting sidelights: our hypothetical friend owns only three shirts, two pair of pants. And that jacket. She really likes that jacket. Between her and her girlfriend, Mary takes up about a foot of the closet while her girlfriend has filled up the rest of the walk-in. It’s perfect! Isn’t it great when things like this work out so well?

Well, besides being butch, Mary also has some body issues. These she doesn’t talk about. With anyone. But recently she allowed herself to bring it up with her girlfriend. It seems that she’s never felt particularly attached to certain parts of her female anatomy. Her periods have never been particularly regular. And hurt? Oh how they hurt. But it’s the boobs… it always seems to be about the boobs. She tells her girlfriend she would just as soon be rid of them. It isn’t that she doesn’t like boobs. In fact she is a very big fan of boobs. She just doesn’t like her own.

So here comes a very large truth.

Our conversation goes something like this:

Beth: “You want to do what? But I love your boobs! You have beautiful boobs. I would really be okay if you got that hysterectomy. But a mastectomy???? Your boobs are a part of you.”

Mary: “It’s just that they don’t feel like they are mine. And I don’t think anybody will really notice so much. It’s not like I ever want to dress up or emphasis them. And then there’s the way I relate to people… everybody already assumes when they first meet me that I’m a guy anyway — I maybe even sort of feel that way. Life would be so much better….”

Beth: “Can we talk about this another time?….”

Jumping into our conversation at this point I’d like to make a couple of comments but first an observation.

Nobody truly understands anyone else’s orientation.  We can tolerate, even honor other orientations. But understanding? Very difficult.

Judging from our couple’s history, and putting labels on them, it would appear that Mary is probably bisexual. And that Beth is lesbian. No, actually, beyond a shadow of a doubt Beth is lesbian.

Mary thinks, “Surely Beth doesn’t love me just for my girl parts? She loves me for me! And if the roles were switched, I would support her in her decisions. I would love her even if she were a boy….”

Meanwhile, Beth thinks, “But I love Mary! I love everything about Mary. Why does she have to change anything? I don’t know if I can go through this…”

Unfortunately, our two friends are both right.

As a bisexual person myself, I just don’t “get” gays. Or straights. How can anyone be so close-minded? By my own judgement, I just love all kinds of people! Innies, Outies, they’re all the same to me.

But I’m just as “close-minded” as any exclusive Innie or Outie lover.

To those who are attracted to only Innies, if I need to do some things to get myself an Outie, now that’s a problem… Or if my partner’s only attracted to Outies, and I say I need mine to be an Innie, oh Jeez!

And that really is Okay. Isn’t this what diversity is all about? It doesn’t make our life choices any easier. But it does make them more clear.

If I am exclusively an Innie lover, nothing is going to move me away from loving only Innies. For Outie lovers, the same deal.  Conversely, if I love certain Innies and certain Outies, I will not be moved away from this either.

Why can’t we just get along???? Well we can. It’s just that sometimes It’s Complicated. Gays don’t get straights. Straights don’t get gays. And neither bunch gets Bi’s. Or vice-versa. And when we Trans or Queer folks show up, we just throw a big monkey wrench into the works.

How will a straight man relate to me, a “Woman with a Medical History”? Or a gay man?  I like men.  I like men a lot.  I love their energy.  I love their arms.  I love their shoulders.  I love how they dump crumbs all over their fronts when we’re out on a date eating pizza.

And among my girlfriends (and almost all my friends are girls), about half are straight and half are lesbian. So how does that work?

In our TBLG community (yes, TBLG — let’s get the initials in the right order for once, shall we?) we really do care for each other. We really do want to “get” each other. It’s just that there are some places we, ourselves, cannot go. And that is also Okay.

So… where does this leave us? We need choice to feel truly human. Some things are immutable. Our sexual orientations. Our gender orientations. Our racial, ethnic orientations. How we were brought up cannot be changed either.

We just need to be very careful to be aware that our own orientation is not the only “right” orientation. We need to be very careful not to be mean.

Other posts in this series

• Trans-suicide: I nearly became a statistic myself (19 Jan 2012)
• White lines and a bell-shaped curve: The Rule of the 68% (25 Jan 2012)