This is Maya again, closing in on the Twin Cities Arc Season finale, Chapters 26-32.
This is supposed to be retrospective of how I’ve changed of my growth as queer neurodivergent person, although I hardly feel comfortable claiming labels I’ve learned in the last few years. This may be the first time I’ve called myself “neurodivergent” and I resisted for so long because I didn’t want to seem like I was using my illness as an excuse. Quarantine has been similar enough to my upbringing, however, that I’ve been forced to grapple with my inclinations and habits, what’s easy and natural to me versus what’s new and difficult. One thing I’ve had to acknowledge is that I wasn’t raised following schedules and juggling activities so I still have a slower life pace than many people, and get more easily overwhelmed.
I hate admitting weakness like this. I hate even the idea of any limitation on me.
That brings me to today’s topic:
Farewell Epilogue: Why I’m Never Queer In My Bio
(1800 words, 14 minutes)
My bio is currently: “Maya Beck is a Cali transplant, lapsed Muslim, covert otaku, broke blipster, and socially-anxious social justice bard.” Sometimes I mention being a homeschool grad, or being a part-time NEET, but this self-description is generally unweighted. It’s equally important to me that I am a Black hipster as it is that I was raised Muslim or that I have social anxiety.
Every identity is an axis by which we can relate to those who share it. My view of myself is that we’ll probably get along if we share two or more of the identities listed, or at least share the values implied by those identities.
Queer could be one of those labels, but see… Every identity is also an axis by which we can exclude those who don’t share it. Although I know myself to be queer (panromantic demisexual demigirl, thankyouverymuch. I love humankind but I’m neutral about bodies, even my own), I’m still not sure if I want that to be an axis of possible connection for me. I’m not should I can behave how other queer folks expect the label to imply of me, and I’m not sure that being so out is worth the threat of being gatekept or challenged.
I will admit that I have been gatekept a little less than I’ve heard other people gatekept. Once I heard someone accuse Sufjan Stevens of “queerbaiting” because he’s secretive with his love life and I guess his songs aren’t explicit enough? I’ve met enough queer folks who only date other queer folks or are only friends with other queer folks, and I have fielded questions about whether I’d do the same. And even when I haven’t been personally called out, there’s that saying “If they gossip to you, they gossip about you,” right? When I hear someone anything about how queer folks should act, I pay attention.
I know that people will respond “don’t worry about gatekeepers; identify how you want for your own sake!” But I will be identifying as queer to myself and to anyone who asks. I’m planning to make my writing gayer and gayer with every story. I will be pan enough to access the widest possible dating pool, knowing that my double-demi dislike of bodily existence will narrow it well enough.
I just won’t be declaring that identity publicly so nobody can be disappointed if I end up with a cishet male partner.
Oh, because on that note--and I feel strangely guilty for admitting it—I probably prefer cishet men.
There, I said it. I’m the kind of half-ass gay that goldstar gay folks hate.
I’m pan not bi, but I would be Bottom Right in the image below:
And maybe it’s comphet that has me liking men so much, I don’t know. I regularly doubt if I actually like men, or if I actually like women, or if I actually like sex. I’m only sure that I like compassion and intelligence and dependability. I only know that my crushes aren’t limited by gender. Maybe my identities will change as I grow older. Maybe I’ll marry a dude, have children, and then become a lesbian as soon as my kids are grown. (This is low-key my life plan.)
Who knows? I’m more curious than certain about my own sexuality. That’s why I (privately) identify as queer.
It’s probably in part due to my queerness that I get along with kind of men in the way I do. I’m a tomboy at heart, and apparently an easygoing “tomboy gf” is a thing that geeky guys want now. This 4chan image is basically a fetishized and exaggerated version of the kind of girl I am and the kind of girl I’m attracted to:
(I’m actually attracted to everything from from femme to soft butch (3-7) on the infamous futch scale, and I also slide from 3-7 in my own gender presentation. And yes, I am exactly so vain as to love people who remind me of myself.)
There are countermemes saying that guys who want this want boyfriends with boobs, but so be it: I make cishet men gayer by dating me. So far they’ve been pretty accepting and validating of that. My former partner/current confidant often praises my masculinity and validates my queerness. He finished Sense8, for example, and recommended it to me, echoing an earlier recommendation by a group of queer colleagues.
This leads me to wonder whether there are queer traits that make people more attractive to cishet folks, and if that’s a good, bad, or neutral thing. I think it’s mostly a neutral phenomena but is negative when those who do not engage in challenging gender roles let patriarchy dictate the shape of relationships.
I am reminded of this deleted but important tweet by Mia Steinberg: “Hello yes every single manic pixie dream girl is queer, but they're viewed entirely through a straight male lens, so their personality is reframed as the quirky saviours of sad straight boys, thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.”
I’m more of an anxious anime demigirl, but responses like this still hold for me: “cant wait for this generation of female writers to abandon the male-centered "manic pixie dream girl" trope and write them as the independent queer women dealing with trauma and mental illness that they ARE.”
Amen.
But in short, shitty men can ruin things even if they mean well, in part because they don’t understand queer theory or feminism or other topics of emotional intellectualism.
Shitty women can also ruin things, though, although they are a little less likely to due to conditioning.
Shitty me can also ruin things--because heck, I’m no expert on queerness. Yet another reason to remain silent on the topic and be thought ignorant (or straight) than to speak up..
I do think that part of my attraction to men is because I had positive relationships with the men in my family and rocky relationships with the women, so getting along with men is familiar and easy and fun for me. Experience has taught me that femmes tend to offer intangible support (hearing you out, complimenting you, encouraging you) while masc and male people tend to offer material support (offering something, building something, teaching something). The way that men are socialized to care for others feels more like love to me.
There’s also a practical aspect to it as someone who wants kids one day: it’s easier to make babies with a man. Everyone who suggests I get a sperm donor strikes me as some kind of upper class I don’t understand, and everyone who suggests I intentionally become a single mom strikes me as ignoring how stereotypical that would look for me as a Black femme.
It’s a life goal I continue to grapple with executing: how should I build a queer family? Ethically, should that mean adoption? Does my desire for biological children make me somehow “straighter”? What of my plan for two bio kids and two adopted ones? How do I create something other than the individualistic nuclear model if that’s society’s easiest answer to loneliness? Is it wrong to pattern my idea of a good life after cishet couples who are living the life I admire? If not, then where can I find more role models?
I will continue to research queer family, but right now, it’s easiest to picture my ideal life with a man in it.
I’m always conscious of what it means to be queer in a straight-passing relationship, however. I require equality, and am always striving to make my relationships gayer. (If you read through the link, keep in mind that my ideal relationship of those described are the gay male partnerships.)
I’m patient with ignorance towards my identities because I was once ignorant. I was transphobic, homophobic, all of that societally-prescribed bullshit. So I offer grace to anyone who has the intelligence, humility, and curiosity to learn as I learned.
(I also prefer to be the woker one in the relationship, lol.)
Sometimes I feel that it’s kinder to be with a cishet partner if you know you’re still learning how to be queer. You’re less likely to accidentally harm a partner with your fumbling. Some part of me feels shame about my past self, and I feel I would be more readily accepted by someone whose identities I never had to unlearn animosity towards. Every time I see someone shamed for queerphobic beliefs they expressed years ago, I worry that the same could happen to me.
Every time I was called out by someone who did not otherwise contribute to my well-being, I felt that fine, I can and will learn from this, but also that the caller did not care about me as much as they did my politics.
I felt the same way every time I mentioned dating a cishet dude and was met with recommendations to dump him instead of the question “does he make you happy?”
I wanted to hear, “Are you growing from the experience? Is it worthwhile?”
I wanted to be celebrated for growing as a person—and I was sometimes. I will admit that my brain started to focus on the negative responses and overstate their importance and prevalence.
All the same, I started to clam up about my love life along with other areas of personal growth that I felt would not be understood. Hikki-NEET Maya watched from deep inside me and declared the people around me normies who wouldn’t understand.
The crux of the issue is my initial self-description, the weight of what I value and how I see myself. While others may bond primarily over Blackness and queerness, I can also bond at least as deeply over otakudom and social anxiety. These selves are just as important to who I am.
These identities helped me find someone who remembers the names of my favorite directors and puts up with my ranting and raving about what their work means to me, someone who calls me out for fiddling with my phone to distract myself from my worries, someone who checks in to make sure I get exercise and sunlight during quarantine, someone who listens intently when I relay knowledge from my therapist or share Lefttube videos on white supremacy, someone who knows he can never have access to the particulars of my existence but is willing to listen and learn about what he can.
This person was exactly who I needed to meet in order to grow into my next self, however unlike me they may be on the other axes of my identity.
In any case, one thing I aim to do differently in San Diego is to start with romance, then build friends. I’ll install Hinge before I do Meetup. My biological clock is a heteropatriarchal mistress, after all. There’s a 50-something chance I will end up with a man, but I would much rather that people be surprised I’m queer than disappointed I’m straight-passing.
But for now, saraba Twin Cities!
Adieu, Lebewohl, farewell, do fare well!