BAH, the day after

I wasn't going to write anything truly queer here, or even comment on queer-positive blog entries elsewhere, but I can't say I'm participating in BAH when I myself am still unsure of how "out" integrates with the doubt so heteronormative that says, that talks to me and says that all forms of gender variance are all shameful forms of gender deviance.

Guess what, queer people can be heteronormative too.

I started clicking through Nubian's BAH blogroll, and although I found a few compelling thoughts from Damn Straight on the complexity of identifying as an ally, and perhaps the only BAH post that has resonated with me so far, from Aster, I really feel like saying BAH! not because we can't or shouldn't talk about heteronormativity, but because I think I expected more...

One of the BAH blogrollers seemed inspired when one of her role models spoke out and said, essentially, people love who they love, who cares? The blogroller also wrote to say that "We don't need research supporting that sexual orientation is inborn, because it shouldn't matter. Research on the nature of sexual orientation should be of academic interest only..."

I responded as a heteronormative queer might, anonymously, and spoke up a little for once.

I said that if we come out and a friend talks to us, queer-to-queer, and says "who cares?" it can be oh so heartening to hear.

When someone straight says "who cares?" it may or may not be heteronormative. When I came out to friends -- a heteronormative thing to do, I must say, as we, being oh so variant must formally engage our normative friends and proceed up to and through disclosure -- some of them were respectful.

Some of my friends said "who cares?" in that they know I have not changed magically as a person before and after this discontinuity of disclosure, and they remained my friends but also let the friendship grow and change as they learned more about the rest of me that had hid in that |hetero| closet, held in by |hetero| shame and my internalized heteronormativity.

A smaller number of my friends said "who cares?" knowing that I haven't changed, but they still treat me the same. Heteronormatively, they don't ask about my love life. They say, friends are friends, but when some of them say that, I hear in their voice the echo that says we're friends in |hetero| spite of this.

As I said elsewhere, when someone says "who cares?" they might be saying, hey, who you do in the privacy of your house doesn't matter,

(because heteronormatively, I should be private about it and not rock the Ark with same-sex husbandry),

and it doesn't change our relationship,

(because heteronormatively, when I interact with someone L or G or B or T, I can choose to ignore those aspects of their identity and not ask them about who they're dating or what they did over the weekend, since it's okay to treat those queers differently cuz you're not doing anything bad, just not talking about their partners as first-class citizens appropriate for small talk),

and I'll be careful who I disclose this to,

(because heteronormatively, I have a great need for privacy when you exceed the norm),

wink, and it doesn't really matter anyway

(because the straights don't get fired for coming out or have their families torn apart for being visible),

and it doesn't matter why you're queer anyway

(because heteronormatively, I can choose to ignore the complexities of queer coupling and coming out and that's a-okay since I just have to know how straighties hook up and come across their first heteronormative Playmate, and yea, I don't need to know anything about science cuz it's not as if I'll ever have to defend myself against someone who's thumping about something "natural" and science shouldn't be used to explain how we came to be in the way that we learn about the birds and bees and condoms-on-bananas)

so get over it!

(because heteronormatively, you just know who you are and who you love is fixed -- you love only one kind of person and if you "switch teams" more than once you're not really homonormative -- and you're not supposed to struggle with these things and isn't love supposed to be beautiful blah blah will you help me decorate my party, just don't make it too gay, what would my parents say, and I'm supposed to just think about how our bits interconnect just when it happens like a good heteronormative girl that doesn't fear AIDS cuz that's not the hetero way and because we can actually survive by just being secret it about it for ever and ever, talking about it only in homonormative spaces, and knowing that we won't ever be treated like "normal" people, as being queer is a choice against heteronormativity, and nothing else.)

Not!

...I need to go to bed. I'm afraid that as I read more of BAH, I felt de-energized rather than re-energized with hope for more understanding.

Will I feel that way when the morning comes?