Does anyone know the popular and feminine looking Great British Bake Off Contestant, Ruby Tandoh? She recently came out on twitter. See Ruby's picture above.
This led Bella Qvist, popular LGBTQ+ blogger and journalist (see picture above) to write an article for The Guardian about how coming out is a lifelong issue that is more diffucult and annoying for those who look straight or "cisgender". She argues this is because people assume they are staight/cis because of how they look, and even upon coming out people don't take their sexuality or gender declaratoin seriously because they don't fit the gay sterotype, brushing it off as a phase or something they are doing for attention. Bella paticularly points out that this happens for femme lesbians such Ruby or herself. Whereas people who "look gay," or a fit a gay sterotype have to come out less because people assume they are gay.
What do you guys think? Is this true or is it equally difficult for everyone? Is she bias based off her own expierience? You can check out the artcle at a link below. I pulled two quotes below that explain the main idea of her article, if you don't have time to look at the article. Personally, I never thought of this point of view before. Maybe because I come from a part of New York where the LGBTQ+ community is very accepted, but if someone tells me they are gay, whether or not they look straight, I don't question it, I honestly did not know anyone did. On the other hand I do recognize that looking straight can create a circumstance where one has to "come out" more often.
1. Qvist states “Despite broadcasting her LGBT status to 52K followers, this won’t be the only time that Ruby has to spell things out. It shouldn’t matter, but it does. Contrary to popular belief, the act of coming out doesn’t just happen once; us gays come out all the time. Especially if we’re feminine looking gay or bi women like Ruby or me, because society assumes we’re straight.”
2. “All too often “girly” looking women are quizzed about their sexuality at the doors of gay bars, and femme couples who campaign for femme visibility, are assumed to be sisters or doing it for attention. Really not the case, guys. (And what does that say about our view of women and femininity as a whole?)”
This concept can be applied to groups other than femme lesbians, such as to gay men who are masculine, asexuals who dress provocatively for fashion or other reasons, transgenders who don’t fit stereotypes, ect.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/03/ruby-tandoh-came-out-lesbians-bi
I think it also creates a situation where it is easy to "pass" and that brings with it its own difficulties. But the point that it is a repeated process is an interesting one: like the conversion story it is a performance that is constantly reenacted. You can argue that that is both "good" and "bad": good in that you recognize the "self" as something that is always in process, and the process of renarrating coming out is helpful to others, bad in that some people have a disproportionate "burden" to enact it because they don't fit a stereotype.
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting argument and a relatively new one, I think. I'm interested in the "passing" angle and how it might be similar/different to racial "passing."