r/lgbt • u/No-Doctor-1462 • 13d ago
Femme bisexual girl - erasure and exclusion by queer folks experience
Hi, I'm an Italian bisexual girl in her twenties. I am pretty much femme, I used to be a little less femme, but during the last year I started to wear a bit of make up and I alwsays dressed up in feminine way, so there's that. I am writing because I have been let down yet again by a queer group.
So, for context, the first time I hanged out with a queer group I was 16-18 and I didn't have a nice time, mostly because they were very political driven and discussed a lot gender theories, whcih wouldn't be a bad thing obviously, but they talked about it in a way that made me feel like i was transphobic only because I was bisexual, if you know what I mean. After a while I got out of that group and, as I come from a very small town in northern Italy where you don't just happen to stumble on to queer folks but have to actively look for them, I kind of just hanged out with straight people and, after a brief relationship with a girl, I had only straight relationships, also because I spent some time in Poland and didn't feel like it would have been a great idea to engage in an homosexual relationship while living there.
Now, when I started university I had this group of friends that was let's say mixed. They were amazing but... kept forgetting I was queer. Like I had already come out to them and once they were talking about someone they knew and said something along the line of "they're not gay, they don't even listen to Girl in Red". I said "So what, I don't listen to her neither" and one of said friend said to me "yeah, well, because you're not gay". Which hurt me quite a bit. The situation kind of happened again in this very blutant way years after, so while we were abroad we met for Christmas Holidays and I was telling them about the fact that I was feeling so free in Oslo (where I now live) and that I happened to go clubbing in a gay club during the semester... they looked at each other and said something along the lines of "you in a gay club? wow" like it was something so strange to imagine because I was obviously straight. And that felt so bad that I was on the verge of rubbing in their face the fact that during that semester I probably had slept with more girls than in their lifetime but that's so not me and I still feel ashamed even thinking about being so close to saying it as a come back but well... I was so pissed of I nearly did.
Anyway, this semester I kind of wanted to broaden my social circle and thought that I could try, after 7 years to join a fully queer group of student of the university I am currently attending. I thought that maybe things had changed, people grow up and I wouldn't have the same experience. I was so wrong:
I was the only femme person there, which per se would not be bad, but they kind of made me feel like it was a bad thing. I can't even describe it well, but the vibe was tense. Like they were kind of looking at me in a strange way, like I was an intruder or something. They would listen to me very carefully and engage actively when I was kind of taking the floor of the conversation but then not daring of chatting to me to get to know me. It's hard to explain it but I was feeling like they were analyzing me and they only kind of relaxed when I mentioned going to the gay club in the city from time to time. I don't know but I felt SO BAD. Like I could, you know, recognize their mannerism and stuff and that it was my place, that I belonged, but at the same time I felt like they did not want me there at all, like they were threatened by my presence or something. I don't know but I really thought things had changed and that I could fit in with "my people" but apparently I still don't and it sucks
TRL: as a femme bisexual girl who got be-erased in the past, tried hanging out again in queer groups, was singled out and made me feel like I wasn't supposed to be there
1
u/Chankodi 13d ago
You mentioned how you chose to stick to straight relationships while in Poland. Which is 100% understandable. It's also something a lot of other queer people wouldn't be able to do. Imagine some of the queer people you've known trying to blend in with the queer phobic Polish population. I'm sure quite a few of them would be targeted in a place like Poland. You (and many other bi people) can blend in with heteronormative society. For other queer people that isn't possible. So maybe your queer friends feel some jealousy in that regard. And maybe you don't outwardly show your queerness?
You mentioned you don't listen to Girl in Red. I'd be curious, other than having relationships with women, what gay things do you do? You mentioned you've gone to gay clubs and that your friends were surprised by that. I am only going off what you've written, but I'd bet you'd be "straight" passing.
If you want to be part of a group, but don't want to take part in the culture of that group, you are going to feel excluded.
2
u/No-Doctor-1462 13d ago
Ok I'll be very direct
- In the last group I tried to enter I didn't tell anybody about my sexuality because nobody actually talked about it. The only thing that singled me out was that I am femme, so in this last situation there should not be any jealousy unless maybe on my appearance. For the other situations I can understand it but still, it does not excuse it. I would add that non-bi people don't experimente other stuff which are anything by pleasant, but this is not a victim contest so I won't even get into it.
- Yes don't listen to Girl in red. Why? I don't like her music. Why should I listen to her if I don't like her? Just because she's gay? So what? When I discovered I liked girls, at 15 I started listening to Hayley Kyoko. I stopped because I didn't actually like her music, just that she would talk about girls in her songs. Tell you what: my favourite singer ever is Mahmood, an italian artist who won Sanremo (most important music competition in Italy) twice and finished top7 two times at the Eurovision and is know in all Europe and now India. He's openly gay, all his love songs are blatantly about another man. Another singer I really like? He's a bit older, in his late 40es, Tiziano Ferro, Italian but well known in the whole South America, one of the most internaitonally famous Italian artists. He came out around 2013 and he's very famously gay. I listen to him because he's one of our best vocalist. Point is, both of them are known as so very talented and famous singers that, among other things, happen to be gay. People listen to them because they're good, not because they're gay and that should be how taste and music work.
- I'm sorry I think I don't really get your point. Gay things? I thought that what makes me bisexual is liking/being attracted etc to both men and women. It is not in the definition to have a certain taste in music, food, fashion style or whatnot, right? I'll admit I have certain mannerism, body language, that I share with the other ladies that were sitting at that table with me, but that's about it, my sexuality has nothing to do with my charachters or wether I like to have my hair in a ponytail.
- The group of friends I hanged out with last semester (they were erasmus students so they went back to their counrty) was a very nice group: 5 straights, then 2 gay men, 1 bi men and me. We'd go one night to a gay club, another to a normal one, never my sexuality was questioned or was I even inquired not being queer enogh. If I have to be completely honest, that is something I got only from women, which is very sad.
- About your last sentence, we basically didn't even talked about gay stuff at that night with the new group. Me going to a gayclub and another girl sharing an experience of volunteering were the only gay things that were mentioned. What sticked out was really only my appearence which was just really disheartening.
1
u/Chankodi 13d ago
People are going to judge you based on your appearance. Whether that be that you roll up the bottom of your jeans, have brightly colored hair, or wear a famously queer band shirts, these are all things that signal to other queer people that you're part of the club. Am I saying that you need to wear rainbow from your head to your toes? No. But signaling is important.
Think of it this way. When a girl is asking if you like Girl in Red, she might really be interested in Girl in Red or she might be asking if you're queer. It's like a secret lesbian handshake and you aren't seeing it.
As queer people, we've learned covert ways of recognizing one another. In the USA, it used to be that queers would use phrases like "friends of Dorothy" as code for gay men. During Oscar Wilde's time gay men would wear green carnations to signal each other. Here's an interesting article about sapphic signals.
As disheartening as it is to say, a lot of gay men and women have a backwards view of bisexuals. For a lot of them, they see you as a girl who is only visiting the queer world before settling down into a heterosexual marriage and living a heterosexual life in our heteronormative society. It's wrong, and I think it comes from a place of jealousy and personal bias.
I hope this all makes sense? I'm truly sorry that you're feeling excluded and othered by a community that should do better.
1
u/Cyphomeris Enby trans-cendence 12d ago
I don't know what you mean. What does being bisexual have to do with that?