_As part of my New Years resolution to drop a few pounds--a resolution which has been slow-going, to say the least--my DGF and I decided to join a gym. I've had gym memberships before, and sometimes I've been good about using them; other times I haven't. (Bizarrely, the likelihood that I will use a gym seems to be inversely correlated with the gym's niceness.)
I'm an afternoon or evening workout person. Working out in the morning makes me feel virtuous, with a nice post-exercise buzz, but the habit doesn't stick. Turns out I'd rather loll about in pajamas (on days I work from home) or drive grudgingly to work, down some coffee, and allow my mind to wake at roughly the pace of a banana slug. I covet the virtuosity of Morning People. I spent a brief time as a Morning Person in college, cheerfully forgoing Jell-o shots so I could go to sleep at eleven, wake up at six, lift weights, and run a mile. I have no idea what got into me, and no idea where it escaped to. All of this is to explain that although I've worked out at gyms in the past, I've never needed to change clothes there. I either change at the office or wear gym clothes under my work clothes. Then right after I work out, I just drive straight home. But this new gym we've joined has a pool. And for some reason, I have been obsessed with the idea that I want to swim. I do not have a swimmer's physique, nor am I particularly good at it. But surfing is on my bucket list and I need to be in better swimming shape if I want to surf before I hit 40. Also, I recently read Haruki Murakami's South of the Border, West of the Sun (which I liked very much), and the main character is always swimming to clear his mind. Murakami himself also swims, and I am presently a little obsessed with Haruki Murakami, so my burgeoning interest in swimming makes a fuzzy kind of sense. Anyway, since I don't want to drive home sopping wet after a swim, I need to use the locker room at this new gym. I hate changing in front of other people. It's totally uncomfortable and I avoid it when I can, sometimes even changing in the shower stall. But whatever. I'm an adult. I can handle being embarrassed about my body or my half-nakedness or my brilliantly white day-glo upper arms. Here's the part I didn't anticipate but should have: some women are weirded out by seeing a butch in the locker room. They don't read me as male, but correctly read me as a dyke, and some of them kind of stare and look uncomfortable. Honestly, I don't blame them. One of the main rationales for having separate men's and women's locker rooms (along with the safety issue) is that people want to be able to change their clothing without worrying about being looked at as sexual objects. I get this. And since I'm obviously a lesbian, some of them probably feel that it's a little like having a guy in the locker room. Even those who are quite progressive (and there are many of them at this gym), and don't blink at seeing a lesbian couple hold hands on the street may feel uneasy when there's a dyke in the locker room, because it makes them uncomfortable to think I might be looking at them in a sexual way (which I'm not). So far, my basic strategy has been to try to make myself as small and unobtrusive as possible. I avert my eyes and position my entire body away from the other women. I guess this has worked okay so far, but it still makes me *and* them uncomfortable. And probably one of these days, I'm going to get told, "This is the women's locker room!" I guess I *could* wear tight pink T-shirts or lavender capris sweatpants things to announce my girlness, but, uh, that's not going to happen. I know I have just as much right to be there as everyone else and yada yada yada. But for me, the issue is not about being ashamed to be a butch or not wanting to hold my head up high, or anything like that. Just as *I* have a right to feel comfortable in the locker room, so do they. I'd really prefer to allow everyone to be as comfortable as possible. I don't *want* to ignore their discomfort. After all, I would feel totally uncomfortable if there was a guy in the locker room. Not because he looks different from me, or because I think he's going to do anything he shouldn't, but simply because he is sexually attracted to women and I am a woman. Have any of you other butches ever felt uncomfortable in a locker room? How do you deal with it? Just keep your head down and your gaze averted? Or is there a magical approach I haven't figured out yet? (Update: Wendi at A Stranger in This Place had a great post on this last year!)
27 Comments
_Last week, I received an email that brings up some self-presentation issues many of you have asked about. This version of the email is slightly edited (for length, and--at her request--to protect this person's anonymity). Androgynous Advocate writes:
A few times per week, I'm mistaken for a child. Since becoming a lawyer, the situation has gotten worse, especially in court. Today, in preparation for my first upcoming trial, I decided to go to court to see what a trial is actually like. I asked the court officer (a fairly strapping butch) for permission to observe and she granted it. But I guess she never informed the judge, because the judge made attempts to figure out who I was, including: "I see we have a 'little person' over there waiting. Does HE belong to any of you?" I pretended I didn't know she was talking about me. After all, I am not a small boy so why should I answer? But to add salt to the wound, the court officer got up and ambled across the courtroom to whisper to me: "Not only did the judge think you were a kid, but she called you a boy!" At this, I turned bright red and almost broke down into tears (but held it together). Later, the judge inquired again and I told her I was an attorney observing (I was wearing a suit, pink button down, and even some makeup). She apologized for the mistake about my age but omitted the whole gender error. This leads me to my question: I recently got a pixie cut. I love my super short hair; it's easy to deal with and feels totally freeing. But I've had to take a bit of shit about it. My grandmother gave me a long talk about how long hair is more "becoming" and "feminine." An ex and I even had a huge fight over my short hair, in part, because she felt it was unfeminine (though she later clarified that the fight was about more than just the hair). Even though I love short hair, it bothers me when people lament my not being feminine enough. It's not like I want to be perceived as super feminine (I feel very androgynous on a personality level) but I don't like when people see my lack of femininity as a liability. For whatever reason, being mistaken for a pre-adolescent male distresses me, and I wonder if it might be less likely to happen if i suck it up and grow my hair out a bit. Or should I embrace this characterization? If someone thought I was a man it might not be so bad but regressing to age 10-12 is tough when you're trying to prove yourself in court. Have you ever been tempted to change something about yourself so you fit more easily into "the institution" (for me, the courtroom)? Dear Androgynous Advocate: First of all, I feel your pain! Yes, I think most of us butchy/andro types have felt pressured to change something about ourselves to blend in with some kind of institution: school, work, family, etc. I've written about the wisdom of doing this at various times, and it's never an easy balance. As I see it, you've got multiple questions, so I'll try to break my answer into parts. Professional life first. Re: the little person comment: OMG wow. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. If I was in your shoes, I'd have been just as flustered as you were! Good for you for keeping it together. The judge was probably mortified (I sure hope so), and I suspect that the butch court officer was trying to commiserate, not to make you feel bad, since she probably knows all too well how irritating those kinds of mistakes can be. In your professional life, you need to be respected as a professional. Once you get established, people won't make these mistakes anymore (and they'll correct each other). But in the meantime, you need t to be taken seriously. So on first impression, it would be nice if they didn't think you were a boy-child. If I were you, I'd take measures to minimize this. You could always dye your hair grey and go to court as a little old woman--that would be kind of awesome. But here are some better ideas:
I hope one or two of these approaches won't be too odious for you. Yes, I've been tempted to change for an institution. I finally started wearing ties, but it took a long time before I felt like I wasn't being stared at. And just walking around my workplace, I still get stared at sometimes. At one of my old jobs, I wore a girl-suit and hated it. Basically I'm now convinced that as long as it doesn't compromise my reputation or clients or anything, the institution has to tolerate ME, not the other way around. But it's incredibly situation-dependent. As for your more personal dilemma regarding short hair... so many butches deal with this at some point! Don't all our grandmothers think we look more feminine (and thus, better) with short hair? I think that most people are so steeped in gender norms that they don't know what they believe. They just think girls are supposed to have long hair. And you are a girl. And when you have long hair you more closely match their idea of what a girl is "supposed" to be. So they say things about how long hair "frames your face" or whatever. But you know what, Androgynous Advocate? Screw their opinions. It's your head, not theirs, and they don't get to choose. They'll get used to it and eventually stop bothering you (or you'll stop caring). But it's a big deal that you find short hair "freeing." Even if you decide to make some compromises about your professional appearance, in your personal life, you get to be you. Love, BW Pic from "People": http://bit.ly/doRv3M _Rachel Maddow and her partner, Susan Mikula (both pictured left) are 15 years apart. So are Ellen and Portia. My DGF and I also have an age gap of over a decade. While May-December (or even May-October) romances can present occasional challenges, they can also be awesome. How big of an age difference is too big?
The unofficial formula is the "half your age plus seven" rule. So if you're 30, the rule goes, the youngest person you should date is 22 (since 30/2 = 15, and 15+7 = 22). When you're 44, the cutoff would be 29. At 58, it would be 36, and so on. And while this is a silly formula, it reveals an interesting truth: the older you get, the less age differences matter. An 18-year-old and a 32-year-old are 14 years apart, but these 14 years encompass a huge gap in experiences. Take those same 14 years, 30 years later, and you've got a 48-year-old and a 62-year-old. Sure, there are still some differences, but the gap has definitely shrunk. Age gaps tend to be more accepted in the queer community than they are in general. Maybe this is because we're already doing something that differs from the norm, so an age difference on top of it is just icing on the deviance cake. Or maybe it has to do with the gendered tendency in age differences among heterosexual couples. Demi and Ashton notwithstanding, the "older man, younger woman" scenario is much more common than the reverse. This pattern tends to reinforce gender inequalities and stereotypes in a way that queer relationships can't. Or maybe it has something to do with child-rearing. On average, fewer queers (especially gay men) have kids, so maybe people care less about age gaps when no little kidlets are involved. As far as I'm concerned, barring illegality, there's no such thing as an age difference being "too big" unless it presents problems for the couple. The bigger the differences, the more potential problems. But the key word is potential. Particular problems may or may not materialize for any given couple. Here are a few of the most common ones:
Six Relationship Tips for Couples with Age Differences:
Your turn, readers: have you ever been in a relationship with an age difference? Did the age gap bring any special perks or challenges? What do you think about big age differences in relationships? Z and K, butch-butch couple extraordinaire _Gay Within the Gay Community When I first came out, I quickly understood two things: (1) I was butch; (2) I was interested in butch women. It took me a few months to realize that the co-occurrence of these two things was a bit unusual. I read dozens of online profiles in which devastatingly attractive butches proclaimed their desire to find a femme who could "balance" them. I hope my loyal readers will forgive me for this, but back then, I really didn't understand butch-femme relationships. Wasn't a big perk of being a lesbian to get away from gender roles? Why would anyone want a relationship that replicated heterosexuality? Of course, this is silly; butch-femme relationships aren't "replicating" heterosexuality any more than my butch DGF and I are "replicating" a homosexual male relationship. When two phenomena are similar, sloppy thinking can lead to the conclusion that the less culturally privileged one is imitating the other. I was engaged in sloppy thinking. Anyway, the lack of butch-loving butches to date led me to give femmes a whirl. But dating femmes felt a lot like dating men: it was something I was supposed to like, but it felt strange and unnatural. It just wasn't me. (The main upside to dating femmes seemed to be that it was easier to find my clothes on the floor next to theirs!) So I resigned myself to the fact that I was the rare butch who is into other butchy/boi/andro types. I found plenty of butch-femme socials and butch-femme mixers, but no butch-butch ones. And there were all kinds of informal social sanctions for cruising other butches. It was a little like being gay within the gay community. This is reinforced by the fact that some people call butch-loving-butches "fag butches." Butch-Butch Interviews I've had several readers ask about butch-butch relationships (whether they want to be in one or not). Since this is an object of such intense curiosity, I thought I'd give it some attention. I interviewed 10 butches who are currently in a relationship with another butch, and another five who are single and looking to date other butches. Opposites Don't Always Attract: How Butch-Butch Couples Meet Almost universally, the butches I interviewed said that it's difficult to find butchy types who want to date other butchy types. In fact, one of them (who lives in New York City) called it a "dating nightmare." Even butches who are open to dating other butches don't always end up doing so, since it's easier to find femme dates. Dating online widens your dating pool, and the majority of my respondents met their partners this way. The handful of butch-butch couples who met in person did so at a bar, a dinner, or through a mutual friend. Personally, I met my DGF through one of those dorky "come meet other lesbians" dinners (and I was only there because my DXH forced me to go). When two butches are attracted to each other, they can be terribly shy about making the first move, and may assume that there's no mutual attraction. To carry the gay male metaphor further: if a straight guy hits on a lesbian and gets rejected, he doesn't lose face. It's just a bummer. But if a gay guy hits on a straight guy and gets rejected, there's more at stake. The straight guy might interpret it as a threat to his masculinity. This puts the gay guy in a more vulnerable position than the straight guy. Same deal with butches. Hit on a butch who is only into femmes, and you may find yourself subject to a negative rebuff (which, in turn, can wound your own butch pride). Chelsie writes, "[Telling] my butch friends what I'm attracted to was a mini version of coming out of the closet." Added to this is the machismo two butches can exude when they meet each other. Sometimes they puff out their chests and shake hands as if to say, "Yeah, we're both women who are into woman, but to each other we're bros, not sex objects." As K told me, "if [a butch] has got her 'cool suit' on, as so many butches do, it can be impossible to read her." Stacy described something similar: "There is something that I call a 'Butch Barrier' (and no, it's not a dental dam) because it's hard to get close to other butches... I think it makes dating even harder. Plus some butches are totally turned off by the thought of another butch." Jess and her partner Beth _Advice for Single Butch-Loving Butches AJ and Jo: "Just because someone looks all butch and uber tough doesn't mean they always have the confidence and personality to match... Go up and introduce yourself and talk and listen, see where it goes from there." K: "[S]tart by talking to them as friends... There are not a lot of constructs of behaviors for butches interested in butches, because... it's pretty rare and unexplored (in available writings, at least -- I have no doubt that the butch-loving butches have been finding each other since way before Stonewall). Jess: "The idea of butch/butch is not always accepted in our community, but don't give up... When I didn't think I was going to find someone, Beth came into my life and changed it forever." Z: "To another butch/boi who wants to date another butch/boi but is having trouble finding dates, I say, don't give up. First you gotta put out to the universe what you are looking for... Put an ad on Craigslist, be specific... Try some online forums/bulletin boards, go to a gay bookstore and hang out getting to know people. Someone will know someone who is single and looking to date. Put the word out." __eL: "[B]e social, friendly, talk to people that you find attractive... and if you do go out, please dance! A butch dancing is a sexy thing - don't be so shy!"
LG: "Try dating older butches." K: "If she grins at you nonstop at [a] party... that is a promising signal to go ahead and flirt with her... think of this uncharted territory as Your Territory: One of the few areas of your life that can be untainted by stereotypes, assumptions, and stupid old American Puritanism." KT: "Sometimes a butch thinks she isn't attracted to other butches, but then she meets you and whammo. Also sometimes people are more attracted to mannerisms than physical appearance. I dress more masculine than my partner but am more effeminate in my gestures. If I was gruff or traditionally masculine, she probably wouldn't have been interested in me." Donnie: "Keep trying, it's out there, you just have to look harder. There are online butch/butch dating sites such as www.butchboi.com." K.D: "Don't be afraid to let your feelings be known. I feel like there are more butches that want to date butches out there but because of societal norms many are afraid to say it. Speak up, perhaps another butch has a crush on you but they think you only dates femmes so they are being reserved." Becca: "I have known people who have had good luck finding this kind of thing online, but that has never been the case for me. I usually wind up dating butches who I am friends with first." O: "In my experience butches are never as hard and tough as you might think they would be...everybody just wants to be loved, so dont be shy, never know if you don't try." Hope you're enjoying this little butch-butch exposé. Tomorrow: Butch-butch relationships, part II. Who wears the... pants? And more! A huge thank you to the wonderful butches who let me interview them: AJ and Jo, K (aka Chopper) and Z (aka Zed), eL, LG and KT, Donnie, Becca and K.D., Jess and Beth, O, Stacy, Chelsie, Lisa and Jennie, and a handful of others who preferred to remain anonymous. In one form or another, I've gotten the following question from three different readers in the last week: Help, my girlfriend says she's trans! What do I do? From the tone of the questions I've received, I'm going to assume that: (1) this is somewhat of a surprise, and that (2) at least at first blink, you are unsure how you feel about it, and/or what her transition means for your relationship. (BTW, I'm going to use female pronouns because this is what the question-askers used.) Here are some tips to help you navigate: IN THE SHORTER TERM
IN THE LONGER TERM
For those of you who have been through this, what worked? What didn't? |
|