“I’m a lesbian,” I said. And just like that, it was out there in the world. It was the only word I knew to describe what I felt.
“I see,” he said, in a detached, matter-of-fact way. “That makes sense, I guess.”
“Are you upset?”
“I’m not mad at you,” he reassured, “but it’s going to take me a little while to process.”
We said our goodnights, and I went to bed a little freer. It was out there. That big scary “L” word. I said it. I owned it. And god damn it, I was going to keep saying it!
The next night, I sat under the harsh fluorescent lights of the campus cafe and tapped my grandmother’s number onto my cellphone screen.
“Ello,” she said, in a sleep-heavy voice.
“Hi Grandma,” I said.
“Estephanie?” Grandma asked, like she was still dreaming. I imagined her sitting up in her oversized bata, switching on the lamp at her bedside, and putting on her glasses.
“No, Grandma,” I said, “It’s Shara.”
“O, Chara,” Grandma chimed, “¿Como estas, Chara? How are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” I said, teeth chattering. Grandma sniffed out my bullshit through the phone like she had a sixth sense for it.
“¿Y tu novio? And your boyfriend?” she asked. I looked at the students around me, typing furiously and death-glaring at their laptops. Were they listening? Would they care? I suddenly regretted coming to the cafe for the call, but my head was spinning sick with the worst possible future scenarios. I didn’t have the bandwidth to lift my body and walk away. My mouth couldn’t, wouldn’t make the words I desperately wanted to make.
“He’s fine,” I said, but Grandma wouldn’t let me off the hook. She asked more probing questions. The more I danced around it, the more she pressed. Finally, I took a deep breath and forced the truth out.
“Um . . . Grandma?” I whispered, and I laughed a nervous laugh.
“Hm?” she answered.
“I like . . . um . . . I . . . how do I say this?” I felt my chest tighten, like my rib cage was closing in to protect my heart. “I . . . ”
“¿Que te pasa, Chara? Ju wha?”
“I um . . . I . . . I think . . . I’m a lesbian,” I said.
“Ooo!” she said, and then she laughed. “Obama estalking abou tha. And Ricky Martin, el tambien es asi. Ricky Martin is like that too. No worry,” she said, “I still loving ju. I always loving ju, no matear wha.”
I cackled into the phone.
“Thank you, Grandma,” I said, and I wiped the rogue tear running from my eye. Unfazed, the furious typists kept attacking their keyboards, and the world kept spinning on its axis.
The next morning, I asked Alex to take a walk with me. I watched her from the corner of my eye—her worried face staring straight ahead as she marched her little march. My heart was raging in its cage.
“I just wanted you to know,” I said, smiling like a maniac, because my face wasn’t versed on what to do in such situations, “that I’ve had a huge crush on you for a long time.” I felt lighter as soon I said it. Alex, though, seemed to absorb the weight. Her mouth struggled to catch and swallow air.
“I’m straight,” she managed.
“I know,” I said, still smiling. “I just needed to tell you.” And I knew it was true in the moment it was spoken.
We said our good-byes, and I walked toward the back of the campus, to where Paradise Pond cascaded over the spillway. Alone, I watched the water sheet down in streaked reams, and I felt the fiery tips of my nerves dim to a soft luminescence. The wind rattled the branches and caressed my hair. It nudged me forward, and onward I went with my injured heart broken, but open nonetheless.
There was never anything more between Alex and me beyond a few simple conversations and looks across space. Eventually, I made peace with the distance between us; like me, Alex was living her own life and choosing what wholeness might look like for her. I was creating myself too; after I confessed to Alex, I was adrift in possibility. The title “lesbian” became a kind of lifesaver for me, and I held tight to it; I went to lesbian bars and pressed my sweaty body against other lesbians. I came out to my friends and family. As long as you pick a side and stay there, one had quipped. Otherwise you’re just a slut. I swore up and down that I’d never touch a man again, as if that was the price of the ticket, of community. Soon, I had a girlfriend and a comfortable, middle-class life. But there was something uneasy in me. Lesbians, it turned out, were people too, heir to the same sins and virtues as everyone else, and my attraction to men didn’t just disappear because of my professed allegiance to “the team,” even though I sometimes wished it would. Even though I sometimes said it had. Something was amiss.
Day in and day out, I thought about sexuality. I read about sexuality. I mulled over sexuality with friends. I even enrolled in a Gender and Cultural Studies master’s program. The deeper I dug, the more fear I pulled up. I was afraid of being rejected by the lesbian community, mocked by friends and family, thought of as confused or slutty. I resolved to reject that fear.
Today, I answer to myself, no one else. I want who I want, and I love who I love, regardless of gender. My feelings for Alex challenged me to confront the parts of my identity I’d sacrificed to get where I was, to feel the ache of loss, but not be defined by it. Meeting Alex made me larger, freer, and more capable of loving myself and others beyond boundaries, beyond fear. For that, I feel only gratitude. I look outward now, at a future marked by possibility, waiting to be made. I look inward, and I see a brave soul who just might step up and make it.
Seeking My Whiptail Clan
BY EMILY WITHNALL
AFTER I CAME OUT, I BECAME FASCINATED BY WHIPTAIL lizards. Whiptails are native to northern New Mexico, but I never took much notice of them until I was divorced and learning how to take care of my two small daughters on my own. Whiptails lay a clutch of eggs every summer, hatching between one and five baby lizards at a time. Their rate of reproduction was not what most compelled me, however. As a newly out, self-identified lesbian, I was drawn to whiptails due to their nickname: “lesbian lizard.”
Whiptails are all female; there are no males. Technically, whiptails reproduce asexually, but in reality things are more complicated. It is through the act of mounting and biting other females that a whiptail can activate the hormones required for ovulation and the laying of eggs. Not only can whiptails reproduce without males, but they can also detach their own tails as a way to trick predators. While its removed tail flops around, the whiptail makes a run for the nearest juniper bush.
I never saw a whiptail in my own backyard, but I watched them scrabble on the lichen-crusted boulders many evenings at my friend Melissa’s house. Wine glasses in hand, we sat on the back porch, blasting Brandi Carlile and watching the erratic movement of the little yellow lizards with black spots as the sun set. Sometimes our daughters would count how many of them were missing tails.
The rocks still warm from the hot day, combined with the red earth, the pinks and oranges of the sunset, the grey peeling bark of the piñon trees, the pungent scent of juniper, and the existence of the spotted lizards were enough to assure me that although I was a single, queer mom, arriving to the awareness of my sexuality a little late, I’d figure it out. The lizards had clearly evolved, and I was in the process.
The first time I kissed a woman I knew for certain that my awareness had finally caught up with my body. It’s hard to explain why it took so long. I am from an open, liberal family. But I grew up in a small, Catholic, Hispanic town and it was par for the course for young girls to begin dating at thirteen. I submitted to the pressure. Or, more accurately, I wasn’t even aware that the pressure existed. To paraphrase Adrienne Rich—another late bloomer—compulsory heterosexuality compels women to conform to prescribed roles: girlfriend, wife, nurturer, mother. I filled all these roles awkwardly, inhabiting them much like the tiny doll clothes my daughters tried to stuff our cats into. I squirmed and wriggled, uncom
fortable but not fully aware of why. In coming out, I have worked to shed or re-imagine these roles. Despite marriage equality, I have not reclaimed “wife.” But the most difficult, ongoing challenge I face is in reshaping “mother.”
On a smoky day at the end of August, I walked my daughters to their new elementary school in Missoula, Montana. We had just moved from New Mexico, and although the forest fire haze was not new to us, everything else was—the lawns in every yard, the flower gardens, the deer wandering the streets and grazing on fruit trees and hedges. The schoolyard was like something out of a Hollywood movie. Proud mothers and fathers arrived on foot or bike to help their kids find their new teachers. The students lined up dutifully in front of their teachers in a half-sun formation, each ray a different grade and classroom. My youngest daughter’s teacher walked her line, hugging each child and asking them about their summer. The other parents smiled and waved and navigated unwieldy strollers. There was a lot to take in, but in all that I saw, there was something I didn’t see. I did not see any other parents alone. I did not see a family with two moms or two dads. Not only was I the sole single mom on the playground, but I guessed that I was the only queer mom, too.
In New Mexico I hadn’t had to worry about being an outsider. My daughters were born in my small hometown, and many of my friends had known me when I was married and when I believed—unquestioningly—that I was straight. So when I came out, I retained the community I had and added a few older lesbian women to my expanding circle of friends. It didn’t bother me that many of my friends had husbands and lived heteronormative lives. After all, I had lived as a straight woman for six years before my divorce and subsequent coming out. But here in Missoula, I wasn’t sure what I’d encounter in the way of community.
I hugged my daughters, each lined up in front of their teachers, and watched as the classes began trickling into the building. After my daughters disappeared, I lingered, catching snatches of conversation exchanged between other parents—camping stories, in-law visit mishaps, and European travel sagas. On one end of the playground, near the fence, a group of moms clustered around a circle of strollers. I overheard snippets of conversation as I passed by: “Alexander is an old family name” and “That’s such a neat tradition” and “My husband really wanted to name Aiden after his grandfather, but his name was John, and I once dated a man with that name.” The women wore tank tops, Lycra leggings, and running shoes. Their ponytails were smooth with golden highlights, their long shiny hair a contrast to my tousled pixie cut.
George, a new neighbor from down the block, asked me who lived in the other half of the duplex I’m renting.
“Two young guys,” I said. “One’s in law school and the other is younger, an undergrad.”
He raised an eyebrow at me, smirking. “Some eye candy,” he suggested, “or more?”
I laughed uncomfortably. I had told him weeks ago that I had a long-distance girlfriend. “Um,” I said, “I’m not into men.”
He glanced at my daughters and back at me. I’m never sure what to say in these moments. It was certainly not the first. I decided I was tired. Not interested in explaining. So when he asked, making sure he fully understood, “You don’t date guys, like ever?” I simply said no.
Men seem to have the hardest time with my sexuality. They don’t want to believe I’m not attracted to men. I was married, after all. I had boyfriends in high school. I have kids. Shortly after coming out in New Mexico, a coffee shop regular approached me as I tried to leave with my mocha.
“I always see you in here with your kids. It’s so hard to be a mom. You’re doing a good job,” he said.
“Thanks.” I tried to edge out the door.
“What does your husband do? How come I never see him around?”
“I’m divorced.” I smiled, hoping he’d see it was fine, hoping he’d get out of the doorway. Behind me, the coffee shop offered a backward retreat. The Saltillo tile was cool and the hand-woven rugs and tapestries that decorated the walls made the place homey and inviting. But I’d be late to work.
“That’s tough,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re doing it on your own? Wow. Well I’m sure some young man will snatch you up.”
He sounded like my grandma. “I’m gay,” I said flatly. Madly. I wanted him to get out of the doorway. And although I had told the truth, I regretted my words as soon as they emerged. I watched as his face ran the gamut of surprise, shock, disgust, and finally, rage.
“When I lived in San Francisco there were all these homos, these men that would lay with other men,” he sputtered. “Disgusting.”
I stared at him evenly, torn between expressing my own rage and giving him a natural history lesson on whiptail lizards.
“I hope you don’t date those women who think they’re men, the ones who wear leather and drive motorcycles.” He scrunched up his face as he spat the words out.
“Butch women?” I offered. I was dismayed by the deeply problematic stereotyping but aware of where he was going with this. He nodded.
“Oh, I am super-attracted to butch women,” I said. I pushed past him to make my escape as he boiled over behind me.
I don’t encounter such direct homophobia in Missoula. As people here say, Missoula is thirty minutes from Montana—a liberal blue bubble in a very red state. But when I eventually met queer women, I found we didn’t have a lot in common. After a year of living in Missoula, I received a scholarship for grad school from an LGBTQ foundation, and I attended the event hoping to meet potential friends. Although I experimented with wearing baggy men’s clothes for a very brief period after I came out, I quickly reverted back to my more feminine style. Coming out was like coming home to myself, not changing myself. So I chose a pink dress with roses around the hem from my closet and tried to tame the cowlicks in my short hair. But when I arrived at the reception I felt like an imposter. I was the only one in the room with kids, the only one who hadn’t come out in high school, and the only one who didn’t have a gut-wrenching coming-out story. When it was my turn to be acknowledged I decided against sharing my personal story and stuck with thank-yous. I was truly grateful to be seen by the foundation as a deserving and legitimate member of the community, but as is so often the case, “coming out” as a mom in queer spaces can make it hard to feel I truly belong.
Likewise, I am out of place on the playground at my daughters’ school. I am familiar with the world the other moms there inhabit, but that is not my life anymore and I have no desire to return to it. Though it is easier to connect to straight women by appealing to our mothering connection, I often find myself listening in on conversations about what their husbands do or don’t do.
At one work party I attended, mothers shared stories about how they discussed sex with their kids. I’m not sure why I was surprised when they each revealed the brevity of these conversations, their focus on heterosexual relationships in which the purpose of sex is reproduction, and safety only as it relates to pregnancy. I supposed that if I were a whiptail lizard, I could offer my daughters the same dry facts about how reproduction works, but in that moment I was most struck by my invisibility. In my role as mother, I was presumed to be a part of heterosexual prescribed norms. Though I was tempted to suggest that sex is not limited to procreation, and that their kids might not identify as straight, I worried that such comments would come across as being passive-aggressive.
Being read as straight certainly comes with a privilege I do not take for granted. Despite the annoyance of other women occasionally thinking I’m hitting on their husbands if I speak to them, I do not generally fear for my physical safety. I do not have to think about whether or not to stop in a small town to use the gas-station restroom. I don’t have to worry about nasty remarks or incessant questions about what or who I am. The inherently privileged flip side of this, however, is that my children render me invisible. When I first moved to Missoula and mentioned my girlfriend to a queer woman I’d just met, she registered surprise—a not-uncommon reaction to
my coming out.
“I noticed the rainbow stud in your ear,” she said, “but when you mentioned your kids I didn’t think you could be gay.”
My triangle-shaped rainbow earring is the last remnant of my early coming-out days, seven years ago. In addition to my brief stint wearing oversized clothing, I also wore more rainbows—and I came out in every conversation I had. I felt an urgency to proclaim my identity to the world, a need to establish myself in all my newly discovered authenticity following my divorce. Although I no longer feel this urgency, I do get lonely sometimes and long for a community of people like me. I am envious of friends and acquaintances who talk about queer communities they have belonged to. I am particularly envious of women who live in big cities and are a part of a circle of queer parents. I have always lived in small towns though, and I attribute the fact that the bulk of my friends are straight to this fact, and to my role as mother. To be clear, I love my friends fiercely and wouldn’t trade them for the world. They have supported me in all the various stages of my journey. Still, I sometimes yearn to be a part of a community in which I can be both queer and a mom without feeling I don’t quite belong.
My fascination with whiptails has everything to do with my attempts to reconcile my identity as mother and queer woman. I recall the endless hours I spent online before I fully came out to myself and the confusion I felt when, in online forums, I came across lesbian-identified women referring to straight women as “breeders.” In my turmoil, I wondered if I could be gay if I had brought children into the world. My discovery of whiptails many months later provided solace. Their existence, and the evidence of their evolution as a species, helped me to understand that my identities were not mutually exclusive.
Though I am happy to report that I have never encountered “breeder” comments in person, I am still trying to figure out what it means to be both queer and a mother. I have become adept at compartmentalizing, talking about my kids with heterosexual women and limiting mentions of my girlfriend. Likewise, with queer folk, I focus on my queer identity, mention my girlfriend freely, and keep kid talk to a minimum. I’m not proud of this, and in the past year, I have made more of an effort to push past awkward silences and talk freely about both of these identities. However, I’m still not where I want to be, and social norms in the small towns I’ve lived in aren’t there yet, either. The path I’m on has skittered erratically, and sometimes, in moments of perceived danger, I have had to disguise myself. I can’t wait for society to evolve, and I understand that it’s up to me to claim my queer-mother identity in the spaces I enter. As Adrienne Rich wrote, “When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility of more truth around her.” And as I speak my truth and continue to reimagine and reinvent the roles I inhabit, I’m keeping my eyes open for my small-town whiptail lizard clan.
Greetings From Janeland Page 5