Express Yourself

So you've found your style, now can you express it? I realize that I have been blessed. I live in an area where my partner and I can dress any way we want and it's accepted or at least tolerated. My partner wears ties all the time and rarely gets a double take when we're in public. Once again, I realize I am lucky. Not everywhere in the country do lesbians feel safe enough to express their true selves. I began thinking about this in my own life.

My partner and I went back to the small town on the east coast where I grew up over the holidays. Prior to the trip, my partner asked me, "can I wear a tie there?". I was kind of surprised she asked this because she often wears ties. Why should it be any different there? Well, because it is different. We live primarily in a straight world. And most of this world likes to put us in nice neat little categories like man and woman. If people see something out of the ordinary for them like a woman wearing a tie, it confuses them. When people are confused, they feel stupid because they don't like not understanding things. When people feel stupid, they criticize because they can't stand feeling stupid. Instead of them feeling bad, they have to make you feel bad. Basically, it's not you, it's them. But it still doesn't feel pleasant when you believe that your style is not accepted because it doesn't fit into everyone else's categories. So what is a girl to do?

I advised my partner to wear the tie. She did. And it was fine. No stares, no snide comments. Maybe I underestimated the open mindedness of my small town. Maybe times are changing. Or maybe we just didn't run into all the town homophobes. Maybe people kept their comments to be said only behind closed doors. I probably will never know. But the optimist in me (maybe it's our new president's influence) believes that times are changing. And the more that we be ourselves, the more that people will get used to it. Remember the slogan coined by Jane Sheehan of Queer Nation, "we're here, we're queer, get used to it." Here's to hoping that in the near future, all women will be able to express their true style.