5 minute read
Special Feature: Queer
By Wynne Bendell
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Sophomore Ruijia Gu shares their experience with exploring gender expression and how that has helped them present masculine, while still having a strong connection to their womanhood and how that has made their queer experience much more enjoyable.
“I’ve always been more masculine growing up so it’s always felt innate, but embracing my masculinity has made me happier because it’s made me feel comfortable with how I express myself whether it’s how I dress, my mannerisms, etc. I still go through similar experiences feminine presenting people go through and I still feel a strong connection to womanhood because I feel like my masculinity doesn’t make me more or less of a woman- it’s just another part of myself that I allow to be shown to the outside world.” Gu said
Queerphobia comes in all different shapes and forms, often depending on your identity and how you express yourself as a queer person. We talked to freshmen Jayda Bardwell who identifies as pansexual, sophomore Ruijia Gu who identifies as a lesbian, and junior Kevin Celedonio who identifies as gay, about their experiences being a queer student at AHS.
Bardwell observes that the homophobia they have faced has not just been in the form of slurs or direct harassment, but the invalidation of their identity as a whole.
“My mom was pretty open about it, she didn’t really care as long as I was safe, it was the same experience if I was with a boy, I didn’t really tell my other family, my dad wasn’t as open about it, he still sees me as straight.” Bardwell said
Gu believes that different queer identities encounter different forms of queerphobia. They have noticed that fetisization is an aspect of homophobia that effects queer women in particular.
“I think certain identities and certain sexualities have their own struggles, I think everyone experiences homophobia differently. As for lesbians I can say there is fetisization between straight men towards lesbians but also any queer women,” Gu said
Celdenio agrees with Gu, that while the queer community as a whole collectively face homophobia, it comes in many different forms according to gender identity and sexuality.
“We definitely have things we all deal with like coming out and dealing with homophobia but it all comes in different kinds of ways.” Celedonio said
Celedonio notes that in terms of dating, gay youth have a limited dating field which leads them into unsafe situations.
“Dating life has been a struggle and I think it’s just the lack of options and not having the variety that other people get. Gay youth see they have a lack of options, so they go on to dating apps with older people and can be groomed. It’s just not good.” Celedonio said
Celedonio and Gu have both recognized the the difficulties of dating as a queer student at AHS, but Gu expresses a differing opinion about dating.
“I would say there is still a lot of stigma with coming with this person [their girlfriend] to certain places. In public spaces not every LGBTQ couple feels comfortable to show PDA or even that they are together, like holding hands.” Gu said
Bardwell says that the lack of queer representation in media has contributed to their dating stuggles.
“It was kind of hard, because you never have someone to look up to, as ‘oh is this something I should be doing’ or ‘I feel like this but I don’t know if it’s right’. It was pretty difficult but I always had a family member that helped me figure out stuff like that. But yeah I think queer people in movies are always held to the same stereotype or plot so it was really difficult to figure that out.” Bardwell said
Similar to Bardwell, Gu expresses their disappointment of the new wave of representation for queer women in media. They believe that the quality of queer representation should be more important than quantity.
“Yes we want more representation but I now realize that when there is more representation there is also a trend of stereotypes, there is a trend of similar tropes that we don’t want to see. For lesbians a lot of our representation in movies or TV, one of them always end up dying or they break up, there are rarley happy endings for LGBTQ couples. I do want to see more happy endings for queer women.” Gu said Celedonio observes that homophobia is directed at students that express themselves similar to stereotypes in media, like feminie gay men and masculine queer women.
People use archetypes of queer people from movies and tv shows to make fun of queer people in real life. “If you identify as a male but present very feminine they would see you as a stereotypical gay person and would start being homophobic to you, similar to how if you identify as female and present more masculine you are faced with homophobia.”
Celedonio said Gu brings up the idea of comphet also known as compulsory heterosexuality which is a term popularized by Adrienne
Rich in her 1980 essay titled “Compulsory
Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”. Gu defines comphet as queer women feeling that they like men or feel a false sense of attraction to men because of society’s need for women to appeal to the male gaze and patriarchy.
“If you are trying to figure out your sexuality as a lesbian or just a woman who likes other women just one important thing to aknolwlege is comphet is very real and male perception affect a lot of how you find yourself and your identity and as you go on it will become more challenging but that doesn’t mean that you won’t be able to find your true self.” Gu said
Gu and Bardwell both believe that the hardships that come with exploring your identity and coming out are worth it because they help you discover your authentic self.
“I think that it’s definitely an experience that I don’t mind going through, its both challenging and really beautiful to see yourself blossom.” Bardwell said12
illustration by Eden Buell
