Definitely Queer

I grew up making out with every single one of my girl friends in grade school. We had sleepovers just as an excuse to make out with each other in the dark after the parents had gone to bed. I couldn’t wait until the next one. I was too young to consider the male gaze. The sleepovers and make outs were only for us, our little secret. And sometimes if the stars aligned, our whole group of girl friends would come to the sleepover and we’d swap make out partners all night until we’d had our fill. I always looked back at those moments like how cute. This was just a dress rehearsal for the real thing. Later in high school, I went on a vacation with a bunch of friends. I made out with two girl friends and my boyfriend accused me of cheating. I’m not cheating. I just made out with two girls.

12 years later, I am 28, had been married to my husband for 6 years. He was the only thing I’d ever desire forever after. I loved the idea of possession. Monogamy trained me well. Early pandemic, I was in the middle of Glennon Doyle’s book Untamed (the same book every other white woman was probably reading at the time), reading about the night she first hooked up with her now wife. Feeling warmth and tingling between my legs, wondering what was happening. That story occupied endless space in my head for days and would spiral into dreamlike fantasy. It was exhausting how much I was thinking about it. I had heard people who were in hetero relationships talking about their queerness. Always trying to hold back an eye roll as if their queerness couldn’t belong in a hetero relationship. And now I was wondering “is this me?” wanting so badly for my queerness to belong in my hetero relationship. It’s a slow journey. I’d keep denying it for a while until my partner and I found ourselves in couples therapy. I brought it up to our therapist. I didn’t fully have the words.

I just remember one day as soon as her face appeared on the screen, I blurted out, “my life is such a mess. I think I like women.” as if that’s what constitutes a messy life.

I remember our therapist saying, “Okay so this is big. Hollie thinks she’s into women.” I remember her saying that as if I’d heard it a million times. I didn’t think of it as big. I thought of it as a part of me that had been hiding out since the last time I made out with a girl, a part of me that had just been waiting to feel safe enough to come back around. So now my partner knows. I said it out loud. But what the fuck do I do with it except watch lesbian porn and have fantasies about running away to the woods with a woman? I started finding people that I felt safe with to start testing it out. To see if I could bring it up gently enough to not startle anyone or make them think I am ending my marriage or going to ruin my life all because of a stupid book by Glennon Doyle that made me think I am queer. These were all the thoughts that ran through my head over and over in between my rehearsal of telling people I think I am queer. I tried it out on one friend. I couldn’t say with confidence that I was sure I was queer. I didn’t even use the word queer. It felt too definitive to say or claim. I could only imagine what it would be like to hear that so I rehearsed and came up with my main line, making sure to keep bi or queer out of it.

“I am curious about my sexuality.” A gentle little one liner. And if they seemed curious enough, I would say, “I am interested in being with women.”

The first try went okay. I gave my friend the well-rehearsed line with a little more context. She was like “yeah, but could you really imagine going down on a woman? Like that’s where the line is for me. Women are beautiful, but I could never go down on a woman.” I responded with “Yeah, I get that.” I wanted to tell her the truth of the matter which is that I literally write fantastical essays at night about going down on a woman but I kept that to myself and floated away from the conversation, my fears affirmed that maybe there were not enough words in the world constructed into a well-rehearsed speech that would soften people’s responses. I retreat again, keeping this little secret to myself while internally panicking, feeling like I am living a lie.

I’ve googled “Am I gay? Or Am I queer?” more times than I can count.

I saw a meme the other day that said, “If you’re googling “am I gay?”, you already know the answer.” But I didn’t know or maybe I did but I needed some kind of confirmation. How could I be queer if I hadn’t actually been with a woman since I was 16 years old and really had only just made out? I’d never spent time caressing a woman or studying her vulva. Queerness wasn’t mine to claim. I did spend hours in the comment section of TikTok, looking for people like me to tell me I was queer, to tell me it was okay to claim my queerness without any real evidence or proof. I’d find photos of beautiful women on Instagram and save them to a folder for times when I was alone. I’d find the courage to tell a few more people - my sibling, a couple of my best friends. Slowly my queerness was being seen.

A few years and a lot of deconstruction later, I finally went on dates with other queer people, one in particular who really stands out in my mind. Her name is Molly. We loved that our names rhymed. We got cozy under the outdoor heater at a queer bar drinking mezcal, facing each other for 4 hours, deep in conversation swapping compliments of how good we each were at asking questions about the other. She drove me home where I later had a cigarette to decompress. Staring off into nowhere, I sensed a deep knowing and audibly said to myself, “yea, I’m definitely queer.” And what I thought was me ruining my life was actually me just finding it.

Cruising

Brothers