queer story 9
There was no way the counter girl was butch, even strutting to and fro in her Levi's and poly-blend Colma Tigers Little League uniform shirt. Her crew cut framed her face too prettily, her eyelashes were too long, the shirt too snug. She did not achieve that true androgyny some butches have, where you look once and see a boy, look again and see a girl, look again for the pleasure of the trompe l'oeil. No, this girl was one of the many femmes who'd moved to the city and cut off her hair in order to participate fully in the urban pleasures. A dyke with short hair was noticeable from across a street; any woman with short hair was worth a second glance. A femme with long hair wouldn't register in a quick scan, unless of course she was high-femme, picking her way down Valencia at 10 AM in heels and dark lipstick, carrying a shopping bag of performance art supplies. A regular femme with long hair, you'd have to cross the street -- but how would you even know to do so?
The above is a quote from Andrea Lawlor's newly published book Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl. If you follow me on Twitter you know I raved about this book when I first read it. It's amorphous and funny and tender and one of the queerest books you'll read (in the best possible way). And the above is an example of that: it's partly a dressing-down by the protagonist, Paul, one he does many times to the people around him. Paul loves to categorise, perhaps because he himself is so difficult to pin down, able to literally "shapeshift" his body; Paul shifts gender-presentation and body parts as easily as putting on a new shirt. What struck me reading the above paragraph (whether we agree with Paul's assessment) is how deeply queer it is, how it understands queerness and in this specific case the dyke/butch/femme subculture. This paragraph could never have been written by a straight gaze.
the straight gaze you say?
There is a feeling of being "seen" when reading a novel such as Paul, which despite being set in New York & San Francisco in the 90s (and the language of the time), contains within it a great deal of relatability. Almost all of the characters in the book are queer and represent an array of different identities. It's often noted that a queer character in the media will be the only one (think of all those sole gay best friends in romcoms) when most queer people I know have a whole host of queer friends and family. We don't exist in a bubble. And nor should queer literature, Lawlor said in an interview with the Guardian when asked about their book being representative of queer experience that:
A lot of writers have been here for a long time, and now people are paying more attention. The thing that’s exciting about books is there’s not just one. I hate to be the one, I don’t ever want to be a representative of a type. Because I can’t live on one book, I need a book a day.
I can't live on one book — how true that is, no one can live on one representation and certainly not for queer identities which constantly resist, change, celebrate and reinvent their own labels. That constant tussle between assimilation and identification. You cannot be what you cannot see, as the now, rather trite, saying goes. I went to see Lawlor speak at Gay's The Word and they were warm and funny and generous with their time as you would hope. In the same Guardian article they spoke on the need for language and naming, that language is an imperfect but useful tool:
Lawlor says, they simply regarded themselves as queer. “Finding a word that fits right is not my biggest concern, but I think it’s a valuable thing and non-binary is useful. For me I say ‘trans-ish’. Transmasculine works for me, if trans is a real umbrella term. I’ve got a number of friends my age or older who have a similar gender situation, who are using they/them pronouns or have switched recently. I’m just really grateful to young people for making that a viable thing. Pronouns have not been a place where I’ve put my energy and yet I’ve benefited from other people’s energy.”
Being a writer means Lawlor cannot escape language but also that they recognise the limits and the freedoms language gives us. For if we cannot define ourselves, others will make that definition for us. What I love about that quote from Paul is its specificity — queer people are not a monolith. Paul with his constant need to work out where the barista sits on a butch/femme spectrum, while perhaps reductive in many ways, acknowledges the many ways queer people can choose to present themselves. These identities, poached from straight culture's masculine/feminine binary, are given new definitions by queer people or the binary is passed over altogether. We breathe new life into ways of being. Paul (and Lawlor) understand this as someone looking at their own culture. This book is in many ways an "inside job".
the butch/femme scale as phone chargers
Reading Paul I did not realise how much I needed it, how much I needed to read a really really queer book: written by a queer person, populated with queer people. We kid ourselves often I think that there is better representation these days (especially for myself, a white cis-gender lesbian with all those privileges attached — right now I have a big BBC Period drama every cosy Sunday evening to watch) but it's not enough. I can count on one hand the number of tv shows that have trans actors playing trans roles. We should not become complacent or accept the small scraps that we have or ever think queerness is now mainstream (but also mainstream = urgh). And I don't need to point out the many examples of why we know that is still not the case. As Lawlor says, there should be many books, many stories that look like us and like our queer family. Because for queer people it's not just about representation, it's about a lifeline, a way of keeping ourselves alive.
I'll end with one final quote from Lawlor because they really are right on the money when they say: "I feel that every good thing that has happened in my life has come from being queer.” Amen, to that.
queer story is an ongoing narrative on coming out and being part of the queer community
If you have a tiny narrative to share please get in touch at thetinynarrative@gmail.com