Queer Reflections

Jun 26, 2021 | 2014 Fall - Intersection: Geography

By Simone Wise

When I think back to what it was like growing up in Pocatello, Idaho, about how I left when I was 17 never to return for longer than a couple days, I wonder what would have happened if I had stayed. I imagine walking downtown, past my old high school with the politically incorrect mascot of an Indian. I imagine waking up in the middle of the night, just for a moment, when the train whistle blows, as it does each night in that town. I always felt so out of place there. Would I have settled in eventually, accepted my lot in life, learned to be satisfied with my surroundings? What would I be doing for work? Who would I be in a relationship with? Would I be happy? Would I be queer?

I remember the feeling of being in high school. So many unhappy memories of jealousy: of the pretty cheerleaders who looked like someone had taught them how to put on make-up, of my friends who had found boyfriends, of other people who seemed so much more confident than I ever felt. A burgeoning feminist, I simultaneously scorned the cheerleaders for buying into normative ideals of femininity, while wishing more than anything that I could take their place just for one day. Just long enough for one of the cute boys to notice me. Just long enough to feel like I fit in for a moment. Now I wonder about that jealousy – was it misplaced attraction? Did I want to be a cheerleader, or did I secretly desire cheerleaders? This realization feels embarrassing.

Until recently, my longest relationship was with a boy. We met in Seattle, Washington, the summer before my sophomore year of college and stayed together for four and a half years. I thought I would marry him and that we would have children together. I thought we would be together forever. About a year before the end of our relationship, we went to a party at our neighbor’s house. In the midst of an impromptu dance party, I found myself grinding on the dance floor with the girlfriend of one of my boyfriend’s Ultimate Frisbee teammates. I was surprised at how turned on I was, how I couldn’t stop talking about her afterward, how I couldn’t stop thinking about her for weeks. I told my boyfriend that I thought I had a crush on her. But, I never imagined that it could mean anything beyond that. I’m surprised that I never questioned what it meant that I felt attraction toward a girl.

My first date after that was with a girl who picked me up at a coffeeshop in Boise, Idaho, where I was living in the aftermath of a horrendous break-up with my college boyfriend. She was slight and very cute, with short hair and a wide smile. She said she recognized me from yoga class and wondered if I wanted to get together sometime. She asked for my number. I was sitting with my roommate, a boy who was often mistaken for my boyfriend, and it took his outsider perspective to clue me in that I had just been Queer picked up by a girl. After a couple weeks of butterfly phone calls, a summer date to the ballet, and a very steamy makeout session, I determined that I was most definitely straight.

In graduate school in Madison, Wisconsin, my very bisexual friend opened my eyes to the possibility that I might be queer. My eyes were wide open when I sat next to my lover on the first day of class. Wide open when she quietly (and somewhat covertly) courted me through spring and the duration of a summer. Wide open when I invited her into my bed that first time in the fall, long ago. I wonder if I had met her during high school, whether I would have been equally intrigued by her hazel eyes and serious mouth? If I had met her in college while I was with my ex-boyfriend, would I have been drawn to her as I was immediately, on that first day of class? If I had met her when I was mourning the break-up with my ex, would I have tried her on for size, ultimately concluding that I was straight? Perhaps I wasn’t ready for her until I was. Perhaps I wasn’t ready to be queer until I was good and ready. Now I can’t imagine being anything else. I can’t imagine what it would be like not to feel attractions toward women, men, trans men, genderqueer people, my lover.

A circuitous path to queerdom. Sign posts notwithstanding, I’m here now—comfortably so.

Simone is a researcher and writer living in Boston, MA.

Related Articles

The Geography of Home

By Jan Steckel When I was thirty, while divorcing my first husband, I found a girlfriend at a Pride march in Washington, D.C. I was wearing a Lesbian Avengers muscle shirt. She twirled in a rainbow skirt. We rode the train back up the coast together, singing Ferron...

read more

And Then I Moved to Boston

By Linda Blair Location, location, location. They say that it’s a deciding factor in whether a restaurant will fail or succeed, that it’s the most important factor in what you can charge to sell your home, or in determining the value of any piece of real estate. I...

read more