Nameless
“Dyke” was a term I heard frequently in high school; sometimes to my face, sometimes as a not-so-discreet whisper when I passed through the cafeteria. The “k” always sounded particularly sharp, even when the word was hushed, and I spent those four years desperately trying to prevent it from leaving any visible marks.
I didn’t think of myself as a “dyke” back then, nor did I know what it meant, but I knew the expected response was to vehemently deny it. It took me years to discern that “dyke” wasn’t just in reference to sexuality. At my school, it was an umbrella term that was used interchangeably with “fag” and “gay” to describe kids who were effeminate or masculine (depending on their gender), socially awkward, unfashionable, uninterested in sports, and were unable to attain enough social capital to avoid being bullied.
While other girls in my class wore surfer brands like Roxy and Billabong, I wore oversized hand-me-down collared shirts from my dad and had Manic Panic stained fingers from dyeing my hair “Passion Red” in the bathtub. The competitive aspect of sports gave me anxiety and I preferred to spend my time at local punk shows than at the beach. I brought gardenias wrapped in paper towels to my teachers that my dad picked each morning from our yard. I was uncool, and sensitive, and artistic, and ill-prepared for the burden of being different. By their definition, I guess I was a “dyke.”
Like many closeted LGBT teenagers, my classmates thought it was amusing to speculate about my sexuality. If my enthusiasm for ‘NSYNC and Jonathan Taylor Thomas did not mirror theirs, they’d prod for an equally “worthy” crush. I’d often say Lance Bass, just to stop the conversation (oh, the irony), but my insincerity and a palpable fear of being discovered as a fraud always gave me away. Girl friends thought twice about whether or not I was worth the social suicide and classmates often asked pointed questions in hopes I’d slip up and reveal some “lesbo” secret about myself. Most of my headspace was used to police my own conversations. I was careful about speaking too highly or frequently about same-gender friends, and lived most of my teenage years as a watered down version of myself.
I grew up in a generation where “gay” meant stupid or reeked of blatant homophobia and yet it was one of the few labels we could claim for ourselves. Back then, the communal language in Hawaii felt constraining compared to its breadth now. We were forced to share so few terms, regardless if they actually fit, because our language did not yet support the vast scope of our individual identities. Self-identification can help build community, but it also made some of us easy targets in a world that did not know how to hold us. For that reason, many of us chose to be labelless; not because we were apathetic, but because it was an issue of safety. When people ask me how I identify, I have to fight the knee-jerk assumption that it’s a trick question. And I get it--labels, self-imposed or not, were important in high school. In fact, these verbal membership cards are carried into adulthood with pride by some.
By the time I left Hawaii for college, I was ready to abandon any labels my high school classmates had spent years trying to pin on me, and yet tentatively called myself a dyke when I had to introduce myself at my school’s LGBT club. The term didn’t feel fitting to me - although neither did terms like “queer” and “genderqueer,” which weren’t part of my vernacular until I entered college. It wasn’t that those terms didn’t accurately describe me, but something about the labels themselves felt confining and made me feel unsafe. For most of my young adult life, it seemed easier to be nameless.
I moved to Los Angeles in April of 2010 into a one-bedroom apartment in Studio City, nearly 3,000 miles away from my high school bullies. I was labelless and searching for community. At the time, the “It Gets Better” project was in its infancy. There were only a handful of videos on YouTube that could be found easily, most featuring celebrities who had experiences I could not relate to. We were only connected by current geography; the thick concrete veins of the 405 were our only commonality.
One gloomy afternoon, on a whim, I sat down and recorded my own video. I shared a story about my high school counselor that only a few people knew. I told the same story almost 15 times in a row until I could get through it without tripping over my words anxiously. It was the most number of times I had shared that experience aloud.
I took a breath, posted it on Facebook, and then turned off my computer for the day. In the weeks that followed, I started receiving messages and emails from friends, people I attended high school with, strangers, and then journalists. Classmates were apologetic for the bullying from others, but never owned up to their own participation in it. There were noticeable, even glaring, holes in their narratives. Memory is a funny thing. It’s malleable and I saw how people’s guilt molded their experiences of how they treated me into something more easily digestible than the actual truth. Some closed their email confessionals with some clichéd paragraph about always being on my side, supporting me, or some other reassurance my adult self no longer needed. And while I appreciated their intention, I had outgrown my need for their validation.
On most days, I walk through the world with confidence. I go to the women’s restroom without fear that someone will stop me and never lower my gaze when I feel someone looking at me. I politely correct sales associates who assume I’m buying something as a gift rather than for myself. On most days my gender identity feels personal, specific, and unnecessary to describe.
But for all the work I’ve done, some scarring remains. Some days I hide behind my female friends when in line for the restroom, or worse, I will avoid going to the bathroom in public at all. Some days I quickly switch out the words “partner” for “friend” depending on the context of the situation and who I’m talking to. Some days I fixate on a brief interaction when a stranger does not know how to address me and decides to use all of the pronouns they know. Some days I wonder if being less binary makes me less lovable to those around me.
I know now that neither experience has the power to erase the other, and honestly, I don’t need it to. I can hold within me that the ability to stand unapologetically tall comes from overcoming the fear of being backed into a corner. I can use labels when they fit, when they make sense, and when I feel safe, and know I am exactly who I am without them.
Author’s note: this piece can be found in Dave Naz’s ‘Identity: In & Beyond the Binary’.