Card Carrying-Queer
Hear ye, Hear ye: all of my queerness has henceforth- died.
I’ve never considered myself much of a damsel in distress- I was never distraught about not having a date to prom and never needed help changing a tire, but the moment a knight in shining armor showed up with a shiny ring (and a computer science degree, no less) my queerness was kicked to the curb. Now that I’m getting married (to a man!!), I am henceforth straight. Or at least, that’s what people would like to believe. It’s sad, knowing that to many people I’m not a valid, card-carrying Queer. Do you know how hard it is to earn that card in the first place? It’s a long, tumultuous application process. That’s for damn sure.
Growing up, no one, not even myself, suspected I might be queer. And trust me, growing up in rural South Dakota, being gay was something suspected. In fact, if anything, some may say my interest in men was far too strong from a young age. There were times when I was about three or four where I followed boys around at Wednesday Night Church pointing to them and just repeating over and over again, “Boy. Boy. Boy. Boy.” Only a few years later when I was eight or nine, I formed a small gang of girls with whom I chased around aforementioned boys, famously luring one of my 14-year-old sister’s classmates into the church basement where we tied him to a chair with jump ropes and left him for dead. I had my first boyfriend by the time I was a second grader. It was the talk of the playground all the way from the monkey bars to the tire swings, children lent an ear to the gossip of the day- Clara had a boyfriend. More precisely, the gossip lasted two days- the exact amount of time the relationship did. What can I say? Even back then my standards were high.
It wasn’t until one sweaty afternoon in middle school that any alarm bells went off in my head. My memory of this afternoon starts at precisely one place and one place only, the basketball court. I was a solid small forward, and while I liked being a jack-of-all-trades, I coveted the one position on the court all middle school girls do- point guard. Don’t ask why, but something about the front and center position of point guard completely consumes at least a corner of the mind of every young basketball player, no matter how shy they may be. Every day at practice I watched the guard eagle-eyed, waiting to see a crack in her well-crafted façade that would enable me to break her in half and steal her position. Yeah, I’ll admit it- my bark is bigger than my bite. But let me have this- okay?
This particular day, our point guard was running a drill while I took a break on the sidelines, grabbing a drink from my water bottle. The details are fuzzy and I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but somewhere along the way our point guard had gotten tangled up with a post and they both fell to the ground with a large, echoing “THUD.” It really wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, we weren’t nearly as good or nearly as graceful as we thought we were, but something today was different. I saw a mess of tangled up legs and the sun glimmering off strawberry-blonde hair and suddenly the air around me felt sticky. Sticky and heavy and also really, really warm.
That night I went home and sitting on my bedroom pillow, waiting to greet me- an envelope with my name on it. Upon opening it an enormous amount of confetti spilled out, along with a crisply folded application.
“QUEER-CARD APPLICATION,” it read. “Please fill out all criteria below to see if you may qualify to become a Card-Carrying Queer!” One quick glance through the questions and a million words I had never seen before scared me enough to throw that application so far in the back of the closet I thought I’d never have to deal with it again! After all, no need to come out of the closet if I never even stepped into it.
But the memory of basketball practice kept circling through my head and I was left resorting to the one resource I had- Googling “naked ladies” on the private setting of my iPod touch. Much to my chagrin the only photos that popped up were of the band Barenaked Ladies and I took that as a divine sign that I was not meant to be a lesbian and was simply jealous of how shiny my teammate’s hair was and funny twangled-up legs looked.
Many months later (and a much more refined google search history along with a back massager I found in my family’s attic), I had definitively realized that I am, for sure, probably, definitely, at least a little gay. I had even entered my closet to pull out the wrinkled QUEER CARD APPLICATION, but under the cover of night, of course. I would sit on the floor, leaning against my bed checking boxes and questioning others.
Now let’s get real- the imaginary application that’s haunted me for years is all in my head- and it existed in my little seventh grade head that didn’t know there are more than two genders! Can you imagine if I had known that then?? Even more confusing.
I hit a growth spurt the summer between 7th and 8th grade and was promoted to post on the basketball team, where my soul purpose was to make physical contact with other girls and prevent them from scoring by throwing my body at them. It was bliss, and it felt good- but it felt like a secret. Looking back at all the years prior, I find myself shaking my head and sighing, realizing that there may have been clues for myself all along. I didn’t have a two-day boyfriend because my standards were too high, it was because I wanted to see a second-grade boy cry. I was wandering around church and identifying the enemy (repeatedly for good measure), forming allies with my Girl Gang, and incapacitating a perceived threat with ninja like precision while using Skip-Its as nunchucks. I was basically a queer secret agent masquerading as an innocent child who frequently wore shirts with butterflies. It was embedded in me deeply, I am not a threat.
It was then that I hit my all-time low. There is no other better way for me to describe being in the closet than feeling like my heart was so, incredibly constipated. By the end of my freshman year of high school I felt so constricted, like the long hair I was sporting tied me to heterosexuality with an iron-grip. A well-timed haircut (a short bob, which years later would be coined the Bi Bob by the bisexual community, oddly enough) happened to correspond with a trip to visit my favorite Uncle, an artist in Arizona. My mom gushed to him about while we cruzed around in our rental car.
“You would just be so proud of Clara!’
“Oh yeah?” I remember my Uncle saying.
“She is such a good ally- she’s copresident of the Gay-Straight Alliance at school!” It was then I felt my heart sink. Another one of the clues I had gently laid in front of them had been swept aside. I could feel the sphincter of my heart clench even tighter. That night, as my parents went out for dinner and my uncle and I painted mannequin hands with globs of abstract paint- I decided to make my confession.
“Hey… um, can we talk about something?” I was so sheepish it took three or four attempts for my Uncle to hear me from the kitchen where he was fetching snacks. He must have heard the distress in my voice because I will never forget how gently he responded.
“What’s up, Clara?”
“I’m… I’m not exactly the straight part of the gay-straight alliance.”
“That’s okay, does anyone else know yet?” In that moment it felt like my heart had taken the best shit of its life. That night with my Uncle marked the beginning of my long, LONG, coming out process, one that wouldn’t end for another six years. All I could articulate was that I wasn’t the straight part of my school’s GSA, but that was enough for now. I licked the envelope and attached a stamp- and sent off my completed QUEER CARD APPLICATION.
And that is how I remained for many years, bashfully bleating that I’m “not exactly straight but don’t really know if I want to date girls, most of the time guys are just fine!” with a midwestern giggle that had been programmed into my being at the moment of conception. It wasn’t until college that I realized I could stop my little cowpoke two-step in and out of the closet and embrace something more freestyle, some much more… me, despite never hearing back about the status of my application. I cut my hair into the shortest pixie possible and cuffed my jeans, filed down my nails and started buying men’s clothes. Sorry- “men’s” clothes. Even though I present far less feminine than I used too, I’ll admit that I still got nervous every time I went to a gay bar. I know they’ll ask to see my ID, and I’m 21 so it’s fine, but what if that’s not the ID they want to see? I never got my Queer Card delivered, I never even got one of those UPS slips saying “you weren’t home so you have to come get it.” Some days I feel like there’s no chance they would even let me slip through the door. I’ve clearly never seen an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race and just a few days ago I heard the term bisexual lesbian for the first time (Does anyone know what this actually means??? If you do, shoot an email to me at clara.reynen@gmail.com (I need to be educated.).)
It was all, so exhausting. I either needed to be validated or excommunicated entirely. So, June of 2019, a little more than six years after coming out to my uncle (and my parents shortly afterwards), I announced publicly that I was queer. Bisexual, to be precise. What I received, for the most part, was an outpouring of love and generosity.
“Welcome to the team!” friends wrote.
“You’re part of the tribe!” said others.
“Brave, bold, beautiful, and so very loved,” said my mom.
And in that moment, I felt a gentle, soft weight in my pocket. I reached in and pulled out a small plastic card, about the size of my credit card that said “Queer.” “Had I done it?” I thought? Did my application finally go through?
After a moment of shocked silence, I realized this was it. This was my queer card, in all it’s glory. “Finally,” I thought. “I can date whoever I want, love whoever I want!” I had convinced myself I was the epitome of FREEDOM! QUEER, LIBERAL, FREEDOM! Until, that is- I fell in love. With the same aforementioned, degree touting man. And suddenly, I found myself questioning everything all over again.
I won’t lie, I feel like an octopus who keeps getting thrown into different tanks at an aquarium and doesn’t know how to blend in quick enough, let alone have the mental energy to ask “WHO IS THROWING ME INTO SO MANY DIFFERENT TANKS?” Do I continue calling myself bisexual? Do I call myself bi? As a bisexual woman do I have the right to call myself queer? Am I even queer if I’ve never had sex with a woman? What does this all mean now that I’m getting married? That’s usually when the room starts spinning and I realize I haven’t been breathing. Then I remember that Christian weddings are the straightest thing ever (yes, I am still incredibly faithful and love my religion and think being queer as fuck is Christian as fuck and sometimes I think Jesus was probably gay, but that’s another essay for another time) and realize I almost dropped my Queer Card four blocks ago while I was busy spiraling and have barely hung on to it.
There are many, many details that go in to planning a wedding. There’s of course the dress, the wedding party, the seating arrangement, but I’ve got to consider much more. There’s seating my conservative relatives as far away from my LGBTQ+ pals and growing out my hair to at least a bob and letting my stubby little fingernails reach the uncomfy length queer folks fear and making sure no one will throw a fuss about a nontraditional wedding party and finding a dress that still says “I’m here!” while worrying that the day the wedding comes will be one of the dreadful days where putting on clothing even remotely feminine will make me feel like I’m crawling out of my skin or like I’m being suffocated by starchy white fabric that’s screaming at me “DIE YOU HOUSEWIFE WHORE WE KNOW YOU’RE NOT A VIRGIN” before surrendering to the sweet abyss that the lake next to our surely tasteful outdoor venue will provide as an immediate but permanent escape from a HeteroMarriage.
Those are just some immediate thoughts running through my head.
Usually when I should be thinking about planning a wedding, I instead like to daydream that times have changed and the same impulse to patrol kids’ sexuality that existed most of my life isn’t still around today. There are a few moments once in a while where I can sit around and nod enthusiastically, thinking “We did it! We beat the patriarchy and heteronormativity and unconscious bias” and etc. etc. But then, I’m reminded that even though my nephews play with dolls I’ve seen the sly smirks on the frankly, ugly (all homophobes are) faces of other people when my sweet little nephews decide instead, to pick up monster trucks and violently beat their dolls’ heads in with all the might their chubby little hands can muster. Truly chilling.
Ultimately though, my nephews won’t care how queer or unqueer my wedding appears, so why should I? For as much as society will mar them, at this point they remain relatively unscathed and intact. I know that when he gets a moment alone with me, my nephew Emmett will ask me the same questions no matter whether there’s a pride flag at the altar or not.
“Cwara,” he’ll whisper to me. He always whispers when he’s the most excited. “Are there any kid games here?”
“Yes, Emmett, we brought bubbles and chalk.” His eyes will get wide.
“Cwara, can we dance to Go Cwazy later?
“Yeah, Emmett, that’s on the playlist just for you.” I can picture the exact wiggly dance he’ll do because he just can’t sit still.
“Cwara, why is there a person wearing a dress who also has a beard?”
“That’s how they feel the most comfortable expressing themself. You could wear a dress too if you wanted.” He won’t even be phased.
“Cwara, do you really love Jack more than anyone else?”
“Yes, I do.”
“But wait, do you still like girls too?”
“Well, Emmett, we call grownups women- but yeah. I do still like women. I just happen to like Jack the most.”
“Oh, cool!” And with that, he’ll believe me, jump up, and run off to the next thing that piques his interest. He won’t even ask to see my card.
Reminding me that is mostly a figment of our collective imaginations, after all.