Written by Daisy Jones
Writer Daisy Jones reflects on her experience of otherness in predominately heterosexual spaces – and ponders what needs to change.
There’s this weird feeling I get sometimes. It’s usually when I’m at some kind of public-facing event, like a wedding, although it does sometimes occur when hanging out with straight friends and acquaintances. It’s a feeling that’s hard to pinpoint and even harder to describe, but it’s probably comparable to a vague sense of unease – as though I’m suddenly in the wrong place or have arrived wearing something embarrassing. It’s like I’m not quite supposed to be there, although nobody would admit it or claim to notice.
It’s a feeling that tends to be more pronounced when I’m with my girlfriend and we’re in ‘the outside world’ (the straight one). It’s a feeling that exists in the hesitation of people introducing us (“This is her, er… partner”) and the subtle double-take that happens when I reach for her hand. It’s a feeling that springs up in the absence of questions and the avoidance of subjects. Straight people love gossiping about their love and sex lives, but often seem to tip-toe around mine. When I’m in majority straight spaces, my relationship starts to not feel like a regular relationship, but a lesbian relationship, as opposed to what is widely considered ‘the real thing’.
When I’m alone or even in queer spaces, I genuinely completely forget about being ‘other’. I’m too busy existing and having fun and being in love. I don’t usually look in the mirror and think ‘gay!’ or imagine that my relationship is markedly different from, for example, any of the ones on Love Island or wherever else. ‘Omg, that is totally me,’ I think, while observing some random 6’2” hetero man on a reality show with attachment issues. But then I’m in the outside world again, and there are reminders everywhere that I am still defined by my queerness in ways that I can’t grasp fully. Other people simply do not see me how I see myself, and that can be disorienting.
When I ask other queer people if they have ever felt this specific, hard-to-articulate feeling – not noticing their otherness until they’re around straightness – my inbox very quickly fills up with replies. “Yessss, I notice it most when I’m with my straight girlfriends,” says Katy, 31. “I’m the only one that doesn’t get quizzed on my sex life or my relationship. I think it’s [them] trying to be respectful or not knowing what’s OK to ask, but it does make me feel left out and different.” Others tell me it’s a feeling they’ve “never been able to put a finger on” but that is a bit like “seeing themselves suddenly through the eyes of others”.
Francesca, 33, says she feels very conventional in her day-to-day life but then suddenly feels out of place in public. “I’m a posh, sober, married, white lesbian,” she says. “And then in straight spaces, I feel as unique as I tried to be at uni. I am incredibly boring until I realise I am the only one with hairy legs on the Tube knitting.” She also says that the way women talk about men, and vice versa, feels alien. It’s a world that she simply doesn’t relate to. “The way most women are presented as objects of desire is so alien to how I fancy women,” she says. “Does that make sense?”
Queerness obviously isn’t the only identity marker that can make people feel this way – even though it manifests very differently. People of colour have written in-depth and for decades about feeling subtly othered in white spaces, even when something is too slippery to be pointed out in tangible ways. The term ‘microaggression’ was coined by African American psychiatrist Chester M Pierce for exactly this reason, and plenty of black writers have put their experiences into words throughout history. “I have often been in a room in which everyone can’t help but notice the colour of my skin,” wrote indie artist VV Brown for the Guardian back in 2016. “It strangely becomes an issue. People see my culture as intriguing – almost a commodity… You can tell they wonder how they should act in the presence of a black person.”
A friend of mine, Jo, 29, says that being disabled brings up similar feelings to their queerness when they’re in public spaces, too. “I feel like this about having chronic pain because you don’t feel like a ‘problem’ until you’re made to feel that way,” they say. “You don’t ‘feel’ that label until you realise the world is built with a different default.”
SL Crawley, an associate professor of sociology whose research centres on queer theory and gender, says that “the interactional cues of stigma can be subtle and unspoken – but feel very real and palpable”, which is probably why I find this feeling so hard to pinpoint in exact terms. It’s like trying to grasp at smoke. Crawley continues: “According to the sociologist Irving Goffman, people work together to make sense of their worlds through interactional ‘rules’. We may not even notice how much we follow the ‘rules’ of interaction most of the time – until we are the object of stigma.”
Until now, I hadn’t recognised the uneasy feeling I get in majority straight spaces as being the result of microaggressions. But Crawley makes me reconsider. “The concept of microaggressions has been powerful because it names a common feeling that people with marginalised identities have – usually around race but it can apply to other kinds of identities,” they explain. “The word ‘aggression’ makes the interaction seem intentional, though intention isn’t necessary for an event to be a microaggression. For marginalised people, the subtle interactional cues of having one’s difference NOT being recognised are very prominent.”
But what can be done about this? It’s not like I can start screaming, “Speak about my life too!” or “Don’t you also want to know about the best sex I’ve ever had?” or “I saw you look vaguely uncomfortable just now.” It’s also not as if I adhere to certain expected cues either. I don’t know how to complain about men in a ‘hetero’ way, for example, and I don’t know the correct facial expression to wear when someone shows me a wedding dress. So in that sense, I too don’t fully know how to integrate. It can feel like I’m playing a part, but getting the script slightly wrong, and others will always notice.
Crawley says that altering how straight people interact with queer people – or how straight spaces can cater to queer people – requires deep and meaningful work from the inside out. “To change interactional expectations, people with dominant identities need to be called to think about them – to be challenged to consider new ideas that can expand the realm of what is seen as normative. And, often, having our understandings and expectations challenged is uncomfortable. People with dominant identities need to be open to the discomfort of change – to be willing to listen.”
“Of course, challenging interactional expectations takes time for changes to be pervasive throughout a social group,” they add. “Change takes practice. So, people with marginalised identities also need to be a bit patient and offer room for others to make mistakes and try again.” Until then, like a lot of queer people, I’ll probably just stick to mostly queer spaces when I can. And when I can’t? That’s fine. But sometimes you’ll catch me breathing a sigh of relief when I leave.
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