Advancing the Queer Agenda

Hello, my beloved Dames Nationals!

I, Dame Margaret, am caught on the horns of a terrible dilemma. Like many bisexuals, I have been looking forward lo these many months to Friday, July 21st when both Greta Gerwig’s Barbie and Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer will be released. Although, let’s be real, I’m mostly excited about the second movie because of the comic contrast releasing them on the same day provides, e.g.:

(source because apparently we cannot embed tweets anymore, thanks Elon)

The Barbie movie, on the other hand? That I’m pretty much ready to make my entire personality, sight unseen. Did I buy preposterously on-sale pink costume jewels just to wear to the premiere? Absolutely (and you can, too). Have I pre-ordered my copy of the soundtrack on vinyl? Actually no, not yet, but you can bet I’m calling my record shop to do just that as soon as I press send on this bad boy because it’s oops, all bangers:

Of course, I’m not the only one who’s excited— Super Yaki, Dames Nation’s favorite Cinematic Merch Artists, have released a special capsule collection dedicated to the film, including a From Director Greta Gerwig t-shirt in the Barbie font for which my heart simply yearns. But I haven’t been able to make myself buy it, because somewhere in my tiny hopeless brain, I’ve convinced myself that it’s bad luck. If I buy the stan merch before I’ve even seen the movie, I’m not just risking disappointment, my brain truly worries I’ll feel as though I’ve caused the film to be mediocre by loving it too much before it even existed. Buying jewelry is okay because I know going to see the movie will be an occasion. Buying the album is okay because, in and of itself, that album is going to S L A P. But the t-shirt will only make me happy if the movie is everything I’m hoping and dreaming, and I’m hoping and dreaming it’s gonna be a LOT. So shirtless I remain— for now.

You Dames Nationals, however? YOU should take a look at the collection and buy freely without the preposterous limits set upon you by your own magical thinking. YOU can act where I have consigned myself to only pine. And I love that for you. Thankfully, there is still something we can all enjoy together: Architectural Digest’s tour of the Barbie Dream House.

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Dame Margaret Turns Her Face Towards the Warmth of Praise, Gayly

There aren’t many things I’ve done for which, 3 years after the fact, strangers will thank me out-of-the-blue, but writing about realizing I was “actionably bisexual” at age 32 is one such thing. So, given that it is presently Pride month, and I’m proud of this writing, I feel like giving this greatest hit another quick spin can be forgiven. Maybe some of you subscribed after I sent this post! Or maybe one of you is gayer now than you once were, ready to receive this wisdom and by it be forever changed. But here, from 2020, is me on the big thing that kept me from realizing my attraction to women was real:

The biggest fallacy that held me back from investigating my attraction to women was believing that, if my homosexual tendencies were legitimate, there is no way I could have reached age 32 without feeling an irresistible impulse to act on those tendencies. The argument that queer people are, to quote Lady Gaga, “born this way” has huge value for advancing the cause of gay rights on the legal axis, but it can be easy to misinterpret when it comes to bisexuality (or pansexuality, or asexuality)— especially if you’re a somewhat anxious person who doesn’t like trying new things or being vulnerable. I felt like if I wasn’t SO queer that I didn't ever have to choose it, then my queerness could not be strong enough to be real. As though if my queerness was a choice, then it couldn’t “count,” it could not be more than a pose or an affectation or an excuse to wear more rainbow clothing because it looks baller on me. But those were errant, biphobic nonsense thoughts— speaking personally, I don't know if I would have ever realized my bisexuality WAS actionable without acting on it.

Because, here’s the thing: I actually experience strong, irresistible attraction to people of any gender pretty rarely. And, even when those crushes were on men and therefore easy to identify, acting on them has always been a choice for me. So the problem was never that I was insufficiently queer to justify dating women. The problem was that I expected my queerness to manifest in an entirely different and more intense way than my attraction to men ever had. Or, as I put it more pithily a couple of years ago on Twitter:

(source, again, because of dumb Elon.)

To these high-quality archival thoughts (which also go a bit further into the specifics of ~*physical stuff*~, for those of you interested), I wanted to add something more.

In the years since I first started talking about this publicly, one of the groups I’ve heard from the most are women in committed, monogamous relationships with cis men. They absolutely see themselves in my writing about this subject, but often wonder sort of— what right do I have to claim this identity when I’ never going to be able to act on it? And so today, I wanted to introduce you to the concept of “bi-wife energy”:

@cringelizardReply to @violingoods #biwifeenergy #fyp #cringeandthelizards thanks to milo for producing💕💜💙 available to stream... soon?

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If you already spend time on the Gay-Adjacent Internet, you’ve probably come across this song and the many memes it spawned by now. But the Internet is a vast place and it only came to me in a lasting way somewhat recently, so I’m betting at least a couple of you have not encountered it previously.

As someone who’s dated— no joke— multiple men who’ve been left by women for other women, my go-to description of my type is “the last recognizable outpost of masculinity.” Like, women would date these guys and think “Ah, if even this doesn’t work for me, men simply won’t suffice, I must Go Off Into the West.” But “bi-wife energy” is a good way to put it, too. I am a highly femme woman with highly femme interests— any partner whose masculinity lacked flexibility would disintegrate in the maelstrom of glitter that is my life. But, beyond its efficacy in evoking the kind of men I like, I wanted to talk about the term because of how it highlights the value of queer women owning and embodying their queerness even while being part of het-presenting couples. This tweet is grandiose for sure, but I also think it’s getting at something valuable and true:

I know it can feel uncomfortable, and perhaps even disingenuous, to speak of yourself as queer when your queerness still feels theoretical and your life is largely insulated from homophobic hatred— like stolen valor, but make it gay. But, as what I jokingly call an “anxiety bi”, I really do think I would have benefitted from knowing how much other women thought about kissing other women, even if they didn’t do a lot of it. I actually know, with great confidence, that if I hadn’t had the benefit of a passel of slightly younger friends who felt a lot more confident and comfortable speaking of themselves as bisexual, I might never have started identifying that way at all. So, in addition to believing that you should kiss lots of girls (if that’s what you’re into), I believe that it’s really valuable to talk about wanting to even if your life does not leave space for you to do so. I think it can be easy to feel like you’re taking up space in a conversation that doesn’t belong to you, but more often you’re bringing the conversation to new people it might not otherwise have reached.

Given the way this Pride month has gone in so much of the country, I suspect “protecting my local school board from fascist protestors” is bit higher up on the your Queer Agenda than “try identifying as bi even when I’m sort of guessing, and I can’t really act on it.” But it needn’t be either/or, friends. For what is Pride if not the season for both/and?

Gayly Yours,

Dame Margaret

The newsletter was brought to you this week by the Conventions of Gossip in the South, Maine Coon Cats who look like they work (but do not), and this incredible, slightly-vulgar in name playlist of female-fronted country songs.