#entry 34

I realised the last journal entry was formal as heck because I was so scared while writing it lol but I guess given the subject matter it makes sense. But hopefully now that I feel comfortable enough to be candid this will be more fun.

I made the mistake of opening twitter in the middle of the work day, and my brain fully short circuited because of Julien Baker at the boygenius Pittsburgh show, on stage with an open vest, no shirt, and rainbow boob tape. 

I’m still at work now, and I’m only writing this because my brain literally cannot function to do anything else. Literally no thoughts head empty, only “oh my god I’m so gay”. (That is, using ‘gay’ as an umbrella term to describe my attraction to women. Mostly because saying “I’m so gay” just feels a lot more fun and candid than saying “I’m so queer” or “I’m so bi”. But I’m bi, and I will not stand for bi erasure!!)

It’s been just over half a month after coming out to myself, and the past few weeks of feeling through it and practising saying it to myself have been... pretty crazy, to say the least. I’m getting better at not giving myself crazy anxiety every time I see a video on twitter or tiktok of MUNA and boygenius and especially Julien Baker, but they’ve been getting crazier and crazier on stage that it’s really not making things any easier for me. It also doesn’t help that every time Josette Maskin does that hip thing with her guitar, or every time Julien Baker does something particularly cute or hot or both, every lesbian and bisexual girlie online and in real life goes feral (you can tell from the screaming and shaking in the videos). I mean, I do too. I couldn’t tell you how flustered I was when I first saw the boygenius cowboy shoot, or a fan edit of Josette Maskin in the One That Got Away music video, or that tiktok of Julien Baker winking, I think I truly lost my mind. I’m pretty sure I’m bi and not a lesbian, but maybe I have a preference for women (which is WILD considering that I was obsessed with a boy for 7-8 ish years).

It feels weird not being able to scream about Julien Baker and boygenius and MUNA on my spam or on my twitter because I’m basically still closeted (ok but seriously though, how are all of them so damn attractive??? Literally all 6 of them!!!!). And holding myself back from fangirling to my close friends over queer artists feels weird because I’ve never held myself back from fangirling over Taylor Swift. I’m sure some of them would have the opinion that I’m probably not straight because I’ve told them before that I didn’t think I was 100% straight (which, in hindsight, I can’t believe I actually said that and still refused to identify as queer because it’s total bullshit like it’s fully not possible by definition to be not 100% straight and still not be queer lmao @ old me hun denial is a river in egypt), but I’ve never put a proper label on myself until now so I feel like they still assume that I’m basically straight. 

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been vacillating violently between “you’re not dating anyone right now, you haven’t dated anyone ever, this isn’t anything significant, nobody cares, nobody needs to know” and “no you gotta do this because if you don’t then you’re just feeding into the shame and the comphet”. Like, intrinsically I know that deciding to stay closeted doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s because I’m ashamed of my queerness; there are several members of the LGBTQIA+ community who never feel the need to officially come out or feel like it isn’t a big deal whether or not they come out and there’s nothing wrong with that, but for me personally? Maybe all the past years of internalised homophobia and comphet have made it so that keeping quiet feels like shame, even if it’s not. 

It’s still scary to think about coming out to them, though. The comphet has been giving me major imposter syndrome about being bi, and I’m scared that they’ll feed into it. I don’t want to be accused of calling myself queer just to fit in with the fan community of all the queer artists I listen to. Because that’s pretty fucked up, and it’s already taking so much of my effort to fight that voice that’s been lurking in my head because I know that it’s not real and it’s just a demon spawn of my own self-loathing and imposter syndrome. I know that I’m not in any real danger of my close friends reacting badly or outing me to people who I don’t want to be out to, but deep down the fear is still there. I know it’s irrational, but I can’t seem to get rid of it. But at the same time, these are the people to whom I have shown the most of myself, they are the only ones who really know about my history, and have journeyed with me through my struggles and my joys. It doesn’t feel right to hide such an integral part of myself from them, when they have already seen some of the worst parts of me and have stuck around in spite of it.

Or I could be completely wrong and they already know that I’m bi. I mean, despite the fact that I’d been obsessed with a boy for the past 7-8 ish years, I’ve realised that I’m literally a walking bisexual stereotype. The cuffed jeans, tucked shirt, rolled sleeves, awkward peace signs and thumbs-ups, flannels, inability to sit in a chair properly. I kind of dress like a butch lesbian, and I kind of have been doing that since my teenage years.

I was never very feminine as a child. I don’t remember much from my early childhood, but I do remember hating the colour pink, and hating wearing dresses. Heck, there are photos of me at age 8 being allowed to choose my CNY outfit for the first time and choosing to wear a dress shirt and pants, with my hair in a french braid. I used to think that I just have a complicated relationship with my femininity because of internalised misogyny and the patriarchy, but maybe it’s also because I’m gay. I used to justify the way I dress with “oh I don’t really care about fashion, I just throw on the first shirt and pants I see as long as it’s comfortable and it doesn’t clash”, but that’s a lie. I do care about fashion and the way I dress, deeply so, and I’ve just been saying that to hide the fact that most straight girls typically don’t quite dress as butchy as I do. And putting more effort into the way I dress in a way that feels comfortable would entail looking undeniably butchy, which was terrifying to consider when I was closeted to myself. I thought about considering gender, but gender is really fucky and even though I do occasionally feel some dysphoria, I don’t really feel any need to identify as anything other than a woman.

I’m not really very butch either, though, nor do I feel much of a desire to go full butch. As much as I dress like a butch lesbian in my day-to-day life, I do still enjoy feeling pretty, and sometimes I’m really feeling myself and my femininity if I’m in the right dress and the right headspace. I like eye makeup and will more than willingly wear it for performances, but lipstick makes me too uncomfortable. Even the fits that I wore for this year’s and last year’s reso concert were pretty feminine because they were dresses / skirts, but the shoes and top that I put together to complete the fit made it a little bit more butchy. And this was before I really started learning all these terms; I was just trying to style myself in a way that I thought looked and felt good and right. If I had to place myself along the spectrum of high femme to stone butch, I’d probably place myself somewhere within the ballpark of butchy femme to futch to soft masc, depending on how I feel that day. I don’t know, that just feels right for now, as I continue to explore how I want to be perceived.

Anyway, back to Julien Baker. I won’t lie, it feels good to say I’m gay or I’m bi without giving myself a panic attack. It’s.... liberating. I can feel myself slowly inching towards being able to truly feel queer joy. It’s slow, but it’s progress. 

Previously when working in the screen medium I have always worked in a group of four, this means there is always someone to ask a second opinion of. This time round working solo has lead me to find both the benefits and disadvantages this provides, my biggest issue is not having someone to provide instant feedback on what you are working on. For me feedback is extremely important when working on a project, sometimes it takes someone else watching it fresh, to notice details that you may have become immune to noticing after watching it multiple times. So going forward I began to ask my peers and teachers for feedback on my piece, this also allowed me to take advice in relation to how the piece should progress, something I found I often struggled with. It also allowed me to hold conversations about my piece allowing me to verbalise my intentions and ensure they are being met.