My high school was not a queer bubble. It was a physically safe place to be queer, but beyond that you were pretty much alone aside from the weekly Gay/Straight Alliance meetings. Our G/SA membership worked like a pyramid—the higher your grade level, the fewer people in your grade who attended. My last year there were two seniors and we were the co-presidents. I had two close queer friends who both graduated in my junior year, leaving me to try to pick up the pieces with old friends who were completely unable to make room in their group interactions for my approach to my identity. They weren’t all straight but none were queer identified, and all were apolitical. They would get uncomfortable if I so much as mentioned being a dyke, and it left us pretty awkward and estranged. I was lonely and isolated and I couldn’t wait for high school to end. I retreated even further into my out-of-school queer family and developed a mistrust for people who were not queer.
Sarah Lawrence is a queer bubble. Now, that’s not to say that Sarah Lawrence is a queer space (trust me, it’s not,) but it’s the kind of place where I never, ever have to worry that I will experience intentional violence because I am queer and feel comfortable walking around not presenting my gender fully because I know that most people will still be able to see me for who I am. I do not feel compelled to seek companionship with people who aren’t able to make me feel safe and understood. Almost all of the people I spend my time with here are either queer or have so many queer friends that they fit seamlessly into queer spaces and are great allies, but that too feels like a choice rather than a necessity now.
It seems that Sarah Lawrence has restored my faith in straight people. That may sound dramatic, but I remember going home to my queer family for the first time and excitedly telling them that I had made straight friends. It felt like a big deal. What’s done even more for me than these friendships, though, has been the support from unexpected places. Close to the beginning of this year I was at a party when a woman from one of my classes came up to me and told me she had questions about my “sexuality.” She was drunk and meant gender. She was unshakeable even though drunken questions are often the least coherent or answerable. A straight couple I didn’t know that well at the time stepped in and came to my aid. They didn’t just tell her to leave me alone; they actually tried to help me answer her questions. I was probably more touched than I should have been, but I was so used to having to explain myself to absolutely everyone I met, that it was such a relief to have these two people speaking as if they were capable of simply knowing without needing to be told. Usually I am insulted when people think they can know me without knowing my identity; I cannot see my personhood as separate from my gender. But here were people who didn’t know me that well, and the fact that they didn’t pretend they did put me at ease. Instead, they knew what it meant to respect a person and to have the patience and fluidity to let full understanding come through interaction. I was floored. I’ve never even hoped for that kind of support from anyone, and suddenly there it was, coming from people I’d never expected to be able to give it.
About Enoch
In the moments in which Enoch is not cleaning or staring at hirself in a mirror, ze is most likely among friends talking about gender, talking to a stranger on the street about gender, or talking to drunken people at parties about gender. Enoch co-chairs TransAction, keeps a blog about gender, and has worked at the NYC LGBT Center’s Youth Enrichment Services program as a Safe Schools Intern and a Family Group Leader at their annual summer camp. Enoch identifies as a makeup-wearing, hyper-feminine, female-assigned, male-centered, genderfucked androgyne with a passion for facial hair and women’s shoes.