QUEERNESS
Reflections on my journey into understanding my queerness, coming out and the importance of using your privilege to support LGBTQIA2S+ people.
If you are queer and need support or are struggling, there are great resources available here.
I have been on quite the journey with my queerness, which still to this day is an ever evolving and growing beautiful and complex facet of myself. I came out in 2021 after falling in love with a non-binary human, and began the beautiful and oftentimes hard work of understanding myself, digging into my own buried internalized homophobia and shame and weeding out the beliefs that it was wrong or something I should hide. I realized by diving headfirst into a relationship with someone I was so in love with, that I needed to examine some hidden truths - I am queer. I was a lucky queer however as I didn't always know that I was not straight. Unlike so many of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, I never had to hide deep feelings of same sex attraction or bury away a part of myself, I just thought women were beautiful and that was that, I didn’t understand that I had sexual attraction to women until I had my queer awakening. I, like many women in our society, was very much conditioned to believe that a goal in life is to pursue the picket fence dream of having a husband, a home and children. Finding a good husband = safety and that was something that I wanted more than anything. That to me now is WILD, how times change…
So much of my early teens and early twenties was focused on being hot, attractive to, agreeable and good enough for men. I shaved, waxed, exercised, dieted, dressed in a specific way all because I followed the zeitgeist of being attractive within the male gaze, I wanted to attract a man so badly. I was not even thinking about the fact that I might also like women and other queer humans. The validation I felt from a man finding me attractive was crazy, especially because I was about a foot taller than most boys until I was the age of 15 or 16 so my early teens compared to lots of my friends was fairly void of any male attention or action. The second boys fancied me it was like this sudden rush of feeling enough and that was addictive and often painful.
When I was about 16 or 17 I often would kiss / make out with my girl friends from school whenever we were drunk on nights out. I think a part of that stemmed from the sexualization of women who like women and I thought was cool and hot - for mens enjoyment, not for me and my desires. I look back at that now and I wince but I also laugh, it was cool and hot to kiss women because I wanted to kiss women, and nothing should be done for male approval especially something as intimate and hot as kissing.I would kiss girls in front of boys for their enjoyment and put it down to that over admitting queerness to myself. Its frustrating that I had a thought in my brain that me kissing another girl would be hot for a man to enjoy watching, something for a mans pleasure and not mine at the time. We see this A LOT - women’s pleasure is not prioritized in the same way as a mans is, think of the amount of times you’ve heard jokes about men not being able to locate the clitoris for example, or the fact that statistically straight women have the fewest orgasms. I wasn’t able to cognitively put it together in my brain that I was in fact just a queer girlie wanting to kiss beautiful girls because they’re beautiful and I liked it. I came to a realization later when I actually came out down the line that mayyyyybe one of the reasons I liked kissing girls when I was drunk was because of the booze in my system, I was free from inhibitions and less likely to shame myself out of the thought of kissing a girl because I was inebriated. Not that I kissed a girl because I was drunk and crazy.
When I was 18 and had my first sexual experience beyond drunken snogs with a woman. It was at an after party and so we were both pretty drink and drug fueled. I remember being so into it, she was the most beautiful thing ever and I was HONORED to be with her. What an amazing experience, but I also had a sinking and terrible feeling in my gut, like I had sinned or done something awful. It didn’t stop, I was filled and riddled with shame and was then to confirm my disgust in my tummy, I was verbally shamed by my ‘friends’ who were there at the time. They were “concerned” and very much appalled by what me and this girl had done together, what they had heard and seen. They were so weird about it. I lied and said that I was so drunk I couldn’t remember it and I was so embarrassed. The girl then messaged me asking if we could not talk about it. Ever. GULP. Okay, yep, this is not for me and I dont want to feel like this, this shame, ever again.
It was then after a string of short lived and for the most part shitty relationships with typically emotionally unavailable and a couple of abusive men (I will get into this another time) for the next four years, that I then found someone who made me realize along with my new found love and acceptance of my self thanks to my beautiful friends, that I was very much not straight. I was pretty quickly head over heels for this human and it was like a light went on. I had also made so many friends that were openly queer and they never made me feel shame or too much, as well as them, I made a new very close friendship with a bisexual woman in an open relationship and that really opened my eyes, I came out properly to my new friend and her partner and I felt free, I was not ashamed and I was celebrated and we went out dancing. I had found a part of myself that was hidden away being celebrated with people who understood and loved and made me feel amazing, watching and dancing to none other that a United Kingdolls drag gig. Perfect.
United Kingdolls at Clapham 2021.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t think that the string of shit and painful relationships with men could have been a contributing factor in me accelerating my queerness, because at that point I genuinely felt so wounded and disgusted by the behavior of abusive men, that I think I even joked that I was becoming a lesbian. Then I met my ex partner, and that was when I realized that lesbian was not correct for me to use for myself because it was, to me, not inclusive of gender fluid and gender nonconforming humans, I realized I was attracted to humans over gender. I spoke with my queer friends and did some research about working out the word that felt aligned with me and my attraction, pansexual is it.
“Pansexuality is sexual, romantic, or emotional attraction towards people of all genders, or regardless of their sex or gender identity.”
It was not an easy ride, people take time to adjust and certain people within my life really struggled with internalized homophobia, being disgusted by the thought of two women or queer people loving each other or vocalizing transphobia and generally discrimination towards such a marginalized community that I was now openly a part of. The tiring tropes of concern about not being able to have ‘biological’ children, knowing how much I love the idea of being a mama. To this I explained that children, be it by adoption, natural birth, IVF, sperm donor, fostering or guardianship are to me in no way different as a child that is born from a heteronormative dynamic. A very difficult thing we as queer people have to navigate is the fact that it is not safe to be in public with your partner, it can be dangerous to be holding hands or kissing another woman or two male partners or to be publicly intimate with someone who presents as visibly queer. I am lucky that during my queer awakening I was living in London which is a fairly safe place for queer people especially queer white cis-gendered women like myself, I did not experience many situations where I felt unsafe to kiss or cuddle in public during my relationships with partners.
LGBTQIA+ history is integral in highlighting how far we have come within the community regarding our rights and visibility, but more importantly, where work is still needing to be done. Sue Sanders, the co-founder of LGBT+ history month, said in a 2019 interview with the BBC that we need LGBT+ History month because “The ignorance is profound. And the ignorance has been deliberately done. We [the LGBT+ community] have a history, but we have been denied it. It’s great we have the laws in place, it’s great that we’re more visible, but who is visible? It’s white gay men. If you’re black, if you’re a lesbian, if you’re bisexual or if you’re trans – we have a lot of work to do.”
As LGBTQ+ people, we owe so much of our ability to live in our authenticity due to the courageous trailblazing black trans women of the 20th century such as Marsha P Johnson who was a drag performer and sex worker who helped lead the LGBTQ+ movement for over 25 years. At 23 years old she was one of the leaders of Stonewall alongside her fellow trans activist who was a Latina woman named Sylvia Rivera. Sylvia was integral in fighting for the rights of not just white gay and lesbian middle class individuals, but for all people of colour, race and social status. Another pioneer and activist Miss Major Griffin-Gacy helped lead and shape the trans movement in the USA, she took part in the stonewall riots and on the first night had her jaw violently broken and was incarcerated in a male prison for 5 years. When she was released she continued her activism work addressing the AIDS epidemic and advocating for incarcerated transgender women of colour who have suffered from police brutality, poverty, racism and gender discrimination.
Marsha P Johnson
Trans women of color were the backbone of the LGBTQ+ movement, and without their activism, places for refuge such as the Brave Space Centre, the first Black and trans-led LGBTQ+ Center in Chicago, might not exist. It is imperative that we recognise these women when we celebrate queerness this month, and to recognise that so much pain, discrimination and suffering took place so that people can feel safe to be out and living in their authenticity, and yet we see countless trans lives lost, the media and cisgendered politicians debating the lives of trans people as if they’re some political topic and the vile hatred that trans people face still today. A report shared by Forbes 320 trans people were killed in 2023, the vast majority of those killed (94%) were trans women or trans-feminine people. Most were Black, and many were sex workers too. 80% of those killed were of trans people affected by racism, an increase of 15% from last year. The general election taking place in the US is terrifying, the rhetoric spun about trans people is disgraceful and frightening.
The culture of transphobia in the media and amongst the politicians that run this country are directly contributing to deaths like Brianna Ghey, a 16 year old trans girl murdered in broad daylight. Her gender and intimate details of her life now being shared virally, the media is responsible for spinning a harmful rhetoric about the lives of trans people and consistently whips up so much hate about them. May she Rest In Peace. We all need to collectively amplify our voices and speak out against the oppression and discrimination that is faced by trans people, especially those of us who benefit from the activism of the hard work of the trans women who allowed us to be openly LGBTQIA+ and have rights.
Since properly coming out and existing loudly and proudly as a queer person I have made the most beautiful connections and learnt SO MUCH about myself. Since I have been single again, I have explored and taken a deep dive into London’s queer scene, partying at sex-positive events and making magical friends of all sexual identities and relationship styles. These parties have been some of the safest, warmest and most lovely places. I am still exploring relationship style and am always wanting to understand new and less societally constructed ways of loving another human being, or multiple as I have seen how beautiful polyamory and ethically non monogamous relationships can be; to allow yourself and your partners or lovers to be able to have other intimate connections without controlling them or wanting to be the only person they engage with because you want them to experience all of life fun and joys and intimacy is so magical to me. That would for me I imagine, take a lot of self-work to weed out any jealousy or feelings of not being enough and would of course, require a lot of compassionate communication. Relationship style, like sexuality and attraction is always flowing and exists within a moving spectrum. I have been lucky to have had beautiful encounters with men, women and nonbinary humans and find that my attraction is ever changing and is very much all about vibes, communication and safety.
I am grateful that I am able to safely write and express this and have such privilege in my gender and race that I am not subject to the hideous danger and rejection that so many queer people face in the world. If you have a voice, use it. We have to share for our trans siblings to be able to safely and freely exist and thrive in this life.
Frankie x
PHOTO BY: Luc Coiffait