quiet pride
As I’m sitting down to write to you, it’s our Pride weekend here in Denver, and I didn’t go out. It’s in the upper 90s, and I’ve spent most of the day lounging around in summery PJs, eating watermelon and watching the Fever (WNBA) game with my tabby cats, Jinx and Juju. Today looked pretty much the same as this photo of me and my childhood tabby cat on a hot, summer day in 1980. Lounging with kitties in the AC felt like the softest, kindest way to celebrate my highly sensitive, queer self — rather than white-knuckling it through a loud, hot, corporate-sponsored Pride parade just to get a rainbow koozie with some bank’s logo on it and a miniature bag of melted Skittles. And some years, perhaps I’ll go to the parade…
queering it all
As this week is the final week of Pride month, I want to share some thoughts about queerness. I write a lot about being queer. I wrote a whole book about why and how I began to live more fully into my queerness in midlife. And yes, I absolutely mean my sexuality when I call myself queer — but queer isn’t only about sexuality and gender and it’s not only an adjective or a noun. I like to think of queer in its verb form, meaning to challenge a dominant norm, practice, assumption, or political position. Queering allows us to look at the world through a new lens.
In a study on queer theory, Jenifer (with one n!) McGuire writes:
Fundamentally, queer theory is defined by the use of the word "queer" as a noun, an adjective, and a verb. Something or someone is queer if they are not-normative (adj.); queer adds the nuance of uncontainable, excessive, or overflowing to non-normativity. A person may use the identity label queer (noun) to indicate a way of being different, often but not exclusively in the realm of sexuality and gender. Finally, queering, the verb, is used to deconstruct that which is normative or the concept of normativity altogether.
a fresh perspective
When I was in high school in the early 90s, I was in this after school club called Odyssey of the Mind. (OMG, I just Googled it, and it’s still around!) In this club, students are given open ended problems to solve by thinking beyond the box, in the most creative way possible. It encourages original ideas that stray from the expected normie crap. We spoke our ideas to others on our team, and we learned to build upon our teammates’ creativity and to collaborate. It taught us that “normal” or traditional processes, or the very foundation of a thing, can be dismantled and improved. This allowed us to explore alternative possibilities and find more expansive solutions. It opened new pathways in our minds. Essentially, this type of creative thinking is a great example of queering. By applying a fresh perspective, we could “queer” a theory, an organization, a system, etc.
To me, queering means to reflect, challenge, and creatively re-imagine. From this perspective, “queerness” goes beyond sexuality and gender. It is simply about not adhering to norms that may no longer fit for our evolving world — to offer new possibilities and model new ways of being. It invites us to make visible what may have previously been considered subversive or outside of the status quo. (This is the overarching theme of my book, Midlife Emergence, because developmentally this is precisely what we’re called to do in midlife.) This can certainly mean embracing a gender expression or sexual orientation that’s different from the acculturated expectation, but it can also mean questioning the concepts of marriage or monogamy or blowing apart binary and limited systems of race, religion, wealth, ability, political parties, etc.
Queerness gives me tremendous hope. When we queer the systems we’ve been living in or the guidelines we’ve been living under, it enables us to see new possibilities for our futures. It opens our minds to new ways of living on this planet together. And clearly, with the world in the state it’s in today (in terms of politics, climate, religion, etc.), we need new ideas that go beyond outdated norms that only benefit the privileged, pleonectic, patriarchal powers that be. The creative queering of systems is how we’ll discover new ideas that serve the whole of us. That’s a spirit I want to bring to my Pride celebrations all year long.
watching: Outstanding: A Comedy Revolution on Netflix. I highly recommend this heartfelt, humorous, and informative documentary on the history of LGBTQIA+ stand-up comedy! (For anyone - queer or not!)
celebrating: This month I’ve celebrated Pride 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️ in public and private ways —including seeing
perform live on Pride-eve, going to a USWNT Pride game, cheering for my girlfriend in her pickleball Pride tournament, attending a Showing Up for Racial Justice event about the responsibility of being a queer, white women, and I’ll close out Pride month by seeing ALOK speak in Denver this upcoming weekend. I’ve also celebrated by painting my toenails in their annual rainbow scheme, making an awesome Pride playlist for you paying subscribers (thank you!), cuddling on the couch with my girlfriend, and educating myself about our queer history and the future of gay and trans rights.glimpses into pride month 2024 looking forward to: seeing my teenager play Javert in Les Mis this weekend! (Yep, the same kid who just played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz — What a gift gender fluidity can be! 🩷🤍💜🖤💙)
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